LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND HOSPITAL RATES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 181, 2 August 1944, Page 4

LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND HOSPITAL RATES

OUR s3 r stem of allocating a portion of the cost of hospital administra- ' tion to the local authorities is open to serious objection. It is partial and unequal, bearing much more heavily on the landowner, who may be scraping a bare living, than on the tradesman, whose earnings may be larger and more secure, but the remedy must he national and 1 air to all sections of the community. The action of the Mangonui County Council, under the strong stimulus of a farmers' deputation, in refusing to strike a hospital rate, with the object of denying' to the Hospital Board the funds neeessar3 r for its effective operation, is therefore open to serious criticism. A general acceptance of such a policy would paralyse the hospital system throughout New Zealand, with consequences none would care to contemplate. Yet this is a risk which the Mangonui Council appears read:/ to take, in its own district, and as a method of prompting other local authorities to similar action—it was urged by the deputation that this w r as part of a broad campaign for the removal of hospital taxation from the land. Further, the council knows that isolated action by one local authority will not determine the future policy of hospital finance throughout the Dominion. The Legislature must decide that policy, and the chances of a conciliatory discussion will be impeded by direct action. Obviously the council feels that It has a case which it cannot uphold, for it has cut down its yearly estimates of expenditure "in view of the repercussions .which may follow/' which means that individual councillors do not relish the prospect of being called upon by the Auditor-General to make good any deficiencies on the annual budget if an order for payment of the hosoital levy is issued. However unfair the E3 T stem of enforcing contributions from one section of the community only may be, it must go on until it is replaced by something better, and the county must be convinced of the justice of the case for abolition of the rating system, not by direct action, but by an aroused publife opinion based upon a presentation of the facts.