ADMINISTERING CHARITABLE AID.

Western Star, Issue 2118, 29 May 1897, Page 3

ADMINISTERING CHARITABLE AID.

In Mrs Grace Neill's report regarding the distribution of charitable aid, she says : "After personally visiting in their homes so many of the cases getting relief, I am more than ever convinced that the existing mode of out-door relief encourages a cancerous growth of pauperism and many other social evils." After referring to the indiscriminate Granting of charitable aid, the jeport conoludes in the following words:— " It seems co me that we are in need of a fixed (rinoiple as a starting point f<om which to work. Is the charitable aid board and, through it the administrative body, the benevolent trust, deputed by the State and ratepayer to relieve destitution or to alleviate poverty ? If the former we may hope to. minimise pauperism and help upwards honest struggling distress. If the latter we may as well try to fill a sieve with wat' r. Until infirmity, intemperance and inaolence be abolished poverty will never cease. The charitable aid board is trustee for a fund compulsorily levied, not a dispenser of the alms of the philanthropic and benevolent. It is bound, therefore, to study the highest welfare of the community whilst relieving the destitution of the individual. On the other baud, Cuu. passionate relitf of the deserving poor can only be fairly dealt with by voluntary contributions, unaided by State money. We seem to start wrong from a want of clear distinction between these two functions."