A CHARITABLE AID CASE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10902, 20 October 1911, Page 2

A CHARITABLE AID CASE.

(Pee Press Association.) Dunedin, October 19. In the Magistrate's Court to-day, before. Mr Widdowson, S.M., the Otago Hospital and Charitable Aid Board claimed from the Southland Hospital and Charitable Aid Board £2l, being the amount expended by the Otago Board in providing charitable aid for Mrs J. W. Smith (Fairfax) and her family for 42 weeks, from November 14th, 1910, to September 4th, 1911, at 10s per week. The action was taken under section 72 of the Hospital and Charitable Institutions Act, 1909, which provided that "'when a person receives relief from or at the expense of a hospital and charitable aid board at any time before he has resided in the district of that board for one year immediately prior to the grant of that relief the board may recover the cost of relief so granted to that person as a debt due by the board in whose district he last resided for a period of two years at any time prior to the granting of that relief, whether he was still a resident in that district or not at the time relief was granted." Counsel for the Otago Board said there was no agreement between the two boards, therefore the r Court must hold that what the plaintiff board had done was reasonable. When it' approached the Southland Board it wrote declining responsibility, and saying the case was not one for charitable aid. On that date relief was stopped. liater, however, it was found necessary to continue relief, notwithstanding there-, fusal of the Southland Board. The Southland Board also declined to-allow the case to be sent to the InspectorGeneral for arbitration. Another matter had arisen. This was the question that there are two sons in the family who are deemed to be able to support thg" family. The Otago Board considered that the Southland Board ought to take proceedings in the matter. Counsel for"'the defence said the Southland Board defended the claim as a protest against the haphazard and slipshod methods of the Otago Board. He .said the payments made had been from time to time included in- a - number of payments en bloc, and it was evident' that the Otago Board did not consider the applications at all. Decision was reserved.