CALL FOR SYMPATHY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 135, 9 June 1932, Page 10

CALL FOR SYMPATHY.

PEOPLE WHO ARE WORKLESS

BISHOP WEST-WATSON'S PLEA

GOOD NEIGHBOUR MOVEMENT

"It is easier for people to critici.se our relief measures than to suggest better ones. The most helpful thing will lie for all of us to try and make the present schemes really successful, and to throw ourselves into them," states Bishop West-Watson, of Chrfetehureh, in his monthly letter to the "Christehurch News," which letter is in the nature of an exhortation to people to sympathise with those who are out of work and those who are finding it difficult to live in comfort during tho winter. Tho Bishop expresses appreciation of the spirit in which the clergy and people of the Church are facing the problems of the times and says that if tho country in general can face its difliculties with the same courage and faith as Church people the future of New Zealand should not be in doubt.

"1 ho recent happenings in some of our largo cities have shown that we are ill danger of the kind of division which is tho bane of some of the older countries, where the well-to-do and the poor tend to live in different worlds and to lack a, common outlook. It would be a tragedy if the present distress were allowed to bring us down to the bad of much of the Old World. On the other hand it may bo used to develop links and friendships between many who can give help and the many who need help.

"A common trouble should draw us together. We must, try and refuse to think of 'relief workers' or 'the unemployed' in the mass, and determine to ihink of them as individuals and families who have just as pood a right 11> work and wages as ourselves, but who have been by the dislocation of the economic system deprived of them, generally through no fault of their own. And tho best way to individualise is to become personally acquainted with some of those who are in distress. The 'Good Neighbour' scheme which is being inaugurated in Christehurch should give an opportunity for such personal contacts. I hope" that it will enlist many supporters and helpers. "I am glad to know that the authorities are giving special attention to the camps and their comfort for the winter, but we must not let the men there think that because tliev are out of sight they are out of mind. Their work is hard and their pay only enough for smaller requirements. Gifts of books or games or tobacco, sent to the ramp managers, will be greatly appreciated, as well as warm clothes for the winter. It is hard to believe how ill-provided in the way of clothes some of the men are. A friendly visit will be welcomed, I am sure. I found that at Motuuau about half flic men had been in the. camp from its start, which shows that they are the stuff of which fine citizens and real workers will be made when bettor times come.