Charitable Aid.

Manawatu Herald, 22 February 1898, Page 2

Charitable Aid.

(Contributed.)

Philanthrophy in New Zealand is greatly exercised at the present time over the question of Charitable Aid. Poverty with its consequent immorality baa assumed proportions bo great that public opinion has actually been voiced to call meetings. Righteous indignation armed with sheets of paper and lengthy speeches, will no doubt draw our attention for a day or two, from the great object

of making money, until something more io our taste crops up ; when misery will hide its head, and muscular poverty will still stalk the country, wondering why it is unable to make this naturally rich and fertile land shoot forth plenty.

The question before the Charitable Aid Bodies is : " How to provide for the increasing number of poor?" But while for the present, leaving this point to be settled or not settled, by the bodies immediately interested, we would draw attention to another question, namely : " How is it that in this new country, capable of enoimous developement, there are so many, or any poor ? If the cause or even one of the causes of poverty can be discovered and abolished, then the question of supporting a reduced number will be easier to deal with ; and to study the effect of anything without the cause is to half understand it.

In reply to this question, we have been told that the poor are those individual's who have been lazy and thriftless and therefore suffer the consequences of their own faults; yet do we find lazier and more extravagant amongst the rich, many of whom squander more money in a year than a poor man squanders in a | life time, and who often boast that his ancestors for generations have produced nothing. Our experience ;n the employment of numbers of men in the country is, that there are hundreds of young hard working men unable to do more than make a living through irregularity of employment and other causes over which they have no control, who in old sge will have to give place to younger men, and, as far as wa can see, live 09 charity ; and we are told that many of the young men one sees in the towns, are receiving salaries which enable them to barely keep up the appearance their employers require, who are living in hope of receiving a managership for which there are often twenty aepiranls of the same age. At the came time we find our legislators wondering why our young people do not marry, and actually suggesting that a tax be imposed on the bachelor who has too much respect for a woman to make her a slave, and possibly the mother of paupers. Here we have a country of sixtyseven million " acres with a population of about 700,000, an area a little less than Great Britain and Ireland, which has upwards of 40,---000,000, and yet we are told by some that the country is over-popu-lated and that this country is another illustration of the story of Malthus. At the came time ask the farmers why they do not produce more of the necessaries of life, why do they leave large tracts of lend in an unproductive state ? and they will tell you that there is no demand for it, that the country is suffering from over production, and that the produce of the country could be increased several fold in a fciuglo year if the demand pprar.g up So that we are told ly one claes that this country is Buffering hem poverty, because it i 3 producing too much wealth ; surely an amazing *taUrn<nt ! — and by another class, that we have not sufficient capital to employ the excess of population in developing the country ; which means that we are suffering bolh from over production and overpopulation at the fame time ; which is incredible. We are also told that the intioducticn of machinery causes poverty. Serious strikes and riots eccumd in England on the introduotion of cotton machinery, the workers foreseeing that they would be thrown out of employment. And there can be no doubt that the effect of labour saving machinery has been' to throw labour out of employment, therefore a means of living. iJwt the country quickly percieves tbat commodities become cheaper when machinery is used in their production, and argues that therefore it is richer, blind to the fact that it) is enriched at the expense of labour discharged. Let us take an example. Fifty men inhabiting an island get their living by growing wheat and making bread, but they get possession of a machine tbat will do the same work requiring only two of their number to supervise it. Surely then 48 of them will be able to live at ease aud enjoy the produce of the machine, taking it in turns to do the work, cr they will depute two of their number to do the work, giving them some extra advantages. But suppose the island belonged to one of them, and he employed the other 49, we then find that instead of the workers enjoying advantages to compensate for their labour, they have all the disadvantages ; and the inventor of a machine must treat with the owner of the land to be allowed to procure the raw material to work on, or even to introduce the machine on to his property,

(To be continued.)