CONFERENCE ON CHARITY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7032, 10 December 1890, Page 3

CONFERENCE ON CHARITY.

Suggestions Committee's Report. The following was adopted by the final ineettngof the first Austr;ilusian Conference on Charity, held on Nov. 17 : — The Suggestions Committee of the first Australasian Conference on Charity has the honour to present the following series of suggestions to the Conference for its adoption : — l. This Conference suggests that all charitable Societies should keep recordß of every case of poverty brought under their notice — giving details as to causes of poverty, whether those relieved have been married or single, condition of the houses in which the poor live, number and ages of members of family, kind of work engaged in, wages (daily and weekly) earned, amount and kind of relief given — and should forward such statistics at stated periods to a central body such a3 the Charity Organisation Society. 2. This Conference suggests that in each Colony there should be adequate provision for the maintenance of distressed aged people (not being of the criminal class) who are at present sent to gaol on charges of vagrancy or having no lawful or visible means of support. 3. This Conference suggests that, with the view of checking the abuse of hospital accommodation by patients who, well able to pay, occupy the beds to the exclusion of the destitute sick, systematised inquiry be made into the circumstances of all applicants. 4. This Conference suggests that the expediency of establishing Labour Colonies, somewhat on the German plan, to which abled-bodied mendicants and unemployed could be referred, should be brought under the notice of the charitable in the different Colonies. 5. This Conference suggests to the Legislative bodies in each Colony that maintenance orders, made in any one Colony against deserting husbands or fathers of families or putative fathers of illegitimate children, be enforceable in any other Colony on the original order; and that power should be given to issue maintenance orders where intention to desert is shown, or in defendant's absence if he have left the Colony; and that power should he given for the issue and enforcement of maintenance orders against deserting mothers. 6. This Conference suggests to the Eoyal Commission on Charitable Institutions in Victoria that it is inadvisable to establish Foundling Hospitals, but recommends an extension of the " Home " system, where mothers and infants are both received. The Suggestions Committee desires to express its fullest sympathy with several resolutions submitted to it, dealing with rescue and reformatory work, and the raising of the standard of public morality, &c, bub thinks it wise to confine itself for the present to the foregoing suggestions arising out of the proceedings "of the Conference.