THE ELECTION OF "BENEVOLENT " TRUSTEES."

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 133, 2 December 1904, Page 4

THE ELECTION OF "BENEVOLENT " TRUSTEES."

« . The electoral college which is established for the purpose by the Hospitals and Charitable Institutions Act of 1835 will meet on Monday next to elect the local bodies' representatives on' the Board of Trustees for the Wellington Benevolent Institution for the ensuing year. We do not know that the self-denying labours of the retiring trustees call for any special comment beyond the thanks which are always due, but often forgotten, for gratuitous and arduous service. The sweeping revolution in their methods which was mooted with all the zeal of a novice by one of the representatives elected a year ago was fortunately not realised, and the Board has adhered in general to the paths of economy and common sense which were marked out for it on the termination of the old regime of careless extravagance six or seven years ago. The most notable novelty in the administration of the past year consists in the appointment of a woman to the Board. This step was one which we had Jong favoured, and as it was the local bodies' delegates and not the contributors who were responsible for the election, we trust that next Monday's meeting will exercise the same wise choice again. The fear that a lady might monopolise the talk and terrorise masculine loquacity into silence has not been verified in the case of Mrs. Darvall. She has taken no conspicuous part in the public deliberations of the 'Benevolent Trustees, but it is not as debater but as administrator that the presence of a woman is desirable on the Board, and in this capacity we are quite satisfied that Mrs. Darvall has justified her selection. Exactly the same arguments that induced the employment by the Board of a lady visitor oh its administrative staff apply to having at any rate one representative of the sex on the Board itself. For much of the detail work of attending the poor men are by nature unfitted ; and we trust that the delegates who meet on Monday next will give the same recognition to this truth which it received from their predecessors a year ago.