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very large following in the Colony to support us, and to justify the motion now brought forward. I am quite satisfied in my own mind that we are thoroughly justified in pressing this home, and I can only regret that the Government up to the present moment have not taken, not only the unofficial members, but the whole of the ratepayers of the Colony into their confidence. I think this should be done. I think the Government has been remiss in this matter. Knowing as they should that there was this feeling, they should have told us exactly what their reasons were for taking the steps they have. Had they done so, the moving of this motion would have been unnecessary. It is comparatively recently that we have had this demand for trained lady nurses from home. It was practically an innovation up to the last quarter of a century, but we must deal with things as they are, and not as they were. It may possibly be urged that this is a small Colony: it is not very wealthy, I admit, and it may probably be said that we have a very satisfactory number of uurses, and cannot afford any more. That is a debateable point. I think we can and we ought to. That is not the question. As to the number of nurses, we have to deal with a population of so many hundreds of thousands of people. The point is that we require trained nurses from Home, not local proba- tioners who, as we know, are practically of little use for certainly many mouths after they first take office. We are prepared to pay anything in reason for this necessity-not luxury, absolute necessity; exactly in the same way as wireless, which was unknown a few years ago, is now an absolute necessity to modern ship- ping. If it can be proved to the satisfaction of the Colony that we cannot afford more nurses, that we have got to rest content with the small staff we have, then I can only say that the whole reorganisation of the work of that staff should be considered. We believe we are amply justified in stating that this good ladies are greatly overworked. We know the number of patients who are treated in the hospitals, and we know the number of nurses, and we quite realise that they cannot possibly satisfactorily grapple with the amount of work they are supposed to do. Now, I am not speaking without special knowledge. It has been my fate to have had very considerable experience of ourses and nursing homes. I spent many months at two very well-known nursing homes in London, where women were constantly relieved, undertaking comparatively few cases, and some of them only single cases. They were working night and day under my personal observation, and I know that, even, under the most favourable conditions, the work was so arduous that they constantly required recreation. The nurses here have other things to contend with. They have a tropical climate, suffer troubles, illnesses and petty annoyances in the way of prickly heat and so forth, which they would escape at Home. This is all added to the fact that they are dealing with a great number of cases at the same time; I believe I am right in saying, far too many cases, and the holidays are, comparatively speaking, few and far between. I maintain that the Government have no right to work their employees to such an extent, certainly not ladies, delicate women engaged in an arduous profession and in a hostile climate. It is wrong, absolutely wrong, and if you cannot see your way to in- crease the staff, then you must reduce their labours. It is making a farce of the thing to ask women to undertake more work than they can possibly carry out, and then turn round and say, "This is our nursing staff, as good as any other Colony of the same size has, and you must be satisfied." That is not the way to look at it. I think the Government should take the whole community fully into their confidence. Let us discuss this question, not in a hostile spirit, but working for the best results to the Colony, and I am quite sure, Sir, that any reasonable proposition your Excellency puts before us we shall be glad to accept. We do consider, in the first place, that the staff should be increased, and, if that is not possible, that the work of the nurses should be decreased.

His Excellency-Gentlemen, I am sorry I cannot accept this motion for a very simple reason. The number of recommendations to increase the staff which are forwarded every month in the year to the Governor by each department are very numerous, and if I were to appoint a committee to inquire into each one of these with which I did not agree, well, the busy time of unofficial members of this Council, and of civilians outside Government departments who apparently desire of sit on such committees, would be occupied to an extraordinary extent. Now, it is the rule of the Government service that if the head of a department wants an increase of staff be seuds forward a recommendation, backed by solid facts, in time for provision to be made in the estimates of the succeeding year after there has been

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