Charitable Aid Report.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 176, 31 July 1888, Page 1

Charitable Aid Report.

Referring to out door relief Mr McGregor's report goes on to say" That in New Zealand the baneful system of outdoor relief is pauperising the people to an extent that is incredible to any except those who know the facts and are able to estimate their significance. ” The Inspector says :—“I believe the system of outdoor relief ns at present conducted to be contrary to first principles in two ways : It violates the first law of nature that * he who will not work neither shall he eat,’ which is Nature’s provision for mere being or existence ; and it does not obey the second law of human society, or on which human society is based, which says ‘ Love thy neighbor as thy self,’ which is Nature’s provision for well-being or happiness. Society attempts to cheat both God and the devil by giving money out of the taxes, and soothes its conscience by thinking it is providing for the poor; whereas, in sober fact, it is merely drugging itself and poisoning them once for all. It is not possible to leave the care of our poor to State officials distributing taxes. The charity that is diverted from human sympathy without feeling both curses him that gives and him that takes. Experience demonstrates what theory indicates regarding outdoor reliefIt does not indicate a large amount of suffering requiring relief, but a large amount of laxity on the part of officials, and an amount of. willingness indefinitely increasable on the part of able-bodied idlers to be fed at the public cost. It is absurd to call that charity which is not free, voluntary, and sympathetic. All our existing machinery therefore is condemned. It is simply a device by which a general tax is made to relieve us of a duty laid upon us individually, and it is a device foredoomed a failure,”