THE CITIES DEFENDED.

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 28, 2 August 1923, Page 7

THE CITIES DEFENDED.

An emphatic protest against increases in hospital expenditure so far as the cities are concerned w,->s voiced hv Milt. A. Wright. (Wellington Suburbs) iii the House of Representatives yesterday aCteriiuon.

Country mcmhcvs liad boon compl.iiniiv; about the cost of hospital administration., in country district? and were statin:: .a o:i?c for the reduction of levies in their district?.

"I would like to ask hon. members from the country districts who they eipecL should be made to pay ior the ruain-

Wright. "Do they expect the people in ] the cities to pay entirely? From what has been said one would* think that the city people were escaping taxation entirely in connection wiCh hospitals. The fact is that hospital expenditure is going up by leaps and bounds year after year. The cities are being penalised in the same way as country districts in regard to maintenance of these hospitals. Country members talk about the country being- so heavily rated. A few years ago Wellington paid £0000 a year to the maintenance of the local liospital then it went to £15,000, then to £20 - 000, then to £27,000, and then to £33,----000. Year after year it increases. I submit that whatever is done, wo should endeavour to take more off the cities rather than increase their burden. • . . What is really wrong, Mr. Speaker, is that successive Governments have very skilfully foisted their responsibilities on to local bodies—first in one direction, and then in another, a little bit here, and a little bit there, until they arc pndually unloading everything on the local bodies. Maintenance of hospitals should be a national question, and the cost of maintenance should be borne by the consolidated revenue. . Members ot this House should take a firm stand flud not allow Government after Government to go on penalising local bodies in the way they haVe been doing. I am not blaming this Government; they are not worse than others, but we are all the time putting more and more on to the local bodies. If we don't watch what they are doing, they will put tiie education rate on -to the local bodies (liiberal chorus of "Hear, hear ") Mr. S. G. Smith (Taranaki): "They would do anything." '