Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1906. CHARITABLE AID BOARDS. A REFORMING BILL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLI, Issue 306, 3 December 1906, Page 2

Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1906. CHARITABLE AID BOARDS. A REFORMING BILL.

AMONG the legislative proposals circulated during the last session of Farliament was one for the reform of the system of hospital and charitable aid administration, and the details are embodied in a Bill introduced in the House shortly before it rose. A review of the main provisions of the measure may prove of interest. A feature of the Bill is an effoit tc remove the present ' anomaly whereby it is possible for persons unconnected with any local body or owing theii election to the popular franchise to be members of Charitable Aid Boards. In fact it is proposed to constitute the Boards into local bodies, to whicl there shall be direct popular electior instead of through appointmont by contributing local bodies as now. The existing system, which was created by at enactment passed in 1885, has failed t( give satisfaction, and it is hardly pos sible that, any objection more weightj than the question of expense can be raised to the adoption of the democratic principle that those who, out oi rates and taxes, support the charitable institutions' Biiall choose, by direct persona! vote, the boards entrusted with the expenditure of the funds. At the present timo there are 35 hospital dis tricts in the colony, each with it; Board, and there are 24 united charlt able aid districts with their several Boards. The Bill proposes to reduce the number of these bodies and, abolishing the distinction that now exists, to throw upem the Boards the general superintendence and control of every institution within their respective dis tricts, wholly or partly mantained out of the funds of the Boards and of the distribution of charitable aid within their districts. An "institution is definod to mean "any hospital instituted for the raoeption and, care of per sons requiring medical or surgical treatment, and any public establishment instituted for the reception or relief ol orphans, aged, infirm, incurable, or dos ' titute persons, or fallen women, or as maternity homes, or established for any one or more of such objects, or for the administration by any local body or asnocUtion of persons of charitable aid and includes a hospital and an annexe to a hospital orected under 'The Public Health Act, 1900,' but does hot include any State institution or any private hospital." ****** It is proposed to reduce the number of Boards in the colony to 20. This will involve a substantial curtailment in tbe number of hospital and charitable aid districts. But provision is made for the creation of sub-distrirts in order to avoid too great centralisation, and these sub-districts may be administered by local committees. The Board itself for a district is to consist of one or more mombers for each subdistrict, and the chairmen of committees for the sub-districts that contain institutions within their boundaries are ex-officio to be members of it. From the provisions of the Bill it is not quite clear whether the Government designs that the sub-districts that are to have local committees shall be represented 1 on the District Board other than by thoir chairman. The provision that "in every (üb-districl in which there is any institution the committee, and in every sub-district lit wlitcft there is no institution the members of. the JJoard, shall be elected by the persons for the time being entitled to elect members of a local authority within the sub-dis-trict, each of whom shall have one vote, and no more," suggests, however, that the Intention is that the former class of sub-district shall have only the chairman of its committee to represent it on the Board. The proposals with respect to the payment of subsidies out of colonial funds indicate a desire by the Government to reduce the amount of the State contribution and necessarily to increase the share of the cost of hospital maintenance and charitable aid now defrayed out of local rates. The Bill provides that for three years after it snail come into operation the subsidy shall be payable on the scale now in force. , But in the next succeeding three years, 1 it is proposed, the subsidy on voluntary contributions is to be reduced from 20s to 15s for every pound. Moreover, a further reduction of 15s for every pound of voluntary contributions and to 10s for every pound of contributions from local authorities is proposed from the expiration of six years after the enactment of the Bill, the subsidy in case of bequests being maintained, however, at tbe present scale of 10s for every pound, with the limitation that the amount shall not exceed £500 in respect of any one bequest. » » • » * f Another important feature of the Bill is in the provisions with reference to separate institutions. The control is to be vested in boards of trustees, to be elected by the voluntary contributors as at present, but if the Bill pass into law as it is at present worded the number of these institutions under separate management will be appreciably decreased. The clause dealing with this question prescribes :—" Any institution that is not, or is hot intended to be, maintainied wholly or in part out of the funds

jf any Board, but is, or is intended to je, maintained wholly or in part by ihc voluntary contributions of not less than 100 persons, who have signified their intenton to contribute, and have contributed thereto (in suma of not ess than £1) a yearly amount of not less than £100, and who have paid one year's subscription in advance or a donation in one sum of not less i2U, may be incorporated as hereinafter mentioned as a separate institution under this Act." But there are very few institutions in the colony numbering among the contributors 100 persons who subscribe not less than £1 each per annum and independent of maintenance wholly or in part from the funds ot trie H and C.A. Boards. It will be seen that the provisions of the measure arc stringent, and that any institution of the kind specified not complying with the terms entitling it to be regarded as "separate" will fall directly under the control of the Board in its district, or of the committee in its subdistrict. . • • So far as Nelson is concerned, there are no such separate institutions as the Bill cotrtlsmplates bringing under better and more systematic control. But they exist in most of the large centres, and are administered by trustees who do not constitute H. and UA. Boards appointed or elected by contributing: local bodies. The principal argument in favour of the amendment of the law regarding separate institutions is, of course, that it disposes of the objection, repeatedly raised against the existing arrangement, whereby the organisation that collects the funds by | assessment in a district, is not granted in any very real sense the right ot de- ! elding how the money it raised shall be disbursed. In this regard the provisions of the Bill, if it should be passed in the form in which it is framed, may probably have an important effect upon the control of the best-known charitable institutions in the larger centres of the colony.