HOSPITALS AND CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS.

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 21, 25 July 1898, Page 2

HOSPITALS AND CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS.

* AN OUTSPOKEN REPORT. In Ills annual report, the Inspector of Hospitals (Dr. MaoGregor), uob ouly deals with, the ordinary routine matters of bis Department, but also seeks to probe deeper into the causes of the abuses which have crept into our charitable aid system generally. "In studying year after year," he slates at the outset, " the working of our hospital and charitable aid system I am more and more struck with two things: First, the tendency in every charitable movement to look io the initiative of the State ; and, second, the consequent ostracism of charity. I desire to draw attention to the genesis and effects of that extraordinary development among us of the sentiment of benevolence so impulsive in its character, and so strongly vicarious in its methods, and which I consider to be one of the greatest characteristics and one of the chiefest dangers of our colonial communities." The main current of this impulsive humanitarianism Dr. MacGregor traces to the Christian doctrine of the brotherhood of man. He contrasts forcibly the prevailing social tone before the great reaction of the 16th century with that in vogue to-day. Then the king's justice, supplemented by Christian charity, covered the field of law and morals, that part of conduct which =ociety was forced to make compulsory in order to secure its existence alone being law. Now, on the other baud, there was a sort of despair about charity and duty, and perhaps the most marked tendency of the age was to place under legal compulsion as large an area of human conduct as possible. The' gradual awakening to a new adjustment of tho relatious between the individual and society are described in the report as brought about through the failure of individualism to satisfy mankind. Civilisation had got into a cid-de-sac, and the outlook for which England was tentatively groping she found through the colonies. In the early life of the colonies, while the traditional spirit of laissez-faire was still powerful, it was 1 gradually found that the social sanction (ricliesse oblige) was too weak to enable commercial charity to make up for the defects of justice. The social sanction, in spite of its power in an old country, had failed with all its hold upon the past. Some of its most potent elements at Home were capable of transplantation here, while others were slow growing and took too long to mature. So it came to pass that the inadequately restrained rapacity of the individual in the "early days" was allowed to appropriate our most valuable lands iv unreasonable quantities. This gradually brought about an acute struggle between the old ideas of property and the new colonial spirit of collective community with its resolve to nationalise the lands. Here there is a violent recoil against the bourgeois construction of heaven and earth. 'The humanitarian reaction which began, approximately, with the Victorian era has armed itself here in New Zealand with the trident of taxation in despair of Justice. "This three-pronged taxation, our new-found means of salvatiou for the democracy, is to raise revenue, but also to foster native industries and nationalise the land. I believe that my experience of the working of our charitable aid and hospital system has shown such dangerous elements in this humanitarian reaction as makes it dangerous to go further in the direction of using taxation not merely for revenue, but also as an instrument for social reform." The new demand (says Dr. MacGregor) is for the legal enforcement of the rights of the " submerged tenth," the means—taxation. This is the' key-note of our legislation. Are we on the basis of an extended municipal and county franchise to give a- legal right to maintenance, without restraint on propagation, to all who can successfully simulate inability to earn their own living ? That is the question of questions for our legislators to ponder. This sentimental philanthropy operating through taxation prevails amongst us to au extent that has probably never been equalled anywhere. Nowhere is this spirit so plainly manifested as, in our charitable aid and' hospital adminiskatiorij To use taxation as we are doing — as an instrument of social reform— 'with auy safety, we must somehow provide for tho elimination of the unworthy who have become incorrigible. In all our hospitals and charitable institutions the enforcing of payment for maintenance- is left to local bodies, many of whose piembers are full of this humanitarian zeal, while they are absolutely ignorant of the evils which attend its exercise. Many more of these members are ambitious of a public career, and utilise our charities as stepping-stones to popularity. Dr. MacGregor also takes excoptiou to the aunual appointment of Benevolent Trustees aud to the abuse of the hospital system. The lax enforcement of payment and the alarming proportions of the out-door departments iv hospitals are given as instances of the evils existing. The report concludes as follows: —"I venture to agree with President Alexander Johnson, of tho National Congress of America last year, that the time has come when every civilised Slate must say to the degenerate, ' I have hied punishing, curing, reforming you, and 1 have failed ; you are incurable, a degonerate, a being unfit for free social life. Henceforth 1 shall care for you ; I will feed and clothe you, and give you a reasonably comfortable life. In return you will do the work 1 set for you, and. you will abstain from interference with your neighbour to his detriment; aud one other thing you will abstain from — you will no longer procreate your kind; you must be the last among your feeble and degenerate family.'" As for the cost of all this — we are already wasting

far more by our present foolish methods than wise and complete care would cost. This was contained in embryo in the Bill of 185)0. ,