The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 1908. HOSPITALS AND CHARITABLE AID

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 220, 10 June 1908, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 1908. HOSPITALS AND CHARITABLE AID

It was a good idea of the Government to arrange the conference of delegates from Hospital and Charitable Aid Boards that opened here yesterday, and the discussions and decisions of the Conference upon the new Hospitals and Charitable Institutions Bill should be of considerable value to Parliament, if, as one would like to hope, members of Parliament will read the daily reports of the proceedings. The Inspector-General of Hospitals, Dr. Valintine, delivered a very clear and interesting address, which. should leave the Conference well equipped to consider the details of the new and rather ambitious hospitals system projected by the Government. The scheme outlined by Dn. VamntiNE ia an excellent one, nnd it is a pity that the Conference and tho

public were given.no indication of the financial obligations involved in it. The figures quoted by- Mil. Fowlds show that the cost of our hospitals and charitable aid system has reached a is nearly £300,000 a year—at which the closest.public attention.becomes nccessary. It must be remembered that in making maintenance of hospitals and the distribution of charity and old-age pensions a State function New. Zealand has incurred obligations of the'most serious character, since they are obligations'£hat will grow to enormous dimensions with the passing of time. Other countries do not regard the complete care of the sick and tho poor as a function of the State. They still in most cases place their chief rcliance in tho wellsprings of private benevolence.The annual £300,000 spent by the Stato in this country on hospitals and charitable aid, apart from old-age pensions, is equal to £13,500,000 in Great Britain on a population ratio, and its disbursement must : be subject to the samo anxious scrutiny .as''would be directed upon a spending Department of tho British Government entrusted with the annual expenditure of £13,500,000 of the taxpayers' money. ■ The. general trend of the decisions of tho Conference may require notice on a future occasion. In the meantime, too much stress cannot be laid upon the references of both Mr. Fowlds and Dr. ValinTiUE .to the vices that have already begun' to appear in our system of charitable aid. The Minister pointed out that/ tho increase in the expenditure on charitable aid has "gone without the- bounds' of reason, despite the wave of prosperity which tho Dominion has experienced during tho last twelve years." It increased by 200 per cent., while the population, during an unexampled ' period of prosperity, increased by less than 100 per cent. Dr. Valintine referred to tho reports of Miss Kirk, which wo'discussed recently enough to render repetition of their details unnecessary just now, and he rightly described as " monstrous " the lax administration that has given unnecessary luxuries-to applicants often better off than some of the contributors of the funds disbursed. The evils of this haphazard and caroless distribution of outdoor relief without preliminary inquiry are twofold. Not only does it reduce the power of the funds to meet necessitous cases, but it sets in train the creation of a class of able-bodied paupers. No axiom of sociology is sounder than that indiscriminate outdoor relief has the most disastrous effcct upon its recipients, and no'soeial problem is more pressing in England at this moment, or'finds the people interested in it more unanimous upon principles, th'an. the cure of the evils bred into the poorer classes of society by the indolence, the carelessness, and the |oolish sentimentality of many administrators of poor relief. A beginning has been made in New Zealand with the drift towards the conditions that proceeded in England from the administration of the old, Poor Law, and that drift cannot be too quickly checked. ' Whether tho Elberfeld system or any other system of special elective local committees is to be adopted, an improvement upon the present wasteful and vicious methods should bo effected without delay.