SOCIAL CONDITIONS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1716, 5 April 1906, Page 3

SOCIAL CONDITIONS.

WORK OF THE SALVATION ARMY

Wellington, Tuosday. Commissioner McKie, the ohief offioor for the Salvation Army affairs in Australasia, is visiting Wellington. A Post representative sought the Commissioner a opinion with respeot to present social conditions as compared with those of ten

years ego. . . Speaking generally, Commissioner MoKie slated that the Army found no actual improvement in the conditions in these southern lands duriog the term mentioned, although both ia Australia and New Zealand the industrial condilions were vastly improved. , Whilst iu this colony there has been a decrease in poverty, the calls upon the Army,” says Commissioner MoKie, are by no means lessened, but, on the other hand, appreciably greater, for despite the fact that our Homeß for men have been extended, the accommodation ts still inadequate, both in respect to inebriate cases and prison-disoharges. During the pas ten years, too, we have found it neoessary to opon new institutions for women Maternity and Eesoue Homes-and here we Sod no diminution in tbo number of oases handled ; every institution is full, and fresh applicants are constantly clamouriDg for admission. It is by no means au infrequent occurrence in the homes to find girls becoming mothers at the tendor age of sixteen years. , 11 What I have said appl es with equal force to Australia; there has been a decided increase in inebriate cases dealt with by us, both among men and women —bo much 00, that we have under consideration the erection of two large institutions in the States for dealing specially with such. We are, too, handling as many ex-prisoners and Police Court cases os at any time sinco the inception of the work, although in several States there has been adeoreasoiu the number of convictions recorded, Here i might motion that, acting in., conjunction wi6h the Police Magistrates, we havo branched out largely in the direction of taking men and women from the Courts, instead of allowing them to be imprisoned. ii w"hilot there 13 rather an inoreaso in the number of men and women passing through our hands, the charitablo relief to outside applicants does not appear so extensive on this side. In the first plaoe, the prosperity of the islands has unquestionably rendered unnecessary much that was formerly done, and then there has been a perfeotiDg of our social machinery —with the result that nowadays there is a more rigid investigation of oases brought under our notioe, before assistance is given. Indiscriminate obarity tends all too frefluently to perpetuate undesirable (conditions. In Australia we find the applicants for relief very little altered—if at all. a lo Australasia tbo Salvation Army bas 64 institutions for the fallen and poor {?3 of whioh have been opened dunog the past ten years), and when I say that almost without exception these, every day of the ■voar are filled to their utmoet, some littlo idea will be gained as to the Army s experience about the social conditions of ten years ago and the present day.