SOCIAL DISTRESS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22610, 29 June 1935, Page 9

SOCIAL DISTRESS

MEASURES FOR RELIEF INEFFECTIVE IN RESULTS CLERGY'S CALL FOR ACTION. A manifesto stressing the ill results of existing social relief measures and calling for decisive remedial action was issued a few days ago by a number of Anglican clergymen of Auckland. Addressed to "men of goodwill," Die manifesto states: — "Determined men arouse the public conscience to the dire need for drastic alterations in the existing methods of dealing with unemployment, with its appalling suffering and injustice, we, emphatically declare: " In this city we know that on every hand there is suffering that is absolutely unnecessary. In our daily eontacts we are constantly confronted with eases of distress that need not exist. Widespread malnutrition in a primary producing country is nothing short of a national scandal and calls for immediate remedy. DOUSING AND CLOTHING. "The fact that whole families are living in one room or, perhaps, two rooms in an apartment house, eating, sleeping, washing, etc., within the confines of a single apartment, needs surely only to be known to be condemned without hesitation on Christian as well as on humanitarian grounds. While our social workers are faced with the dea- i

perate necessity of attempting to cope with the demands for clothing, boots, blankets, etc., we feel that shortage of new clothing should be unnecessary in a Christian country. To expect men, women and children to have to depend permanently upon the supply of castoff ■ clothing is a prostitution of Christian charity to which we cannot subscribe. "We know that through inadequate old-age and military pensions, and the hopelessly insufficient income from relief work that barely relieves, and that deadly thing called sustenance which cannot sustain, unspeakable suffering is endured by thousands of honest and respectable citizens who should not bo placed in this humiliating position. CONSTR UCTIV E PROGRAMME URGED. "We call upon all Christian people to demand from those in authority closer attention to the fact that present measures are, at best, only paliatives. We urge the immediate undertaking of a constructive programme to deal effectually and permanently with the distressing conditions we have outlined. "It is quite clear that, from the Christian standpoint, the present impossible state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue. Too long have, we understood the words of our Lord, ' Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me,' to refer only to the distribution of charitable relief. Surely in these modern days they must equally refer to the pressing need for the reconstruction of our social fabric."