THE The New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, AUGUSTS, 1896.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10200, 3 August 1896, Page 4

THE The New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, AUGUSTS, 1896.

N his annual reports on Hospitals and Charitable Aid in the colony, Dr. MaoGregor has been for years past asi the voice of one crying in the wilder*ness. No man could more explicitly or emphatically denounce the pauperization that is proceeding, more particularly through the system of administering Charitable Aid, but instead of any amelioration of the condition of things they have been going on from bad to worse. Within the past year, the iucrease in the amount expended in charitable aid has been nearly £20,000, or close on 23 per cent., over the amount expended the previous year. That year's record was itself part of the story of increase which had been steadily mounting up from year to year, and it may well indeed be asked; what iB this coming to 1 When in, on? year the amount expended from revenue and rates in the relief of poverty has been increased by nearly a fcfurtih, it does not require the earnest protest of the Inspector to make us realise the dangerous course on which the colony is travelling. For it is to be remembered that this public aid is only one of many agencies engaged in the relief of the poor, and as the Charitable Aid Boards are regarded as exercising more stringency in relation to cases of relief than most of the associations or societies or other schemes for affording relief, it is not improbable that the increase stated indicates an increase all along the line. And; yet i there has been nothing exceptional in ] the year to cause any extraordinary increase of destitution. On the contrary the revival in mining and; the increase in the price of many of the products of the colony should rather have pointed the other way. Yet here we find our pauperism increasing by leaps and bounds, and evi/s:y year making a larger demand on th earnings and the savings of the peopk To say the least this state of things does not speak much for the efficacy oE the various panaceas that we have had applied for the bettering of the condition of the poor; and taken in conjunction with the steady efflux of the floating population at the rate of some five thousand a year, it would seem to indicate that ! legislation and administration should re-consider the situation and make if possible some new departure from methods that have at least been coincident with such unsatisfactory results. But without discussing here the tendency of legislation to sap the manhood of the people, and to lead them to look either to the Government or others, instead of to their own self-reliance, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that the methods of administering charitable help are vicious in the extreme. The brief statement of the Assistant-In-spector, Mrs. Neil], puts the matter in a nutshell when she says that" charity is so doled out that when once a family is relieved they rarely if ever become self-dependant again." It is generally looked on on as a sign of a tender heart, to be liberal in the relief of want, and nothing seems more ungracious than to close up the avenues of goodness to the poor. But in speaking of that weaker sex with whose case Mrs. Neill is more particularly concerned, and which appeals more piteously for help, she ] says that the result of the present methods is to discourage the really unfortunate, while brazen-faced beggars of the female sex are encouraged. The charity-aided woman can dress better, or take in lodgers, or work at a cheaper rate, and is thus in every way placed in a position of advantage over her hard-worked sister, who does her utmost to keep off the books of the benevolent. And it might be addedthat the hardship is all the greater when it is remembered that this hard-worked sister has to work the harder to help share the burthen that is imposed ou her in common with other workers in maintaining these paupers in idleness. Indeed it is the hardworking and honest poor that have the greatest reason to complain of the inequity of the existing system of relief, and one and all should unite in the demand that it should be radically altered. [t would give a wrench to the sentiment of the people to adopt the recommendation which is made and urged by Dr. MacQregor. The name of "workhouse" is so associated in our memory with helpless, hopeless poverty that we shrink from thinking of its being neoessary to introduce the institution into New Zealand. But it is evident that under what-

ever name, edwefchlde'- of the. kiud | twill have to be put in 6p6foti6u|| we iave to arrest the alarming {ttbreaWo! pauperisation shown in tins report; M Mtie(3fe~g>3r looks to the establishment of proper hpcal Government, and, its being charged With the support of the poor, hi fc'lie hope of tile country in this -respect; and the thing to be regretted is that so absorbed is the country in theoretical and f&ncl* fill : legislHtion that a great and crying necessity -like this must be postponed. Whatever may be said of the ponderous scheme of local government now dangling before the countryi the time lias come when the responsibility for poor relief must be defined and made more specific, so that those who wo, contributing to this wholesale and demoralising expenditure may be made to feel the pressure of the burthen. If the State subsidy were" out off, and the people in the several districts were made to feel in their pockets for the money which they have to expend in the support of their own poor, the waste on the worthless would be promptly curtailed. If the people in a township, or a borough, or a county had to find the money for those who can dress better and live more comfortably on relief funds than hardworking people can on their earnings, there would shortly be no loafers whether male or female, and the good old Apostolic regulation would be put in force that whoso will not work neither shall he eat It would come to it that the local authorities would find some way in which their pensioners must do something for their food and clothing, and though it might not take the unsavoury name of workhouse, work in some form would form the only basis of relief. Dr. Macgregor properly urged that the really.incapable, such as the helpless, aged, and the orphans, might be taken off the hands of the local authorities by the State. But for the rest the local residents should have it incumbent on them to make conditions with their own sturdy poor, whether men or women, and if these latter would not work for their living to the amount of the cost of it, then institutions, whether called by the name of gaol or workhouse, should be provided in which they would be forced to work. It is undoubtedly bad administration mainly, coupled with culpable laziness in some, that allows a condition of things in which any healthy man or woman is eating the bread of idleness. No healthy man's or woman's strength and energy are incapable of being converted into sufficient returns to give food and Clothing, and to find the way to do it nothing will be so effective as to bring the ratepayers and their local authori'ties face to face with those who crave for relief, and so let them settle the matter between them. Dr. Macgregor has revealed a state of things that is socially, and morally, and financially destructive, and if the people were indifferent before to his appeals against the propagation of pauperism, they can no longer afford to close their eyes, when, from whatever cause, pauperism has been growing at the rate of a fourth in the year.