THE WAIPUKURAU PRESS SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1935. TO ABOLISH POVERTY.

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXX, Issue 188, 17 August 1935, Page 4

THE WAIPUKURAU PRESS SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1935. TO ABOLISH POVERTY.

‘‘ It was unfortunate that the Carterton meeting to hear something about the activities" of the League to Abolish Poverty was called for a Saturday night, when other engagements were attracting the peoples’ attention to possibly less important matters. The abolition of poverty is a great subject—the most vital in the world, and that was no doubt the reason that Hir Worship the Mayor consented to preside,” observes the “Wairarapa •Daily News’ ’in the course of characteristically thoughtful comment under the above caption—incidentally, we may mention that the editor is a widely esteemed veteran Wellington provincial journalist. “The object of the League is not apparently to show how poverty can be abolished, but an effort to obtain signatures to a monster Empire petition asking His Majesty the King to confer with his Privy Council as to the means to be taken to bring about this very desirable solution of the world’s greatest difficulty. The League apparently does not profess to have any plan of its own, but desires to pass on the problem to the King and his Council. The meeting on Saturday night does not appear to have been very helpful. There were only a few people present. There was practically no discussion. • Most people will be prepared to sign the petition to the King or any other authority which they think might be able to do something to benefit them, but more than that is required to deal with such a great subject as the abolition of poverty. The object of the League it was understood goes further than the mere signing of the petition. It is considered that everyone who so signs will necessarily give some thought to what they are signing and so produce a world-wide concentration on the subject, and that it is out of such concentration that the solution must come. Some of the best brains in the world have been and are still even more than ever working on the problem of how to bridge the gap between abundance and riches on the one side and abject poverty and want on the other. Tn New we ran only not feed and clothe all the people in our own country, but have abundance to spare for export to other countries, and yet we have between fifty ami sixty thousand on the ‘bread line.’ with the wolf of poverty always howling at the door and even the bulk of the producers constantly struggling to make ends .meet. We all know that this should not be so. In England, still the richest country in the world, there are about two million people who have to depend upon a dole to enable them to exist. It may be safely said that there is no more vital subject in the world to-day than that of the abolition of poverty. Yet at the Carterton meeting there were only fifteen people present to listen to anything that might be said on such a stupendous matter. This by no means implies that the people generally are not thinking on the subject. It may be that they regard a petition to the King as futile. Anyone who talks ‘to the man in the street,’ knows that the problem of bridging the gap between abundance and poverty is in the minds of all thinking men, and women too; but all is confusion as to the way the bridge can bo built. His Majesty the King is well known to be as much interested as anyone in this problem and the Prince of Wales is continually referring to it. Both will be heartily sympathetic with the object of the proposed petition, and it is possible that the King would respond to it and discuss the subject with his Privy Council; but the solution, after all, must come from the people and their Parliaments whatever leads King and Council may give. Another effort will be made to hold a meeting in Carterton when more interest in the subject may be shown. The object of the League is as stated to concentrate universal thought upon it. «ind so at last evolve “the bridge.” It cannot be beyond human intelligence to do so.” With many notable personages, including Major-General Sir Andrew Russell, interesting themselves in this movement it should command wide spread as well as effective support. A meeting in Waipukurau—despite the strong undercurrent of deep concern as to the “economic cleft-stick” in which many people find themselves —would not be likely to create an outward display of the real interest involved.