SOCIAL SERVICES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 83, 4 October 1941, Page 15

SOCIAL SERVICES

REVIEW OF THEIR GROWTH

New Zealanders are becoming more and. more New Zealand conscious. Books good and not so good are helping in this direction. "Poverty and Progress in New Zealand" is a good one. It is the most recent of about fifty that have heralded the dawn of the Dominion's second century. Dr. W.B. Sutch, its writer, is by right of scholarship both' an economist and a sociologist. In a sense of the word which that crusty old John Bull, Dr. Johnson, would not object to, he is also a patriot. By this it is meant that he feels in every fibre of his being his identity with the land of his birth and upbringing; His book briefly outlines the growth of the social services in New Zealand,

This theme is interesting. There is even drama in it. In the pioneering days which did not begin to end till 1870, the social services were regarded somewhat as trespassers in the field of politics. Why could they; not like other activities look to and maintain themselves? Legislators were, very concerned to see that they did not (in a budgetary sense) get away with anything. Nor did they get away with much. Health and education were not a heavy charge on the community, though sickness and ignorance perhaps were. In the nineties it began to be clearly seen that they were new and very demanding mouths to feed. Theory was against them, but in prac tice whatever party was in power the social services became functions of the State to an ever increasing extent Their cost rose, but a debit Of ill health was the price of neglecting them. It is this story of the evolution of health, education, labour legislation, and our pensions system into the colossi they have become today thru Dr. Sutch tells lucidly and rapidly His view is that progress using theft) as a weapon has waged war tooth and nail on poverty of mind and body Some day another Swift may write a fable in which Tom Thumbs, at first merely permitted to be around, wax into giants. This fable in some respects would typify the development of the social services. The book will open Up the history of our country to a great many readers from a new and interesting angle, Dr Sutch is less concerned with the wrangles than with the record. '-Such and such things did happen on such and such dates. Apart from, or say rather behind, the noise and dust of politics; impersonal tendencies were fumbling towards better hospitals, more and better schools, greater social and industrial security. See for- yourself what rather surprising things took place without anyonp taking much

notice of them." This is his theme. Dr. Sutch as an author has proved himself one of a number of minds of less than middle age which afford c6mfbrting evidence of the fact that New Zealand is today in a position to do a good deal of its own thinking.