THE NEW MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS BILL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11797, 28 July 1900, Page 12

THE NEW MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS BILL

VO THE EDITOR.

Sir, —/This bill, now introduced into Parliament, is mainly a device to free the general fund of the Government from the burden of supporting the hospitals and charitable aid, and throwing this burden on the ratepayers of the local-government bodies of the country. According, to the statistics of 1898; Government now pays for hospitals £'53,864 and for charitable aid. £36,484; total, £70,348; and pajrs as subsidies to local bodies £178,438. Total contributions by general Government thus amount to £248,786. By the new bill Government proposes to stop payment of this amount, and give instead 4s per head of population, which, according to estimated population, 740,000 would amount to £148,000, thus saving the Government fund to the extent of over £100,000.

To show the practical effect of.this I take the case of a borough with which I am best acquainted, which has art estimated population of 3000. Tho Bubsidy which it would receive would be £600. Out of this it would have to build and maintain a hospital " sufficient for the needs of its district."

For administering charitable aid it would require to provide a "Home for the Aged and Needy," a "Home for Incurables," a " Home for Deserted Children," and maintain these in a sufficient manner, and in addition supply out-door relief for all necessitous cases.

The multiplication of hospitals and homes all over the country thus necessitated would not only provide the strongest encouragement to the growth of a permanent pauper community, but would so drain the resources of those who now possess any means to pa.? rates that many of them would soon have to take their place amoner the recipients of charitable aid. . It is to be hoped that the local bodies throughout the country will recognise, before it is too late, the disastrous position in which they will be placed if this bill is allowed to pass into law. To criticise the bill as a whole'would require columns of your paper, but that is unnecessary. The real purpose of the bill is to throw the burden of hospitals and charitable aid on the ratepayers who are already overburdened, and add to the " surplus" of Seddoninn glorification. All the rest is merely designed to distract attention from this object. The various provisions for reffulntion to be made by the Govcrnor-in-Council leave a dangerous weapon in the hands of the Premier, and should be resisted —I am, etc.,

Borough Councillor

— Tho only European country which has a lower death rate than England is Norway. Old Russia, wily m her schemes, Her eyes on India oft has cast, And of the future vainly dreams When that dear land is hers at last. But ere we think of that far day, Consider what we now endure—-P.-d coughs and colds, that pass away On takinsr Woods' Great Peppermint Cure.