The Pahiatua Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 1938. WHAT OF THE DODGES?

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 13890, 24 June 1938, Page 4

The Pahiatua Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 1938. WHAT OF THE DODGES?

Apparently the Government Las not yet taken the friendly societies into its confidence to the extent of telling them what their place is to be in the new national health scheme, for they are still expressing anxiety on the subject. It. was asserted recently that the grand lodges of the societies had their eyes glued on every move the Government was making, and one speaker went on to say that if the Government was foolish enough to interfere with the fiiendly society movement the whole forces of the movement would be ranged in opposition. It is obvious that the friendly societies ar3 an embarrassment to a Government nlanuing * universal health service, because the Government must either invite them fo come into the scheme, abandoning their own highly organised system, or ignore them altogether. Tn bis original plan the Prime Minister prev posed to use them in the distribution of sickness benefit, the amount of which was to be referred to the parliamentary comnfittee, and he* possibly contemplated an arrangement by which the lodge members would come into the general scheme, the lodges paying their taxation and still selecting their own doctors. There was a suggestion—from what source it emanated is not clear—that the function of the lodges would bo merely to supplement, if they so desired, the benefits of the Stata scheme, but the effect would then be only to add the compulsory tax to the voluntary one now paid by the members. Tn the meantime it is plain from the representations made to the committee that the societies are hoping to be worked into the. scheme as distributors of benefits, but that would amount to little more than a duplication of machinery. Tf the universal scheme comes into operation the friendly societies will be superfluous. they will have few i ew members or none, and a decade, at most, will see the end of the movement.