The Daily Southern Cross.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXII, Issue 2808, 26 July 1866, Page 3

The Daily Southern Cross.

LUCEO, NON URO. '' If I have been extinguished, yet there rise A thousand beacons from the spark 1 bore."

THURSDAY, JULY 26.

A good deal has been said and written about the destitution of certain classes of our comj munity during the last six months. Amid a great deal of very injurious and foolish exaggeration as to the amount of this distress, there has been discernible quite enough of foundation in facts to show that there is something of reality about it. . Distress has existed, and does exist, in- this city in a greater degree now than at any former period of our history. It is well to know this. It is well also to face the very strong probability that exists, that the evil will go on increasing rather than diminishing in the future. It is not the remoral of the seat of Government, still less is it the departm*e of the troops, that produces distress in the community ; but it is rather the gradual accumulation of a kind of population amongst us which finds no outlet, -and which seems to have no proper vocation. Some years ago it could be said with truth of Auckland that there was but one beggar here, and he could afford to live like a lord ; but that golden age has passed away from this city, as it soon must from any city where population increases and competition grows keen. Now, there are not one but many beggars ; and if this were all, ifc might not be of such great significance, as most of the regular beggars bear very evident signs of being of a class deserving of little assistance or compassion :__ but there are not only many who beg, there are many also who more than half starve without begging. Of the regular begging class but little need be said. Here, as in most places, there are men who are able to work, but who will not work — who have had frequent opportunities of earning an honest and industrious livelihood, but who prefer to spend their time in preying on the public sympathies excited by lying representations. For this class, the prison, and not charity, is the proper treatment ; a little enforced hard labour wo old do more good for them than any amount of open-handed generosity, and, in the end, this must be the course adopted with them. But it is far different with the other class of which we have spoken. A class oppressed by poverty, which is misfortune without fault, does exist here now, and is sure to exist among us for the future, do as we may. No amount of good times seems to reach this class, and some provision must, of course, be made for it by the more fortunate public. Under the head of "Rations for the destitute," this provision has in some sox't been made now for years. At first it was but a trifling sum that was expended in this way. A few hundreds of pounds was the whole, and it was not, of course, worth while to deal with so small a matter by any separate institutions. But from hundreds the expenditure has been growing rapidly to thousands, and now it is probable that at least five thousand pounds a-year will be required to meet the demand. It was quite time that the old ration system should be abandoned, and we are glad to see that it has been so at last. Nothing could have been less suited for the relief of destitution, on any considerable scale, than the plan of granting rations formerly pursued. Something very like a premium upon cheating the Government was the first effect of the system, and a vast unnecessary expenditure was the second. , People entitled to rations constantly took them in such a way as showed they had no idea of using them honestly, as ijjiey were meant to be used. For instance, cases might be multiplied in which a whole week's ration of bread was regularly drawn on one day in the week, evidently for the purpose of selling it again ; and other things were treated in like manner. To all this the plan of a soupkitchen, or something of the sort, now instituted by the Government, puts a stop. Nor is even this quite the whole advantage that may be derived from the change of plan. It has been very fully tested and demonstrated in England, that by doing the work of cooking on a large scale, excellent soup can be prepared at a marvellously small cost to the Government. No doubt, experience will prove the same to be true here ; and it may then be applied to the partial relief of many who are not yet, and by this means may never be, reduced to the necessity of becoming pensioners upon public charity. There are not a few families in this town who might be very greatly assisted in their struggles with temporary difficulties by some such assistance as could be rendered them by the sale of soup and bread on, terms that would involve no loss to the province. With all this advantage, however, which" we see in the new system of administering the relief provided by the province, we cannot help seeing also that the time is not at all a distant one when some radical change must be made, not in the mode of administering so much as in that of providing and superintending this relief. If the expenditure for relief is to increase in any such ratio during the next few years as it has done during the last few, then it is pretty certain that the general revenue of the province will be not a little embarrassed by it. Even now thei'e are many things far more properly of provincial concern than this that are pinched, and even wholly neglected, to provide for this growing expenditure. This, we say, cannot, and this ought not, to continue. The realization of any Separation, such as we desire to see in this colony, cannot fail to make us turn back more than ever to the truly Anglo-Saxon principle of local boards and local taxes, for all merely local needs. We who live in towns are now in a far better position, in many respects, than the country populations ; and while we are able to give nothing towards roads and bridges in the country, it may not unnaturally become a cause of complaint that we spend the general revenue of the province in supporting the poor of our 'towns. Whether or not this

'feeling now exists, we aie aure that something must ere long be done, or it, will not only exist, but lead to a strong opposition between town and country interests. We knoAV well how strong a dislike people have in the colonies to such words as "poor-rates" and " workhouses ;" but, after all, it is not the names that need alarm urn. "We have the thing — the poverty — and also the expense ; and the main difference that exists between our present way of managing and that which is included under these expressions is, that now we spend more money, and do less good with it, than might be done with the advantages of these local institutions, however unpleasant their names and associations may be.