THE WORST OF BEING POOR.

New Zealand Mail, 27 August 1902, Page 8 (Supplement)

THE WORST OF BEING POOR.

It is the fear of want which is the worst of poverty, and want itself, when it comes, is something like a relief'. Then charity steps in, first in the guise of the pod,neighbours, wlio are always in the same shadow themselves, and. later in the authorised shapes which like time to ascertain merit in the case of destitution, and which are not to blame for not knowing what the poor neighbours know. Want can be very easily confronted ami overcome. The community has amply the wealth and the will for that. ll is ihe. fear of want, the lurking fear, the hidden fear, which cannot alway- he met, and which remains through ail the struggle of life to harass and lumpier the victim. Yet it is somehow this very fear of want which has juggled itself into the place of several virtues in the minds of the old-fashioned economists, and got iiself recognised as one of the highest incentives to industry. It is considered almost sacred, and worthy of at least as much veneration as capital punishment. To many, it still seems the corner-stone of civilisation, the foundation of liberty itself. We have been so anxious to keep it that when, a few years ago. there was talk of abolishing poverty, casuist; and economists rose together to frustrate ihe I scheme, as if some attack upon ihe fear cf want had been threatened.

Yet it might be shown that the fc-.w of want is not essential to the development of tlie individual nr the growth of ilie coni intimity. It might be not imjwissi Me to prove it the prime, l blunder of human progress, the stumbling-block which humanity is always reaching and always falling back from into real adversity. It lies at the very lie-art of prosperity; it is the cloud that darkens the wood tones; it is the year of famine which is always advancing to devour the year of plenty. As long as the poor suffer from this ,‘-.;v=t evil of poverty, the State is side w : ih a disorder which sooner or later must, ueclare itself. It is idle to preten.'l olhcrwise; one feels it banal to affirm a L •' so plain. How. then, shall we tiv to <•; . iiii poor of it? In other countries the French Republic and the German L..> pi re and the Belgian Kingdom;, they roe trying old-age pensions for working u as ,a means of helping the poor from ihe fear of want. The anomalous Commonwealths of Australasia go much farther, and help a steady man to a house and. farm, and provide him with the liie&.nof securing himself against the fear of want; these States forget him at no momiemt of his honourable career. A ' such efforts seem good and desirable to the ooet and philosopher whom the economist | has been getting to he; and it would be well for us to take them all into consideration, now while the fat kine 1 are feed ng fatter, and the hour seems imT)o*sd;lv far when the lean kine shall come UP * ;i 'dine from their succulent steaks.