THE HOSPITAL AND CHARITABLE AID BOARD.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 77, 1 April 1913, Page 9

THE HOSPITAL AND CHARITABLE AID BOARD.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —One of your correspondents, in speaking of the coming elections, advises the electors to make a clean sweep of the old Hospital aud Charitable Aid Board, and elect all new members. That there is room for improvement everyone knows, and the greatest improvement of all, it seems to mc, would be the election of women to that Board. Up to the time when tho new Act was passed, five years ago, it was as hopeless to try to put women upon.that Board as it'would be now to try to get them on the Education Board, owing to the mode of election. But the new Act changed all that, and it seems an extraordinary thing that women did not come forward at the last election, as they did in Christchurch and Wellington. Most unprejudiced people will admit that a Board that has to dispense charitable aid to persons of both sexes and administer the affairs of a large public hospital crowded with patients of both sexes, should be composed of an equal number of male and female members. But we in Auckland have not progressed anything like so far as that. In spite of'the fact that New Zealand was the first part of the British Empire to enfranchise its women (with the exception of the Isle of Man, where the women have always voted), we arc behind all the other parts of the Empire in this vital matter of having women on local boards, councils, etc. Surely it is not too much to hope that our women will rise to the occasion next month, and not only remove the reproach from Auckland that there is not one woman on any of the city or suburban councils,' but also inaugurate a new era by reposing some confidence in the capabilities of their own sex. No sane person expects anyone, male or female, to vote for an incompetent woman in preference to a competent man; all that we ask is that all other things being' equal our women will, for the reasons which 1 have stated, give the preference to any women who seek election. —I am, etc., E. GIBSON.