GOVERNMENT AND THE VOTELESS.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12364, 1 December 1905, Page 6

GOVERNMENT AND THE VOTELESS.

Wo have shown our readers how the Government use the Public Works Fund to bribe those who have votes. Their conduct in utterly neglecting the interests of those who hitfo no votes' is perhaps even more significant. We refer to their systcmatio and shameless indifference to the welfare of the inmates in our mental institutions. Year after year the Inspector reported on the overcrowded condition of tho asylums, and declared that it was responsible for actually causing a number of preventive deaths among the patients. Not until the condition of the institutions had becomo a grave scandal did tho Government move a finger lo improve the position, and then only very inadequate steps were taken. At Sunnyside a jerry-built shed was put up and used as a dining-room for old and infirm patients, but as thero was no sleeping accommodation provided, the poor wretches had to go backwards and forwards to tho main building, often in very inclement weather, thereby running the most serious risk to their health. Tho Government have utterly neglected to carry out any proper system of classification, tho result being that not only is great misery inflicted or. some of the patients who are only slightly affected, but the sole chance of curing them is often taken away. Tho most enlightened expert opinion in all parts of tho world is in favour of receiving wards at the ordinary hospitals, so that mental cases may there be seen in the earliest possible stage when the prospects of cure are most hopeful. It has been pointed out to Mr Hall-Jones, as tho Minister in charge of the Department, that so great is the stigma attached to an ordinary asylum that persons will not allow their relatives to go thero until their condition is really serious, and tho prospects of recovery aro correspondingly reduced. Tlie Minister has admitted the force of the arguments adduced, and has promised vaguely that something shall bo done, but there the matter

(rests. The patiienfcs have no votes, I and thoir relatives naturally shrink from publicity. No doubt, therefore, tho Government think they are perfectly safe in leaving these unfortunates to their fate, while the money which! would be required for those reforms can bo spent on " reproductive " works—reproductive, that is to say, in tho sense of bringing votes to the Ministry. Their action in regard to private " homes" ,has been on a par with their negleot of publio institutions. They allowed '<tho evils which were known to exist in these so-called "homes" to pass unchecked. They neglected to enforce the law in regard to registration and inspection, yet when Dr. Lovinge, ex-Suporinten-dent of Sunnyside, proposed to start a private mental. institution on modern lines, end applied for a license, he was put off from timo to time, and, as was shown in a letter which ho wrote to " Tho Press" eomo time ago. he was never ablo to got the desired nermission. On what ground oan conduct of this sort be justified? Much as we disapprove of Mr Hall-Jones as Minister for Public Works, we think that his administration of the asylums is far worse. Wo havo no reason to doubt that he is a man of kindly disposition in private life. How lie could reconcile it with lib conscience—how ho could ever sleep at night—knowing of the overcrowded condition of the asylums, knowing that the

patients were not given a proper chance of recovery, knowing of tho avoidable suffering and misery which was being hiflioted upon them, wo cannot imagine. Tlie callous and shameful neglect by the Seddon Government of tho mentally afflicted is one of the blackest spots in their administration.