The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1890. SKINFLINT CHARITY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2114, 21 October 1890, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1890. SKINFLINT CHARITY.

Thebe is no greater blot on our civilisation than the inhuman character of the charity of oar Charitable Aid Board. Last week a poor widow from Geraldine told the Charitable Aid Board a tale that ought to excite the sympathy of the most hardhearted. She was left destitute with eight children, the eldest of whom—a little girl—earned four shillings per week, which was only sufficient to clothe her. There was nothing to feed and clothe the others, provide firing, and pay house rent, except the 80 rations per month she received from the Charitable Aid Board. The poor woman had the cleaning out of the public school, and this brought her in £ls 10s a year, but somebody offered to do it cheaper, and of course as cheapness is the rage of the age, she lost this means of supplementing the 80 rations. She appealed to the to allow her ten shillings a week fop ppnt, but the board refused, and only aUowod 1 J?e- r 20 additional rations per month, WVIWb not the slightest idea what a “ ration ’* is, but we precume it is what the Charitable Aid Board considers enough food for onemeal for one person. We know that it costs five pence, because the 80 rations cost only £1 13s 4d, and taking this into account together with the pusilanimous character of the oensers of charitable aid we feel inclined to believe that the allowance is small. This poor woman only got 30 of these rations a month or less ;han 2\ meals a week, and this was ncpea&ed to about 3 meals a week for jaeh member of jbhe family. Nothing vas allowed for house reßp, or slothing. Is there a country in fcbp vorld that can exhibit such heartless ndifference to the necessities of the mlpless as this? We are told that his is given aot as a sufficiency but as 1 a assistance, but hpw can a poor.

woman with seven children to look after, do anything to help herself. Most women who can possibly do so, obtain the assistance of a servant to help them in taking care of so many children. It must, therefore, be obvious to any one that it is impossible for this poor woman to do much more than look alter her children, yet the board will only allow her about three tfceals a week for each of them. Where is she to get the other meals ? Where ’ the firing, the clothing, the house rent? The board does not care. It must not establish a precedent lest other widows similarly circumstanced should apply. In the name of humanity, in the name of christrian charity, in the name.-of God if they do, is it not the board’s duty to provide for them ? What are they there for? It is, hewever, no use to appeal to the board, we might as well appeal; to the stones in the hospital walls. We hope, however, that there is sufficient Christian sympathy, and Christian feeling, sufficient manliness, and womanliness, if nothing else amongst the people, to resent things like this being done in their name. But the worst of it is that the public may feel shocked one day and forget ifc-all the next day. What is everybody’s business is generally regarded as nobody’s business, and nobody does it in the end. It is obviously everybody’s business to assist in removing from the public character the stain of being indifferent to hunger’s moans. If any of us were in a foreign country and heard it said that all that we allowed by public charity in New Zealand was three meals a .week to the most helpless, would we not feel mean and eontemptible? Would we not feel ashamed of ourselves f We pity the man who would not at any rate. Potting all sentiment out of the question altogether, Is it the right way }to act P We have spent millions on immigration, we are spending thousands on immigration still, yet here we allow young New Zealand to be brought up in squalid .misery and starvation. Is this right? Then we pay £SOO a year as a pension to the Honorable Dr Pollen, who is also a member of the Legislative Council—and the very worst member in it at that—and £SOO a year as a pension to Mr Gisborn, who is enjoying himself in England writing books; and we pay thousands upon thousands in pensions in this way—yet we treat the poor in such a niggardly way. Only a few issues ago we pointed out how our retrenchment Government were cutting down expenditure by increasing salaries which were already too high, and by not giving one penny to any one whose salary was less than £2OO. This money is extravagently lavished on people who have too much already, while this poor widow and her children, and doubtless hundreds of other widows get only the paltry allowance of three meals a week. Shame on the system, shame on the civilisation, shame on the age that tolerates such shocking inequalities, and if communistic and socialistic ideas are taking possession of the public mind whose fault is it, if not the fault of the men who can exhibit such calloushearted indifference to the anguishing moans of starving widows and orphans. It is men like these who manufacture socialists, revolutionists,and anarchists, atid drive men to rebellion. We ought, therefore, to be aware of them, and take some mean* of bringing them to fheir senses before they do much more mischief, and the best way to do that is to get Charitable Aid Boards elected by the people.