SPEECH BY MR RUSSELL.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11630, 11 May 1912, Page 8

SPEECH BY MR RUSSELL.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM. (Peu Pkess Association.) Pahnerstou North, May 9. The Minister of Internal Affairs gave an addres to the Hospital and Chantable Aid Board yesterday. He said that few realised the magnitude of the work done in assisting the poor. Last year old-age pensions cost £335,000, the hospitals spent £237,000, charitable aid £116,000. Of these last two amounts, the ratepayers provided one-half and the Government the other. The magnitude of these figures indicated the necessity for prudence in their administration on* the part of those locally responsible and the care exercised by the chief officer (Dr Valintine). These was an undoubted tendency to establish in connection with charitable aid a pauper dasv. "Watchfulness on the part of the boards and the Government was necessary to prevent a. person making a system of living on charitable aid. 11ns should be made impossible, if legislation and watchful administration couM secure that end. The figures given udiicated that about 15s per head for the entire population of a mnlhon people was beiu"- spent on hospitals and charitable aid 7ind pensions. That was a very large sum for a country with a virile and healthy people. Wherever he went the need was impressed on him tor the necessity of providing settlers in the back-blocks with medical assistance and, where medical men were not available, with trained nurses.. Above all" things it was impressed on him that they should provide maternity nurses for those women who went out as pioneers ol civilisation in+o the back-blocks. Tt was their duty to push their nursing system to such: a state of efficiency that they would be able to send nurses out from such a centre as Pa.lmerston North, which was the hospital for a large district. Here it -was not possible immediately to-establish a St. Helen's Hospital fhov should have a maternity ward at the general hospital to help maternity cases and to train maternity nurses- to go into the back-blocks. He wanted also, with the assistance of the boards, to establish an energetic campaign aga.inst tuberculosis. He proposed 'to establish a. scientific library dealing with the disease at the Cambridge 'Sanatorium, where they had an enthusiastic scientist and student of the disease in charge. The literature could then be sent to inform the boards as to up-to-date methods of dealing Wiith the scourge. Palmerston would perhaps be the leading inland city of the Dominion, and the hospital a centre for a large district. He hoped the board would bear in mind the necessity for papers on the most scientific lines. Dr V-alnv tine and the department would be always ready to assist them in this. Speakin'r on the Local Government Bill the Minister said the Bill had been handed down to the present- Admnwstra-' tion hv its predecessors, and so far as the subjects were concerned they were "■oi-ii" to make a'determined effort to place" it on the Statute Book. Ihero were between 600 and 700 local bodie« operating in New Zealand. In many of th°se bodies the cost of management reached 25 to 33 per cent, of the rates collected, and. in some cases- the cost of management exceeded the rates. The Government had no desire to take away anv rights and privileges, but to increase the power and responsibilities or locai bodies. It had no desire to shunt the responsibilities of Parliament so fains finance was concerned on to the people of the country, but the time had come when. Parliament must not continue to be regarded as a milch cow to which anv body of individuals could go to obtain what they wanted. There should be some responsibility placed' on the locality that got the money. He hoped that the day of the roads and bridges grant's a.nd subsidies to local bodies without responsibility would cease. Mr J. G. "Wilson: How will, you fix education? Mr Russell said it was not intended that there should be any difference as to primary education,- but when they came to the large demands for technical education they were on another class of subject. "While the entire responsibility of primary education must be maintained in'the State the - responsibility for technical education and "embroideries" that class must be shared by those people who' wanted them and' by the State. Extravagant demands were beiii'g made in the large cities for hug> technical colleges at the expense, of the State. The present Government did not •necessarily pin itself down to all the details of tlie Local Government Bill as introduced' by the Ward Government. It desired to see- simplification, economy, and. measured efficiency, and a sense of responsibility on the part of the committees for the working of local government. Nothing had been more subject to criticism than the roads and bridges grants, aud there had been no one more persistent in retaining them than th; gentleman who preferred- to be most opposed to the system and -opposed to the Government. He coukl name members of the Opposition who had obtained thousands more for their districts than the gentlemen on the side of the Government. The system was bad. The conference at- Wellington on the 21st would comprise gentlemen who could bring to bear experience of local government. A great number of offices would be abolished, and perhaps those so wiped outwould object, but it was for 'the people of New Z,ealand to snv whether the oresent expensive and ridiculous multiplication of local bodies should continue. If the people did want it- to continue they must 'accept the inevitable and let it go . on, but it-represented a great waste of power and money.