PREYING ON SOCIETY.

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3841, 2 December 1936, Page 4

PREYING ON SOCIETY.

An announcement of a varied scale of sustenance payments has hardly the significance it would have had a year ago because, in the interval, so much has been done by the Government to stimulate the avenues of employment. Most worthy in the new order is the Government’s intention to treat anyone who declines work when offered as ineligible for other forms of assistance, though in thii regard much.

patience and discretion will be required. The authorities, beyond their own certifying officers, might to advantage more fully invoke the aid of local bodies, whose more intimate knowledge of purely local circumstances could ba an invaluable help. The avenues of duplication and overlapping are very great as between the many humanitarian schemes which have official and voluntary recognition. This phase- was touched upon by Mr Armstrong. “It is with deep regret,” he said, “ that I must refer to the fact that a considerable number of cases of wilful misrepresentation, with a view to securing relief benefits, still occur. In view of this practice I am left with no alternative but to direct that drastic action is to be taken against such men who are sufficiently unprincipled to secure under false pretences the relief benefits which are provided by the community for the benefit of those who are unemployed and unable to make normal provision for their wives and children.”

Even if we concede the demoralising effects of unemployment and sustenance, few, if any, will disagree with the intention the Government has indicated. Such practices cannot be condoned; there is no excuse. The Minister is right when he speaks of fraud by “ unprincipled men.” A Government which is doing so much to alleviate distress has no call to provide relief benefits to those who have no genuine claim on them. Even the attempt to raid the cupboard that guards against poverty and distress is the most despicable of all crimes, and it should be treated with a physical penalty. It is absolutely inexcusable, and the wanton individual who seeks to prey upon society deserves no mercy. There are institutions that can teach him the gospel of work and provide him with time for reflection. His crime is inhumanly injurious; it is a theft, a despicable theft; it is an abuse of every privilege the citizen should treat as a sacred trust; it is a resort to lying, cunning, and deception; it is stealing from the genuinely needy; and also it compels resort to a tighter and slower-working official code, thus making more difficult the access of those who are entitled to consideration at the hands of the community. Let it be hoped that MrArmstrong will not relax the campaign he has now begun, and that he will stamp out fraud —that he will go still further and see that the punishment is made to fit the crime.