CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS BILL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5102, 31 July 1877, Page 3

CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS BILL.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir, —Having bad considerable experience in the administration of the Poor Law Act in the mother country, and subsequently in the management of a benevolent institution in New Zealand, I have perused with much care and interest the Charitable Institutions Bill now before Parliament, and also your report of the recent debate on the subject. Notwithstanding the criticisms to which the Bill has been subjected, I am convinced that if passed into law its provisions will entirely suit the present circumstances and wants of the colony, and that the principles upon which those provisions are based will receive the cordial approval of the men who. in our several provincial districts have taken a practical interest in those institutions that will be affected by the Bill. It was a very noteworthy feature of the recent debate that the opposition to the Bill seemed to come almost wholly from gentlemen who have had no experience of the working of any of the existing subsidised institutions which have been managed by a committee of the subscribers, and that the heartiest approval came from members who have had practical acquaintance with such institutions in their own several localities.

Like your “Victorian” correspondent in yonr issue of this morning, I should like to give some particulars as to the charitable institutions in the part of New Zealand with which I am best acquainted. In Dunedin there are a hospital for the sick, an industrial school or juvenile reformatory, a female refuge, and a benevolent institution. The first two institutions have as yet been wholly maintained by Government ; the refuge entirely by voluntary contributions, and the benevolent institution from subscriptions subsidised by Government on the £ for £ principle. The Bill is intended, I presume, to meet the cases of all such institutions as X have named—except the reformatory, and, under it, I see no reason why an asylum for inebriates might not also be established. This is a matter worthy of the consideration of Good Templars, who, in addition to their creditable efforts to prevent the evils of intemperance, might through their powerful organisation adopt measures for the restoration of those who have already become its victims. The provisions of the Bill exactly suit the circumstances of the Otago Benevolent Institution, and by means of them it could be carried on even more satisfactorily and successfully than heretofore, because not only will the managers receive the same amount of subsidy as formerly, but by being incorporated they will have a legal status and powers conferred upon them, the want of which in the past has sometimes seriously interfered with their usefulness. ITrom the views expressed at the successive annual meetings by the committee and subscribers, I can confidently affirm that the taking over of the institution wholly by the Government would be regarded by those who have long taken a practical interest in its affairs as fraught with very dangerous and deplorable consequences to the moral and social well-being of the community. The following are the principles by which the committee are guided in carrying ont the objects of the institution. Every possible effort is made to ensure that sufficient aid, in a suitable form, is bestowed on all who are really in need of it, and every precaution is adopted to prevent any of the funds' from being expended in such a manner as to encourage laziness, improvidence, or misconduct. The committee most vigilantly guard against doing anything that would tend towards the formation of a class of permanent or hereditary paupers ; also against the possibility of the institution being the means of leading anyone to’calculateon receiving assistance, and thus to indulge the more freely in idle and thriftless habits. Except in the case of the aged and the permanently disabled, the utmost care is taken to secure that the relief granted is of as temporary a character as possible, it being believed that the poor are best served by being raised out of their poverty, and not by being nursed in it. Relief is afforded by receiving into the institution poor persons who are likely to be permanently disqualified from earning a living, or whose cases can be best met in this manner, and also by the judicious distribution of outdoor relief to individuals and families where the causes of destitution are not of a permanent character, or where it is not deemed advisable that the recipients should reside in the institution. Gan anyone doubt that these are the true principles according to which charitable relief ought to be bestowed, and that they are much more likely to be carried out judiciously and successfully by a local committee of gentlemen chosen for their special fitness, as in Dunedin and elsewhere, than by any department of the State, however efficiently organised ? The Otago institution has as yet received orphans and destitute children, as well as adults, but the number of the former is being gradually reduced. At the last annual meeting the committee recommended that a separate institution should be opened for the reception and training of orphans and other destitute children free from the criminal taint, so that those of vicious and depraved habits only

ahould be committed to the Government reformatory. Mr. Kexd’s Bill would enable the committee to carry out this proposal, and thus do away with what has been regarded as a great evil—the crowding together of children of both classes in the same institution. The committee have hitherto been able to carry on their work satisfactorily with the funds voluntarily contributed, aided an equal amount from Government, and I am certain they could also estabbsh and carry on industrial school with the same amount of subsidy : but I am not so sure that the people of Otago would be able also at the outset to meet by voluntary subscriptions the half of the expenses of the Dunedin Hospital. I have no doubt, however, of their being yet educated up to this point; but meanwhile it would be necessary, I fear, to grant a larger proportion than one-half of the cost—say two-thirds. But I sincerely trust that Parliament will resolve that the people in the several districts in the colony shall contribute a certain proportion of the coat of their charitable institutions, and that, subject to efficient inspection, these institutions shall be managed by a committee of the contributors. It is a libel on the people of New Zealand to contend that in all the more important centres of population a sufficient number of subscribers could not be obtained, and competent administrators secured, to carry on all needful charitable institutions under the provisions proposed by the Bill* which, if passed into law and fairly worked, would secure that no one within our should perish for lack of food, shelter, or medical aid, while at the same time the community would be preserved from those numerous evils which are now very generally admitted to be the fruits of the compulsory poor law system of relief which has so long and with such disastrous results prevailed in the mother country. —I am, &c., July 3Q. Alter.