SOCIAL REFORM.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4923, 8 January 1902, Page 4

SOCIAL REFORM.

President Roosevelt evidently possesses a high opinion of the value of reform through social work, not only in its direct manifestations but also in its infinite diversity. He has been writing upon tbe subject in the ' Fort* nightly Review,' particularly with regard to the social forces that tell for decency in New York City. Whilst not so directly named the article is a strong anti-Tamtnany manifesto by implication. The President might very well have come to our own colony for practical illustrations of his theories far in advance of those he has been able to quote from the still struggling social brganisations of New York. 'It is impossible,' he writes, ' to have a high standard of political life in a community sunk in sodden misery and ignorance ; and where there is industrial wellbeing there ia at least a chance of its going hand in hand with the moral and intellectual uplifting which will secure cleanliness and efficiency in the public service.' We might have shown the truth of this for him amply by a reference to our Railway and Postal Departments, as well as other branches' of the civil service. It is good to know that the tendency of legislation and social effoit alike in Buch a city — such a world, indeed — as New York, is on Jineß curiously consistent with our own earlier social beginnings, which we have embodied in a series of Statute Books which make comforting reading for the social reformer. The appaling conditions of life in the swarming tenements of the American city have given tbe required stimulus, and it reminds us of a chapter of our own earlier history, under more strenuous condU tions, to read of the University Settlements of New York) an organisation existing purely for social reform purposes, and whenever it has gone into politics it has exercised a •thoroughly healthy influence. It has ..offered to the people of the neighborhood educational and social opportunities ranging from a dancing academy and musical classes, to literary clubs, a library, and a children's bank ; the clubs being administered on the principle of self-manage-ment and self-government. It has diligently undertaken to co-operate witb all local organisations such as trade unions, benefit societies, social clubs, and the like, provided only that tbeir purposes are decent. ' Its work in to-operation with trade unions has been of epecial value, and it has consistently labored to secure the settlement of strikes by consultation or arbitration before tbe bitterness has become bo great as to prevent any chance of settlement.