"UNNECESSARY."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 148, 25 June 1935, Page 9

"UNNECESSARY."

POVERTY IN CITY.

ANGLICAN CLERGY MANIFESTO

PERMANENT REMEDY WANTED

The immediate inception of a con-' structive programme to deal effectively and permanently with the relief, of distressing conditions of malnutrition and poor housing, in Auckland is strongly urged in a manifesto issued by ten members of the Anglican clergy in the city and suburbs.

The manifesto, which is addressed to "All men of goodwill," is signed by the Rev. A. J. Greenwood, vidar of St. Alban's, Dominion Road; the Rev. W. W. Averill, All Saints', Ponsonby; tlic Rev. Jasper Calder, city missioner; the Rev. J. Adams, St George's, Kingsland; the Rev. G. E. Moreton, prison chaplain; the Rev. H. A. Johnston, honorary chaplain, Dock Street Mission; the Rev. M. G. Sullivan, St. Columba's, Grey Lynn; the Rev. A. J. Beck, St. Matthew's; tlie Rev. A. Russell Allerton, St. Thomas', Freeman's Bay; and the Rev. T. P. Vokes-Dudgeon, assistant priest, St. Thomas' Church.

"Determined to arouse the public conscience to the dire need for drastic alteration in the existing methods of dealing with unemployment, with its appalling suffering and injustice, we the undersigned emphatically declare that in this city we know that on every hand v there is suffering that is absolutely unnecessary," states the manifesto. "In our daily contacts we are constantly confronted with cases of distress tliat need not exist. • Malnutrition a Scandal.' "Widespread malnutrition in a primary producing country is nothing short of a national scandal and calls for immediate remedy. "Tho fact that whole families are living in one room or perhaps two rooms in an apartment house, eating, sleeping and washing within the confines of a single apartment, needs surely only to be known to be condemned without hesitation on Christian as well as on humanitarian grounds.

"While our social workers are faced with the desperate necessity of attempting to cope with the demands for clothing, boots and blankets, we feel that this should be unnecessary in a .Christian country, lo expect men, women and children to have to depend permanently upon the supply of cast-off clothing is a prostitution of Christian charity to which we cannot subscribe.

'We know that through inadequate old age and military pensions, and the hopelessly insufficient income from relief work that barely relieves, and that deadly thing called sustenance which cannot sustain, unspeakable suffering is endured by thousands of honest and respectable citizens who should not be placed in this humiliating position. Constructive Programme Wanted. "We call upon all Christian people to demand frcm those in authority closer attention to the fact that present measures are at best only palliatives. Wo urge the immediate undertaking of a constructive programme to deal effeetpajly and permanently with i.he distressing conditions we have outlined.

"It is quite clear that, from the Cliriatain standpoint, the present impossible state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue. Too long have we understood the words of Our Lord, 'Inasmuch as ve' have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ve have dime it unto Me,' to refer only to the d;stribution of charitable relief. Surely*in these modern days they must equally refer to the pressing need for the reconstruction of our social fabric."