Mail Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 271, 21 February 1879, Page 2

Mail Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21.

Thb appalling amount of destitution which unhappily exists in Great Britain at the present time renders it especially opportune to consider certain questions which are more and more agitating the minds of philanthropists and political economists of the. day. How the distress has arisen, whether from England being subjected to more and more severe competition in the markets of the world, whether from the unreasonable demands of the wage-earning class, or the greed of capitalists, does not affect the question to which we purpose to devote a few lines of enquiry to-day. It is obvious that the distress is there, and that it is permeating upwards considerably beyond the class of workers who feel its first effect. A very numerous and important class of small traders, &c, subsist by the expenditure of wages amongst them. When this supply fails, not only are their means of subsistence cut off, but they have to bear an ever-increasing load of taxation imposed in order to afford relief to those more immediately, destitute.

As a rule, the " British workman " is anything but provident. The parable of the fat and lean kine has no application for him. A period of plentiful employment at high-wages is utilized, not to make provision against the hard times which may be expected to follow, but to enable to keep up " Saint Monday " in a jovial manner, and to indulge in luxuries utterly unattainable by the poor clerk or small tradesman. Then comes the inevitable turn of the wheel. Employment is scarce, wages fall, and at once thousands of men and their families are reduced to pauperism, in the train of which follow evils to themselves and all around them which it is hard to overestimate.

There is one kind of provision, however, which the better class of workman does endeavor to make. He attempts to provide against sickness and old age by joining some Friendly Society. "Alas ! in too many instances it is to be feared that he is trusting to a broken reed. The chief registrar's returns for England and Wales show that too many oi these institutions are drifting gradually into hopeless insolvency. His report says :—

" There are—in England, 1,524 societies, with 1,836,302 members, and in Wales. 134 societies, with 56,550 members, giving a total of 1,658 societies and 1,892,852 members, whose capital has dwindled down to below £1 per member, and in some societies to below Id per member."

The diminution of capital proves conclusively that the funds previously accumulated have been absorbed, and not only that, but that the subscriptions of younger members, instead of being invested for their own future, are being applied to the liquidation of present claims.

In view of this unsatisfactory state of affairs, the question naturally arises, what is best to be done to enable and induce the wage-earning classes to make a suitable provision for the future. Two answers have lately been supplied to this query, one in the shape of an address road before the Social Science Congress at Cheltenham by Mr J. S. Eandell, and another by an able article by the Eev. W. L. Blackley, in the " Nineteenth Century.

" Mr Blackley believes poor rates might be abolished and iutemperance materially lessened by ' compelling every man to bear his own share in the burden of natural providence, instead of allowing him to cast it on the shoulders of others. . And if, in the battle of society with vice, ignorance, and crime, it is justifiable to make education compulsory upon all, it is surely not less so to make providence a legal obligation upon all. Every human society in civilized countries is founded upon the principle of justice. • Remota itaque jusUtia,'lobßGTves St. Augustine,' quid sunt regna, nisimagna, latrocinia? . Now, it is obviously repugnant to justice that #ie industrious, the frugal, the sober, and the self-denying, should be charged with the maintenance of the idle, the thriftless, the drunken, and the self-indulgent. Yet such is the case, undeniably, in every country in Christendom. And society has a perfect right to say, ' This shall not be. If you—the lazy, the improvident, and the intemperate—choose to avail yourselves of the advantages conferred upon you in a well ordered community, you must not merely obey its laws, but conform to its code of morals, its industrial habits, and social usages. We will not endure a crushing load of taxation imposed upon us for the erection and support of hospitals, prisons, lunatic asylums, reformatories, i and orphanages, which are filled by such as you and yours. You claim all the rights of citizenship, and you must fulfil each of the duties it entails. If you will not do so voluntarily, you must be made.'"

Mr Randeli does not go so far as this, but proposes that the State shall provide

an organization and its own guarantee for enabling the wage-earning class to ..make provision against the inevitable rainy day. He contends—

" That for this purpose some easily acr cessible, and, beyond all doubt, secure assurance is necessary. That to cover the risks of early and middle life—the yeara, of work before capital is accumulated— assurance must be co-operative. That hv should be national, that being.thestrongest , co-operation, and the broadest, consequently the least fluctuating, basis we can command. That the classification should be numerous so as to include all varieties of age and all degrees of health., That it should be tabled to meet the requirements of the highest as well a* the lowest of the wage-earning classes, say from Is to 10s per. day. That the tables of payment should be such a3 to insure the society being self-supporting; and beyond this, the guarantee should be national—as in the case of the Post office Savings Bank— so as to make it as secure as the English funds. That with a reliable friendly society covering the kingdom, the test of • the house' could be more generally applied, and we might look forward with confidence to the present poor-law in the couree of a generation becoming inoperative, and to its being then regarded as an institution of the past. That the omnipresent establishment, the post-office, presents ready to hand the machinery for receiving weekly, monthly, or other periodical payments, and for handing over to members the sick pay that may from time to time be certified to be due to them."

It is satisfactory to think that here in New Zealand we have taken some steps in the direction indicated in the latter article. The Government Insurance Department offers a means by which every man not absolutely eaten up by selfishness can provide for those to come after him. The sacrifice of soma trifling luxury will save him from the degradation of leaving a wife and family " totally unprovided for." And yet how common the phrase is in the case of sudden deaths. Public opinion should express itself more strongly on this point than is the case at present. We have no hesitation in saying that the man who goes on from year to year exposing those dependent on him to this fearful risk, is committing a gross wrong not only to his family, but to society at large. He is failing in his duty as a husband, as a father, and as a citizen.

Though New Zealand has not as yet established a National Friendly Society, and though there may be considerable difficulties to be overcome before such an organization could be established (to the principle of the thing we see no manner of objection), yet our Legislature has made a step in the right direction by establishing a department having special charge of Friendly Societies. By means of the statistics collected by this department, the provident among the working classes will at any rate have a reasonable prospect of being able to. estimate the stability or otherwise of any given society. Periodical valuations are provided for, and more than all, the Government has caused to be prepared by competent persons tables shewing the contributions necessary to be made in order to ensure benefits of any description ordinarily granted by such societies.

The wage-earning classes in this country have exceptional advantages as compared with their brethren at home, but they should remember that no amount of constant employment and high wages will save them and their families from destitution and suffering unless accompanied on their own parts by a moderate exercise of self-denial and thrift. Let each head of a family make use of the means placed at his disposal for providing against unfortunate contingencies, and the charitable aid question will have received its most satisfactory solution, and will be heard of no more.