CHURCH APPEAL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 194, 18 August 1933, Page 7

CHURCH APPEAL.

MORE RELIEF FUNDS.

CONDITIONS IN SYDNEY. POVERTY CAUSES ALARM. (From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, August 11

No one who lives in this great city can doubt that, in spite of the steady improvement of economic and industrial conditions in recent months, destitution is widespread, and the condition of the families of the unemployed is for the most part deplorable. Last week a Trades Hall deputation waited on the Minister for Social Services to urge more generous treatment for the vvorkless and the needy; and the statements submitted" by several speakers, who have had much experience of social condition? in Sydney, were disquieting in the extreme.

Mr. M. McKell, a well-known 6ocial worker, said: "In my long experience 1 have never known such poverty and distress in the metropolitan area as at the present time, nor have I seen such need for clothing, boots, blankets and the necessaries of life as I see to-day."

I The Rev. L. H. Parr, of Newtown, i told of families who are using chaff bags as blankets, of children wearing tattered blankets for clothing, of men coming to his office begging for trousers, and forced to make kilts out of old blanket * to enable them to go through the streets. Political Propaganda. It is most unfortunate tha!t these accounts have failed to produce an adequate impression here, for the simple reason that they have been exploited so continually by the enemies of the Government for political purposes. The "Labour Daily" is much to blame; for it constantly serves up to its readers nasty stories of misery and starvation, and fastens the direct personal responsibility for all these horrors upon Mr. Stevens and his colleagues. *

When Ministers make a political tour through the country the "Labour Daily" depicts their train as running over sleepers fashioned in the shape of mutilated and dying men and women. It's cartoonist delights in picturing a. rotund and obviously over-fed Mr. Stevens reclining in the corner of his magnificent railway carriage—"Luxury on Wheels," the "Labour Daily" has - christened it, adding the information "that it costs 2/ per mile to run." People in Queues. Much of this springs from pure malice; and so, too, does the constant attempt of the "Labour Daily" to represent the authorities as heaping needless humiliation and degradation upon the recipients of the dole. The people, who are quite willing to line up and wait their turn at picture shows or football turnstiles, are naturally infuriated when the "Labour Daily" tells them that they are being treated like convicts,' and urges them to resent such iniquities; and for that very reason, the people who are not on the dole or are not Langites are inclined to wave the "Labour Daily's" disclosures aside as "just another rotten" egg for Stevens!" However, the "Labour Daily" has received encouragement recently from a rather unusual quarter. For at a conference of the clergy of all denominations in the metropolitan area, two resolutions were adopted, which have been presented to the Government, urging that greater efforts should be made to meet the immediate needs of the poverty-stricken and the unemployed. Characters Undermined. One resolution 6tated that the conference, being "gravely concerned with the unsatisfactory conditions of the unemployed," expressed its conviction that the relief at present being given was not sufficient to meet requirements, and requested the government to consider the possibility of making immediate and adequate provision for the housing, feeding, clothing and genera) welfare of the unemployed. The other resolution, while emphasising "the serious deterioration in the standards of Australian citizenship, consequent upon unemployment," commended the Government "for substituting works of public utility in place of relief," and urged all sections of the community to follow suit by providing all employment possible. These resolutions are to be laid before the Premier on his return to Sydney, and the names and the high personal standing of those responsible for them are sure to carry weight with the Government. This is not the first time that appeals for more generous relief or 'double dole" have been made by the Churches, and it is to be hoped that ! the Cabinet will see its way to soften the rigidity of its devotion to the "balance the Budget" ideal by more sympathetic consideration for the workless and the destitute.