UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20918, 27 July 1933, Page 15

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF.

to Tiin p. pit or or t hp. prjwk. Sir,—Wo read in "The Press" a doleful tale from our relief depot?; 10,000 parcels collected a week or two ago have all been distributed. Is not the question of hardship and the method of relieving it a little overdone? We hear tales of many cases, undoubtedly very distressful and unfortunately true, but are they all the result of the present; situation when summed up? Deplorable cases of poverty, exist during prosperous times, to a very great extent, without reaching the knowledge of the people who are doing such a lot to ease the wants of present sufferers, and it is safe to say that a great many are doing better during the present period of benevolent activity than they have done at any other time. To what height of prosperity will we go before we sasc our efforts to appease the poverty that is with lis? It seems that we are trying in a period of great financial strees to do that which we have never attempted to do during our most prosperous times. It may do us some form of good, but there Is a limit to giving, and many people arc sacrificing a lot of comfort in giving to those who may possibly be better cared for than themselves. We cannot take into too much consideration the extreme cases of poverty as they are always with us, and no matter what may be done for them they will slip again at the first opportunity. They should be dealt with by the proper authorities. We seem to have launched out on an effort to which there is no end, and the sooner wc- realise the fact that we are creating a loss of self-respect and resourcefulness among a large and esteemed part of our community some better plan will be evolved than we have under way at present. One half of the world does not know how tne other half lives till they are brought together by "the fellow-feeling that makes us wondrous kind"; but the mutual and genuine assistance without ostentatious display of one helping the other covers a much greater field than all the relief organisations put together and is in vogue at all times, good or bad. That is where our churches help —not in collecting and giving, but by stimulating the desire prompting that form of benevolence. The rattle of the street collector's box under the nose of a man or woman who that morning may have sent a breakfast along to someone not quite so well off as the donor, does not tend to elate one's ideas of the fitness of things. The system is gradually hardening the hearts of those who have previously done many sets of kindness in a quiet way.

Our position at present was In part created some years back when the unemployment question was beginning to tread on our toes, by our Premier, on his return from an Imperial Conference, disparaging the British Government's unemployment insurance scheme and particularly reviling the dole. Had we adopted the latter we would have been relieved from the over-growing tangle we are now in. Latest returns show a drop of half a million during the year in unemployment in Britain, while we are climbing up to a peak of which we cannot see the top. And "what's wrong with socialism." if "all the King's horses and all the King's men cannot put the old order together again."—Yours, etc., H. PAKURA SEYMOUR. July 26, 1933.