THE New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1897. CHARITABLE AID.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 3264, 22 October 1897, Page 2

THE New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.)

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1897. CHARITABLE AID.

With which are incorporated the Wellington Independent, established 1845, and the New Zealander,

Like many another conference, that which haa just conclude'! its work in this city is unlikely to have any real practical outcome. Nearly every delegate has a scheme of his own, each about as unwork able as the other. We agree entirely with those who have declared the present system to be rotten to the core, and Dr MacGregor has put his finger upon one of the greatest evils in connection with charitable aid to the poor. We refer to the multiplicity of institutions State-aided in their well-meant but misguided efforts to deal with the problem of poverty. In making the deliberate statement that it was a bad day for the colony that saw the charitable aid law placed on the Statute Book, we have no desire to reflect Unfairly upon its authors. They believed that something in the shape of organised and State - regulated charity was necessary, but the result has been, not to check the growth of poverty; not to help unfortunate people to help themselves ; but to crystallise pauperdom and help breed a pauper class. That assistance should and must be given to the deserving poor no one will gainsay j but it is unfortunately only too true that the idle and dissolute are often assisted, while really deserving people either go empty away or suffer in silence and even die rather than seek assistance from the Charitable Aid Boards as by law established. Here in Wellington, as in other towns of the colony, while there are many deserving cases with which the Trustees deal, a percentage of the people assisted are of the undeserving class. Some little time since an endeavour was made to cope with the evil, but we were Compelled to condemn in unmeasured terms the methods adopted by those in authority to distinguish the true oases of destitution from the undeserving. The Benevolent Trustees of this city are often compelled, lest • they should permit unfortunate women aud children to starve, to grant assistance in cages where it is known that the hulking husband forces the wife tc seek the charitable dole, when, if he had hia real deserts, he should be punished for being an unprincipled loafer. Some time since in Christchurch, the Board refused to grant relief to families until tht husband appeared before tho members t< make good his claim to assistance i but il was known that in Consequence womer and children too often had to suffer the consequences.

In that same city there are in existence a number of so-called charitable homes, where good, bad and indifferent seek shelter, food and clothing, and where the impositionsl of the undeserving go oh unchecked. Yet, in that same city there have.been cases Where people have died of starvation, and only a few weeks ago one poor old man sought in vain for assiatanoe in turn from the Charitable Aidßoard, the Samaritan Homo and Herrick’s Home. He was eventually taken charge of by the police—if we remember aright—and very soon ceased from troubling either the Stateaided or private institutions, for he died—as the Coroner’s jury found from exposure and want of sustenance. In other words.

though there existed the means to save the old matt from dire needy he died of starvation. And this, let it be remembered, while the Charitable Aid Boatd maintains an expensive stafi out of the public of its officers alone receiving a yearly salary of .£SOO. In face of these facts it cannot be said that our relief system is in anything else but a most unsatisfactory state. And, worst of all, it is impossible to do any better while the pauperising dement is so strong and there aro no means of dealing effectually with the able-bodied .loafers who will not work so long as their wives and children can induce the officers 'Or these charitable institutions to give them bread.

There is yet another phase of the question which is not very often referred to, and that is the giving of money from the public purse to aisist a class of persons ~od of "tain but which,

possesses - certain means, whion, in the opiiiion of the charitable aid officials, are not sufficient to fully maintain these people. We take it that the Legislature never contemplated that any Buoh cases as these should be deemsd fitting- for relief from the public purse. Yet there is ample evidence to prove that while these well-dressed and wellhoused people are aided from the State coffers, many a poor soul, with scarcely a rag to cover her or a ri>of over her head, asks in vain for assistance 1 Until the labour test is applied in all cases of ablebodied paupers, and women and children are protected from the disastrous Consequences of being connected with laiy and dishonourable husbands and fathers, the abuses we all deplore will continue unabated. The idea of anything in the shape of the workhouse should be abhorrent to the people of tie colony) and We believe that any attempt to institute such a system will be strenuously resisted) but the time has arrived when either the German method of dealing with out-of-works and the helpless ones of the community should bo adopted, and the present demoralising and altogether vicious system of both outdoor and indoor relief done away with, or that there should be instituted by the State a new and approved system of charitable relief.