DAY BY DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14769, 7 October 1921, Page 4

DAY BY DAY

A cry for assistance continues to go out from hospital inslitufthaintenance lions in the Old Gounof try. Tho increased Hospitals. cost of maintenance is

not balanced by an increase in the voluntary subscriptions upon which they are dependent. Its splendid record has not at all prevented King’s College Hospital, for example, from getting into debt to the time of well over £IOO.OOO, or from requiring urgently an additional income of £OO,OOO a year. Lord Cave’s Committee. it may lie remembered, reported strongly in favour of the continuance,, of the voluntary hospital system —the alternative lo which would he Slate Control —and expressed its belief that the hospitals, if only they could he tided over the next two years by emergency grants from the Government, would he able to recover from Hie effects of the war and re-establish their finances. The Government has not seen its way, however, lo agree to do as much as Hie Committee judged would he required, or to adopt its recommendation that there should he a State contribution of £ 1,000,000 for this year, with a further sum next year along with grants in aid of extensions. Us proposals, representing a compromise, arc conditioned by Hie need for economy. It lias made il clear that Slate assistance ran he contemplated only for a. very limited period, simply as a means of giving the hospitals a breathing space, and it has otfered £500,000 with no promises for next year, while deciding against contributions 1.0 building schemes. The Government relies mainly on Hie new machinery which is being set up to effect economies and to co-ordinate the efforts for attracting subscriptions for Hie hospitals. Lord Cave’s Commillee hud pointed out that there was considerable overlapping and duplication of services in the same areas. A letter sent by Hie Minister of Health to the newly-appointed Voluntary Hospitals Commission, of which Lord Inslmv is chairman, emphasises the point that Hie Government has reluctantly consented to a special contribution from Slate funds only because il fears that Hie voluntary system will be gravely imperilled if Hie present temporary difficulties are overcome. “Accordingly,’’ the Minister says, “Hie essential duly of the Hospitals Gommission is so to administer Hie Government grant, as lo secure Unit Hie necessity for such a gran! shall disappear as quickly as possible. The development of fresh and permanent soure.es of revenue should be aimed at. as well as the. securing of the utmost possible improvement in organisation and economy in administration compatible with the attainment of Ihc great ends for which the hospitals exist.’’

Mr Bon Til 1011. M.P.. in his annual report as general secretary Kislckco I" lll'* Dock, Wharf,

of Riverside, and General Labour. Workers' Union (referring lo “Black Friday” and' the collapse of the Triple Alliance strike plan during the coal deadlock), said: —“The lack of consultative confidence. the division in the executive of the miners, the political versus the trade union actionists stultified effective joint action. The failure to put all the cards on the table and jointly to act, with a national policy and executive, robbed the movement of an effective command and control of the situation, which contained the liveliest possibilities of a revolution, and was at least the most powerful weapon forged by trade unions for effective trade union action. Up till (he last moment, centralised obligation and action was ignored, and action taken by the divided executive of ihc miners against their own chief officials, which, with a press campaign, sundered and destroyed the possible action which had been so seriously and so carefully planned and considered by the Triple Alliance- The miners need an amalgamated union more than any other. The heroes of the districts and sections have in the neurotic cases little or no sense of the obligations a great national movement imposes. It lakes, in the strike pending and possible, millions of martyrs to make one of the self-conceited heroes possible. The viciousness of the hysterical type of would-be hero is only equalled by his unlimited incapacity and unsorupulousness. The miners’ position had received a hearing such as no community of workers had ever had vouchsafed to them; their own brilliant officer as secretary had laid down with mathematical directness the exact position of the coal crisis and the claims of the workers. But this supreme and tidal effort was thrown aside for the sake of pique, the pique of blinded obstinacy.” Writing of wage reductions, Mr TilIctt says; "These arc more than in [he air; they appear lo be inevitable all round. Possibly in some cases wc shall not merely reach the 191 4 level, but in practical purchasing value of wages may go below the standard of 1914. 1 feel sure it will he Labour’s own fault if this he the case- i view with alarm the panic and cowardly action of some classes of workers who, feeling wages will not he maintained al a high level, commit, suicide by running away from Labour’s army of organised resistance and surrendering in abject fear to the very danger they create by their apostasy."