STILL PRIMITIVE.

Auckland Star, 2 September 1933, Page 11

STILL PRIMITIVE.

RELIEF METHODS. FAMILIES OF SIX WITH 37/. HOSPITAL BOARD'S LIMITS. "Through all the distress and hardship of the paet few years, the most primitive methods of granting relief have been adopted to meet the situation," said the chairman, Mr. \V. K. Howitt, of the Hospital Board's relief committee. "No one has come out yet with a comprehensive scheme which will deal with the needs of people in a way whereby, if it is shown that through no fault of their own they need clothing to cover their bodies and sufficient food to keep them properly nourished, they can get it without going through the routine and humiliation of the present system. When I make this statement it is not to discredit the hospital boards and other social organisations in this country, for none knows better than myself that sympathetic administration of charitable aid up to a point is the general rule from one end of the country to the other."

Mr. Howitt was discussing the nature of the work carried out by the Hospital Board. He eaid that this week a number of genuinely distressed people, every one of whom had seen better days, applied for help for the first time in their lives. There was little question of the state of health some of them were in, for they had passed the critical examination of alert medical men, who had no object in passing them ae unfit; they would have preferred to do otherwise.

"These people make an appeal for groceries and bread, and if they get that they ask for milk and meat, and then it is found out that they have no firing and very often they have no money to pay the rent," said Mr. Howitt. "Even if they have a roof to cover their heads, they are short of bedding. It has not come to this stage all at "once; there has been a -gradual slipping down and a desire to hold off too long, and it is only when the first application is made that the details are found out, and verified later by a visiting official.

"This is, however, only one aspect of relief. Take, say, a family of six— father, mother, two girls, and two boys —and the total income is £1 17/ weekly. When rent is paid out of that there may be a guinea left, but with that income they are beyond the scope of the Hospital Board. To have to sit and listen to mothers saying they have no money to repair boots, no money to get teeth attended to—people with a full desire to earn more to maintain only an ordinary standard of living—and yet have to tell these people they will have to try to manage, hecause of the standard set by the Government as the sufficient wage to maintain a certain number of people, is to acknowledge a state of affairs which tugs hard at the common sense of any man, and makes iis long to try any other system, including natibnal insurance, which would supply the people more adequately with the wherewithal to get food and clothing and, most of all, with an allowance for rent."