CO-ORDINATING RELIEF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20990, 29 September 1931, Page 8

CO-ORDINATING RELIEF.

The movement to co-ordinate effort in distributing charitable relief is one which deserves full sympathy and support. A good deal has been heard about the need for system to prevent overlapping and waste, and in the last resort to stamp out unscrupulous abuse of provision made to save the deserving from avoidable suffering and want. It is impossible, naturally, to make public in full detail the evidence of this need, but those in a position to speak with first-hand knowledge have given glimpses of experience that show it to exist. From almost every viewpoint, the verdict must be for business-like organisation and careful oversight. It is easy to say that it is better to have numbers given more than is their due than to risk one who should be helped being turned empty away. The answer to this is that the more overlapping permitted, the more likely the deserving are to miss what is their due. It can be accepted that the amount of distress existing is sufficient to strain the resources of the organisations working among the needy. That is a direct argument in favour of co-ordinated effort, so that the available relief may be made to go as far as possible. When there is any shortage, those who ask loudest and most often are more likely to receive than those who allow diffidence to mask more acute needs—unless good management guards against such a thing happening. Those who have enough for their own wants have given generously to help the less fortunate: they will continue to give unless their confidence is undermined by the fear that the best use is not being made of their offerings. Many will continue to give in spite of that fear, feeling that even if the undeserving are to benefit, they must do their share toward helping the deserving. In fairness to all, it is essential that abuses should be checked : especially in fairness to the second type of contributor, who may be making a considerable sacrifice at a time when few people have a great margin of resources from "which to be charitable. Relief of distress is an insistent social need, hut indiscriminate relief must be checked because of the social evils it can breed, and because, too long continued, it may check the impulse of benevolence.