DINNERS ALL THE YEAR ROUND.

Lyttelton Times, Volume C, Issue 11751, 1 December 1898, Page 6

DINNERS ALL THE YEAR ROUND.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—The appeal tha t has been made in the columns of your paper for help towards supplying a generous Christmas dinner to the needy of our city is an ever-recurring one, and is calculated to make the donors of the dinner pause and think, and inquire whether something might not be done that would be of lasting benefit ■ to the people concerned. Sporadic charity ha.fi a pauperising tendency, and is calculated to depress energy and quench vitality. Surely all will concede that a few hours’ feasting and forgetting cannot be an adequate means of dealing with the disease of poverty. It cannot by any stretch of the imagination compensate for a. life of habitual want and misery. If %ve have in the smallest degree understood the teachings of the Christ we shall not desire people to live in spasmodic moments, but rather shall we insist that, “more abundant life ” is their due and Society’s debt. A Careful diagnosis of the causes of all cases of poverty among us is as important a, consideration for tire ,State as the cause of disease in the individual is to. the true healer. When the diagnosis has been thorough,' then wise and systematic treatment is required.. - Careful classification is the first necessity. There are widows and widowers in work whose wages are nob-suffi-cient for them to provide proper-supervision for their children. These need assistance.. For them the establishment of creches, under the management of skilled lady nurses, and public kindergartens, would be an in-, estimable boon. Fpr their further benefit, the municipalities should set themselves to abolish all insanitary dwellings and slums, and to erect municipal, houses, fit in every way for human habitation. This is being done elsewhere, and the example might safely be followed here. The rooms should he. constructed so as to afford the ingress of fresh air and light and sun, and should be heated by means of hot water pipes. Baths of hot and cold water should be supplied. The common kitchen might supply food, cooked scientifically,' at a,- minimum cost : to: the inmates. Attached.'.'to',', these erections ahajil’d be a common recreation and. playing,ground,' well kept arid. tended- -The' municipalities might also tike farms and gardens, -where • the best supplies for the inhabitants of-their houses could be - obtained at the minimum cost.

For those who cannot obtain work, municipal co-operative industrial settlements should be established. Good land is necessary for the venture,- and the buildings and appliances would be a primary charge on the - State. * ; Here crops . would, be grown,, cattles reared, - vegetables and fruit grown. Poultry rearing, bee-keeping, dairying, the making of clothing and boots, public laundries and kitchens, kindergartens and creches would also be the care of the community. All work would be graded and placed under the most efficient management. Comfortable cottages mi,ght be built for families, and municipal stores supplied. Each grade of labour would be credited with wages, but the minimum wage would be a living one. In slack times the men might well be employed in improving and beautifying the city or suburbs. If there is no schopl within a reasonable distance, a school must alto be supplied by the State, to which a gymnasium should be attached. The children should have also all the advantaged of manual and technical instruction. The outlay would speedily be repaid, for in a short time the settlement would become self-supporting. The people, are crying out for government; it is, as Carlyle points out, an absolute necessity for them. When are our councillors going to recognise that the welfare of the people is their sole and only concern? Wb.cn, will they learn that money is to isubserve human interests, and that the welfare of the whole is the prime concern of each? When will they realise that this settled misery among us affects us all, for we are brethren? When, too, will they begin to see that then- own children may supply the submerged classes with new recruits, and, for their sakes at least, do what they can to make life for the oppressed more hearable? Just now there is talk of completing the Cathedral, and thousands'of pounds are asked for, and will he obtained. I have no quarrel with the desire to finish a beautiful building, but why do we not first urge that the “living temples 1 ’ of God—humanity —should be built up and edified? True Christianity is crying aloud for the redemption of society here and now; beauty in art and architecture must follow.—l am, etc., A.W.

TO THE EDITOR. £ir,—l have been meditating a ud fuming over the subjects of Mrs Herrick s appeal, and the Salvation Amy’s plans. Yes, we are sinking into the slough' ofpauperise* as fast as we possibly can, and most truly the people love to have it so. ■ Wha t is the v ,se of a dinner now and then? I think it is only demoralising; nothing more or lees. A big feed occasionally is just as bad as an occasional drinking bout. But, you answer, the people like the dinner, and the folks enjoy giving it to them ; why object? Well, T ‘ object on principle. I think people ought not to he .satislied with dinner now and then, and ■, a man has no right to be satisfied with a “shelter” for the night. Nothing less than a good comfortable house anjd dinner every day ought to .satisfy a man.

There arc a few'in this community who protest because Government or local bodies do not see to it that; a man has work and wages, and a woman too. If Governments wilt not take up these questions, then let us have a people's .conference and decide on some scheme of socialisation of industry, on soma plan that will lead us out of this oldworld bog we are drifting into. Lock at the little back streets there are in Christchurch, full of poverty and mystery and poor little children; and look at the everincreasing numbers that are being. bom in disease, crime and wretchedness. It is a atifl.rrip to see some of the streets, and to feel as you walk down, them or-gd from house

to house that death dweto-ln-thenv if absence• of ■ life means-death;—l am,-etv, 1 LOUISA BLAKE. i