CHAIRMAN AND COUNCIL OF COLLEGE OF NURSING, LTD.
INTERFERENCE WITH
In reply to a communication sent to the Secretary of the
" My dear Sir.—In reply to your letter of the 18th ult., I have to say that Sir Arthur Stanley in a circular letter written as Chairman of the Council of the College of Nursing, stated that it was in his opinion, inadvisable for a nurse who is a member of the College to join a Professional Trade Union. Similar advice has been given at Headquarters to a Nurse who enquired as to membership of the Poor Law Trade Union by which, no doubt, she meant The Poor Law Workers' Trade Union.'
" Yours truly,
" (Signed) M. S. RUNDLE.
Secretary.
This interference with the liberty; of action of nurse members of the College is quite consistent with its usual autocratic government—and is by no means the first time that it has shown its reactionary spirit—
(1) What practically forbade nurses to sign the Petition to the Prime Minister,
asking for the direct representation of organised nurses on the General Nursing Council to be set up in a Nurses' Registration Act; and
(2) Advising nurses to get their Members of Parliament to obstruct (wreck) the Nurses' Registration Bill on the Report Stage in the House of Commons last' June (1919).
The menace to the freedom of the whole Nursing Profession, by the control of
thousands of uninstructed and dependent nurses who are willing to be used against its progress and best interests by this oligarchy, is a very lively danger which must be vigilantly watched, exposed and opposed.
The British journal of Nursing 3rd April 1920
