OUR HOSPITALS.

MR ARTHUR HENDERSON'S TRIBUTE AT RAUNDS FETE.

The position of the hospital in the national life was the theme of an eloquent speech which Mr. Arthur Henderson, M.P., the President of the Board of Education, made at a meeting at Raunds on Saturday afternoon, when the annual demonstration and parade organised by the Raunds Hospital Week Fund Committee took place in aid of the Northamptonshire Hospital Week Fund. The weather was brilliant, and the large attendance included many visitors from neighbouring towns and villages. Mr. Henderson was accompanied by his wife and daughter.
  Mr. H. Manfield, M.P., the treasurer of the County Committee, took the chair, and stated that during the 41 years in which the fund had existed no less than £49,000 had been raised for the County Hospital, of which everyone in Northamptonshire was proud (Applause.) Last year the Hospital Week Fund contributed a record sum of £2,250 to the Hospital Exchequer, and Raunds with £250 headed the list of contributor. (Applause.) The splendid hospital at Northampton was perfectly equipped with everything that modern science could suggest and medical treatment demand; the Governors had the services of a devoted staff; and with the two pavilions recently added the hospital had been able to place at the disposal of the War Office no fewer than 120 beds for wounded soldiers. (Applause.) Raunds had played a magnificent part in connection with the Hospital Week Fund, and Mr. W. F. Corby, the hon. secretary of the Raunds Committee, had not only done a wonderful work in his own town, but he had also stirred up the neighbouring districts to an activity that was almost unprecedented. (Applause.)

LABOUR AND THE NATION'S NEED.
  Congratulations Raunds upon securing a Cabinet Minister for the meeting, Mr. Manfield spoke of Mr. Henderson's great work in labour and social movements, and of the splendid service he is giving as Minister of Education. Mr. Henderson was the direct representative of Labour in the Cabinet, and although the necessities of the times had made in inevitable that some of the traditions and convictions we most prized should be almost ruthlessly swept away, the great mass of the working people of the country knew that Mr. Henderson would not have remained in the Cabinet if he had not been convinced that it was absolutely necessary in the national interest that those things should be done. (Applause.)

HOSPITALS AND PATRIOTISM.
  Mr. Henderson, after referring to the great work which Mr. Manfield and his father, the late Sir Philip Manfield, had done for the hospital, said that while the Northamptonshire Hospital Week Fund had a great record of work accomplished, he hoped that even greater things would be done in the future. Every week the war continued the need for further effort increased, and response according to one's means would but be the measure of one's patriotism. (Applause.) He was delighted to learn of the success of the systematic collection amongst the workers, as 25 years ago he was one of a committee who initiated a similar scheme amongst the working men of Tyneside on behalf of the great Royal Infirmary of Newcastle. Those collections continued to to-day, and it was impossible to estimate the good they had accomplished.
  It was right that the workers should in that way be brought into contact with Hospital work. In the great pressure of workshop life it was impossible to tell who might need the assistance to be obtained in a well-equipped Hospital, where were at hand every means of alleviating pain, of fighting disease, and of helping those stricken by accident or sudden illness. The importance of Hospital work could not be exaggerated. (Applause.)
  And if Hospitals were necessary in what we called the piping times of peace, how much greater was the need to-day when, in addition to the ordinary accidents and illnesses of industrial life, we had to face the terrible devastation of an unparalleled war? In these days, when sympathy with suffering was combined with admiration and gratitude for those who had faced danger, it was only natural that public generosity should flow more freely than ever before. (Applause.)