The Daily News TUESDAY, MAY 15. SOMETHING FOR NOTHING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8110, 15 May 1906, Page 2

The Daily News TUESDAY, MAY 15. SOMETHING FOR NOTHING.

In no country is the expert beggar more in evidence than in New Zealand, where " poverty is unknown." One does not know, for instance, who is tho motive power in most oi' the numerous purse of sovereigns fmictions, nor who is the instigator of the übiquitous subscription list that is so familiar a feature of colonial life, Public begging for a person who is not a pauper is one of the deplorable features of life in New Zealand. Does a man who has " money to burn " de sire to go on a trip Home ? Giw hiin an illuminated address and a purse of sovereigns, Has he been Home and arrived safely back ? Give him a " social" and a present. Why ? Mainly because he has had a better time than the people who subscribe. Why do the people subscribe? Well, put it this way. Black is a friend of the proposed beneficiary. Black is a prominent citizen. He heads the list with five pounds. White, who is an eminently respectable person, and just as good 'a man as Black, cannot allow Black to appear to greater advantage in f .he eyes of the world than himself. Black makes the running, and White follows suit. If Black made the running five shillings, White would also make his sub. five shillings. It is the threepenny bit in the collection-plate all over again. Most people would rather put their Sunday donation in a nice, quiet, baize-lined box than in an open metal plate which records the humble "threepenny" with such faithfulness, and in which the coin can be seen.

* * # * The frowsy person who stops the well-tailored citizen on the side-walk and asks for alms is in danger of gaol. The well-tailored one might cheerfully trot around a subscription list for the benefit of a public man earning a thousand pounds a year, Getting something for nothing is a very natural instinct, but it is an instinct that if allowed to grow will mak« beggars of a broad-clothed nation. A public man, not long ago, had no difficulty in getting the sum of over a thousand pounds raised for him as a token of sympathy. A widowed woman in the same city publicly thanked, through the press, the generous people who had subscribed the noble sum of one guinea to console her for the loss of her house and chattels by fire, You see the poor woman could not reciprocate either in kind or in service. There would be no flaunting white shirt fronts, and none of the terrible backscratching that becomes a greater fester in New Zealand every year, at lief thanksgiving.

The insincerity apparent at public functions, engineered to give credit and monetary gifts to men who are well paid for the work they do, makes such functions crawlsome. Many a man in this country owes a fat billet to back-scratching at such a function and a judicious item in a subscription list. There was a public servant a while ago to whose ears came the knowledge that a subscription list in his honour was in course of circulation. Ho merely said that in the position he had occupied he had been paid for the services lie had rendered, and he would receive nothing else. He was a rara avis. There was also a public servant who permitted the erection of tables in the public streets, with subscription boxes on them, in order that the people who had not seen a subscription list might not pa*s the tables by. If a povertystricken person dared to pass a box round for his own aggrandisement in this fashion, the first policeman going that way way would collect him and his box. And we live in a democratic country. * * » * 1

Begging starts in high places. The spirit of begging, is inculcated into the people per medium of tlie general borrowing policy. The State having money in hand, distributes it to those districts whose people have the best beggars for representatives. The M.H.R. needs to be abl.e to magnetise money towards his particular section of this country. Why should not ho beg? Everybody else does. Morally, it is just as right for the mendicant to go from door to door with his tale of woe begging for pennies, as it is for parties in the cause of a public man to roar out a list of his virtues to the people in order to influence them to raise a purse of sovereigns for him. The people don't give to frock-coated beggars because they recognise the virtues of a beneficiary. They give because Black and White and Green gave, and they don't like to appear mean. Getting something for nothing is sheer greed, and it's the kind of greed that is eating into tlie heart of New Zealand, thanks entirely to the bad example of men who ought to be ashamed of themselves.