CHARITABLE AID ADMINISTRA TION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14439, 4 February 1909, Page 7

CHARITABLE AID ADMINISTRA TION.

PAUPERS FROM A DISTANCE, PROTEST AT AUCKLAND.

(Per United Press Association.) AUCKLAND, February 3. A deputation from the Auckland Tlifipital and Charitable I'oard waited on the Minister of Justice (Dr Findlay) to-day to protest against the action of the magistrate in committing to an industrial school at the expense of the board childten who had just arrived in the district from another district. Section 102 of the Hospital and Charitable Institutions Act provides that the cost of maintaining at an industrial school any child shall be borne by the board of the district where the order of committal is made.

Mr (chairman uf the board) eaid that the case which they were about to put before the Minister was a flagrant- one. A destitute family had been pent to Auckland from Balclutha, ami Sir Kettle. S.M., had committed tho children to an industrial school, notwithstanding that an adjournment had been asked for in order tliitt tlie southern board might bo coinmunicatcd with. The whole family had been thrown entirely nil the charity of Auckland—the children in the school, the mother in the hospital, and the father in gaol. It. was not right that destitutes should be sent here from any place. The family should h-.vve been maintained in lia-'clutiia. The cost to Auckland would total over £1000. From the decision of the mn«istrati>, it appeared thai there was no provision in the law to compel Balclutha tc. maintain ils own poor, and it was felt that the act should be made to contain the necessary provision. The board's officials did'not close the doors of charily against, any individual, even if he came from tho south, If thev required relief the board relieved them, but whv wero they required by the magistrates to support- a family of .six from another pariof tho Dominion? 'He hoped that the Minister would have the act- amended.

Mr M Kav stated that destitute people were drifting to Auckland. l)r 1' i ndlay: Is the burden of your rate heavier than the rate in other parts? Mr Garland: I do not think it is heavier than in the south.

Mr Johns asked for a revision of the act so as to make it mandatory. At present the result was to throw destitute people in the large centres, irrespective of where their domiciles were. The hardship was a great and ever recurring one. l)r Findlay replied that the law in regard to charitable aid was a very difficult one to deal with, a difficult one to devise, and a difficult. one tc improve, -Ihe fitst question, with regard to residence, was one which he thought, required to be settled by Legislation o'f some fort. He had not found any definition in the act- as to what "residence" meant. An exact definition of this might get over the case It seemed to him that if there was a deliberate transference by the soutliern hoard, as stated b\'i tlie Chairman, that action was, to put it- mildly, not fair. However, tins destitute class of people was gipsylike in its movements, a.nd the southern bard might raise the cry that some other board should bear the burden, The matter would be brought before the Government, and, if necessary, Legislation, enacted.