THE PLUNKET SOCIETY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20641, 13 August 1930, Page 10

THE PLUNKET SOCIETY.

A justifiable protest was made .yesterday by the Dominion Council of the Plunket Society against, the Government's proposal to reduce the annual grants toward the cost of the society's work. While both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health acknowledged the importance and the value of the hospital and nursing services maintained by the society, they were also agreed that such a national service should be handicapped by curtailing its limited financial resources. Mr. Stallworthy sought to console the deputation by informing its members that only a limited sum was available for the Department of Health and that the shortage in the votes for the Plunket Society was only £IOOO. The net vote for the department actually shows a reduction of only £7737, and the direc-tions-in which economy has been exercised are sufficiently by the fact that provision has been' made for increases in" departmental staff from 556 to 592 and in salaries from £140,500 to £151,417. Except for reductions in minor items, the savings have been effected at the expense of the Plunket Society, the St. John Ambulance Association, small country hospitals and other institutions, by arbitrary cuts in grants essential for the maintenance jof their normal activities. It is absurd to say that the reduction in the case of the Plunket Society is only £IOOO. The Government proposes a single grant of £SOOO toward the maintenance of the six ftaritane hospitals instead of individual grants totalling £6750; the subsidy toward the salaries of Plunket nurses is reduced to £13,050 as against £16,500 voted and £16,615 actually paid last year; and various other grants toward salaries and expenses are cut down from £2385 to £2135. The sum of economies at the expense of the society is therefore £5500, which is nearly one-fifth of the amount it received last year and over 70 per cent, of the net reduction in the Health vote. A suggestion was made that something more might be provided.in the supplementary estimates, but Mr. Forbes apparently referred only to the vote: for the Karitane hospitals, and even this small concession is to be dependent on the passage of the taxing bills, not on the curtailment of expenditure by the Government itself. The Government's treatment of the Plunket Society, a national institution that has been forced by sheer necessity to practice the most rigid economy, is a significant revelation of the value of its professions of zeal for economy. It considers £25,685 too much for the Plunket Society's national work, but does hot hesitate to provide £27,000 for railway passes, sleeping berths and .lounge car seats for "members and ex-mem-bers of the Legislature, families, relations, etc."