Some Aspects of Our Social Service Work

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6619, 4 August 1931, Page 8

Some Aspects of Our Social Service Work

health minister addresses P.N. ROTARY CLUB. “There are certain principles that arc being assailed to-day that come within the gamut of social questions and arc very closely related to the whole social fabric and well-being of our community, ” stated Hon. A. J. Stall worthy (Minister of Health) in addressing members of the Palmerston North Rotary Club at their weekly luncheon yesterday. “Wo are living in difficult days,” he proceeded. “There is the great spectre of unemployment and with it are many problems that arc difficult to solve. The only euro for these ills is a greater degree of employment; there is no artificial way t(. remedy the position; only a revival in industry and commerce will suffice.” In the clothing and feeding of the unemployed, the Minister continued, the Dominion was up against a great multiplied}’ of problems, and while it was correct that wo should manifest Christian charity, the country was facing problems that brought it on difficult ground. There was a danger, in the relief measures that were being taken, of breaking down the self-reli-ance of the people, and if the country did that it could not stand. Instancing the fall of the Roman and Spanish Empires, the speaker said that as it had bee a in history, so it would always be. That brought him to the pith of the position. There were two fundamental principles of society which could not be disregarded —industry and thrift-bul to a very large extent today those principles were being broken down. Taking as an example old-age pensions, which system had been copied in many countries, there was a discrimination against the thrifty man, while in the unemployment relief schemes today there was the same dangerous principle; if a man had made provision against a rainy day and had money in the bank, he was discriminated against. That was consistent with Christian philanthropy but was not consistent with the foundation principles he had enumerated; and therein lay a great peril of the times. If we look to another country not far a war —which ho did not need to name—we could see those principles being violently attacked. There the rewards of industry and thrift had been threatened and the State savings bank, with £51.000,000 locked up in it, had been bankrupted by the extravagance of the Government and public bodies. “We seem to have arrived at a disposition that the whole of our social progress depends on industry and thrift; but these citadels are being attacked. A. re thrifty people, seeing how things are drifting, going to say: 'Eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die?’ To-day we hear preached doctrines that, undermine obedience those twe great fundamental laws. Mr Staliworthy concluded by appealin''- to Botarians for their. moral support in opposing any move for the raising of money for State services by means of State lotteries, his remarks m this connection being reported in another column. . T Ou the motion of Rotarian B. J. Jacobs, Mr Stallworthy was accorded the club's thanks for his address.. Rotarian W. G. Black (president) was in t.ho chair and there was the usual good attendance of members, as well as a large number of visitors.