THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMVRI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, & FRIDAY. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1923. CHARITY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4530, 21 February 1923, Page 2

THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMVRI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, & FRIDAY. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1923. CHARITY.

A few (Jays ago a report of a day’s outing given to 500 children appeared in an Auckland daily. The spirit o,f charity in which the outing was organised was very beautiful, but the fact, that it was necessary to take 500 "poor children” put of a city like Auckland for a day in the country is pitiful. Progress, prosperity, and high prices—and yet, out o.f a town the size of Auckland 500' poor children (the' report states) have to be taken out to see the country. “With cries of delight,” it says, “they invaded the bush.” And “on arrival at the station each child was given a good-sized cake.” All this in New Zealand, “God’s Own Country,” the land of the free that hasn't a tenth of the populatipn that it should comifortably be able to support. What is wrong? What a splendid advertisement for the Dominion I In black type the report is headed “Poor Children’s Outing.” Surely it should be posted to the High Commissioner F or use in painting an alluring picture to would-be emigrants in the Old Country. Think of it. Fancy the High Commissioner saying: “The land of the golden fleece awaits you all—and your poor children will be sent but to “invade the bush” instead of having an annual outing to ChingFord, Epping Forest, or Hamstead Heath.” Truly, our city contemporaries are marvellous propagandists. They are experts at. advertisingdrapery. How “poor” were the children ? Were they really “poor,” or was it a Sunday School picnic ? If they were poor in the sense of poverty then it is time that the men who have been grumbling at increased telephone charges directed their thoughts into more useful channels. In a country like New Zealand theie should not be 500 “poor children” in any ono town that are so povertystricken as to require a day in the country out of charity. It must be assumed that the 500 did not include all the '‘poor children,” probably not a quarter of them. The report is either misleading or truthful. If it is truthful it makes pathetic reading in contrast to the market reports in the same:issue wherein high prices are reported fpr butter and other produce. In adjoining columns thie head-

ings are: “Last M/C.C. Match” ; “The Voice of Russia, A Cry of. Despair”; and "Racing Club Taxation, Plea for Reduction, Premier Promises Rlelicf.” It’s pitiful—and bad business. Those 500 children arc the best investment New Zealand could have—and chanty has to provide them with a day’s outing. If the report is misleading it should immediately be retracted. The discussions that have taken place at various meetings of chambers of commerce throughout the Dominion on the new telephone charges do not reflect credit on the commercial men belonging to those bodies; Intellectually, in fact, the majority of the members have only succeeded in showing that they are little better than a mob of spoilt children. They wanted a new toy. something to pull to pieces and destroy, and the telephone proposals supplied it. The charges were going to ruin business. They were monstrous. They had not been consulted, these levelheaded business men, consequently the system proposed could not be workable. That was how they first viewed the proposals, hence the uproar. But. children who cry because a new toy will not squeak ultimately express pleasure when they discover that there are wheels that go round, or some other attractive feature that they at first overlooked. In a similar way the protests against the hew telephone charges died down, and the Wellington Chamber of Commerce expressed its approval. Now the Auckland Chamber has taken similar action. Presently everyone will “ toll into line,” and wonder why there was “much ado about nothing.”