A PLEA FOR THE BOTTOM DOG.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1061, 8 February 1913, Page 4

A PLEA FOR THE BOTTOM DOG.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —My attention has just been directed to a paragraph in last Thursday’s issue of your paper, in which you mention the presence in the community of undesirable characters, and express an opinion that they “should be given notice to quit.’* It is usually a thankless task to hold a brief for the bottom dog, or to boldly interpret the inarticulate cry of the children of misfortune, but personally I have the deepest sympathy for the much maligned undesirable. And no man should judge him, for we cannot justly assess his culpability. We cannot know what degree of his mental and moral perversion may be due to the mysterious “laws of heredity, ’’ to the subversive influences of an evil environment, or to the iron heel of inexorable circumstances.

And who shall say if the sinner sins For the iove of the sin, or no ; Or whether he drift in ignorance Of the things that a man should know?

The lecherous drunkard with his unsalable thirst, or the social parasite with his effortless futility in the matter of work, is more to be pitied than blamed. Like the Oriental leper, he is “unclean,” and outcast from the cheerful hearths of honest men. He despairs alone, or drifts aimlessly through the deepening night

Towards that desolate shore Where the dreams of our childhood

Are vanished and o’er

But apart from the philosophical viewpoint, we should be able to devise some practicable scheme for the reformation of the “uudesirable.” As a national policy, we should cultivate a more intimately practical knowledge of Eugenics, or “the science of good breeding,” whilst we should have more restrictive power over uudesirable immigrants. In actual contact with undesirables, the local authorities should have unlimited power of interrogation. If a man has money, honestly derived, then in a conventional sense he is not undesirable. If a man is workless, then the State should find a market for his labour. If a man is friendless and unable to work, then the State should support him ; whilst, it a man will not work, the Stale is empowered to punish him under the Police Offences Act of 1908. This is not altruism, but national economy, aud although the people of the Mauawatu district may not breed wastrels, the policy of giving “notice to quit” is too narrow and parochial to have even palliative value, for it does nothing to lessen the magnitude of an evil which is inimical to the social aud industrial welfare of a great and progressive people. I am, etc., Jas. G. Graham. Foxtou, 5/2/13.