THE PLUNKET SOCIETY.

Evening Star, Issue 21624, 20 January 1934, Page 12

THE PLUNKET SOCIETY.

The official explanation which is now given of i the resignation of Miss Pattrick from the -Blanket- Society makes a sufficient answer to a correspondent’s complaint of “the high-handed action of a small minority of the Plunket Council.” It disposes of any suggestion, such as might be read into a statement from Wellington, that a change in the important position of chief of staff was the work of a ruling coterie in Dunedin, an exhibition of parochial dictatorship, so to speak, in which the rest of the dominion was not consulted. The Plunket Society is not so undemocratically constituted. Its council, of twenty-two members in all, includes representatives of no fewer than sixteen branches; it does not meet only in Dunedin; and the decision to dispense with Miss Pattrick’s services was reached at a meeting of the council held in Wellington, from which only three of the outside members were absent, and agreed to unanimously. The president of the Wellington branch was a party to it. The terms of retirement were fixed by the council and framed with a generosity meant to express appreciation of Miss Pattrick’s long and valuable services. It was sought that the retirement should be arranged in the way most considerate for her feelings, and when that plan broke down, through no fault of ■ the council, the Dunedin executive had no option but to act on the resolution passed. Miss Pattrick handed in her resignation, and the terms on which she leaves are the same terms which she was offered from the first. Then the executive did something, as to which it did not consult the outside members, making a handle for the suggestion of dictatorial conduct which would not have been possible otherwise. A vacancy having arisen in the chief command, it proceeded to fill it, - which is the natural thing to do with vacancies, and which it was the executive’s business to do. That matter also had been discussed by the council; there was no question of the executive going beyond its functions. The conference to be held next month does not seem to be especially called for. Eighteen of the twenty-two members of the council are completely satisfied with what has happened. Eight members—-probably more—of the advisory board of thirteen members approve. The reason why it has been held advisable thdt Miss Pattrick, with admittedly a fine record of past services, should not continue longer as Director of Nursing, becomes a minor matter. It would bo a remarkably strong cause, that would be needed by the society before it could desire to reverse an act of, its council which had been so generally, agreed on. But the complaint made against the director—made publicly now, since the executive has been forced by criticism into the open—is that she wished to direct too much. In the Council’s'view, she also sought to be a dictator. It was the charge made in the play against Joan of Arc. Miss Pattrick’s reputationj therefore, may be trusted to survive it, as the council’s hope must be that it will do. But dictators do not fit in with democracy, or with, any other kind of constituted rule. It ,is for the council, not the director, to prescribe policy. Miss Pattrick does not admit that she was ever disloyal to the council, but she leavCs the whole matter to be dealt 'with by the conference, which may wonder why it has been summoned when the full facts come before it.