The Daily News. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13. THE ARMY OF WASTERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 132, 13 September 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13. THE ARMY OF WASTERS.

Lord Islington, in eulogising religious and other bodies who make a splendid specialty of catering for the youth of the country, touched a subject of deep importance. He said that the Presbyterian Social Service Association, with other bodies allied in this particular branch of work, was "proving an effective check upon the unwholesome progress of social wasting throughout the Dominion." It is a simple truth that the environments of childhood frequently mould the life of the adult, so that with physically good material to work on the organisation that cares for and ■watches children past the portals of youth, and which keeps them well and wholesomely employed, is helping to build a great nation. The term "waster" is generally accepted as one meaning a person who has become mornlly incapable of working honestly. Any person, either rich or poor, who does not justify his existence by giving an actual return to the world which nurtures hiin is a waster. The person who produces nothing is as much a waster as the person who pilfers what others have produced. It is impossible to guarantee that all youHg! individuals brought up in an atmosphere of honesty and hard work will be either honest or hardworking, but it is possible to guarantee that the removal of youngsters from evil environment will give a decent percentage of useful, honest lives. One cannot, for instance, take a boy from evil surroundings and place him in sweet and honest company, with labor to match, and claim that possible good results are the effect of any system of philanthropy, but one can do these good acts knowing that it is the duty and privilege of the strong to help the weak on the offchance. The Governor said: "Every child born into the ranks of the social wasters was detracting from national efficiency." This accusation is, of course, too sweeping, and if it were quite feasible, it would be unnecessary for the Social Service Institutions and the Salvation Army to deal with failures. "Like father, like son," is not necessarily true. A dull father may have a bright boy, a slatternly mother a smart daughter, a well-living, person an evil child. Nature goes on her irrevocable, way, ! whatever societies may exist, but na- | ture fits her handiwork to its enrironIment, and her handiwork very frequently has no chance of choosing the environment likely to give it its most perfect development. The Governor quite naturally refrains from hurting the feelings of any class, and did not mention that many wasters are made by the ease with which questionable occupations in- , crease and multiply. "Compulsory service"—not in its military sense—is the finest antidote to social wastage, and every man who has the ability to work should not only be made to do so, but it should be a national impossibility for him to be workkss. The majority of wasters —those unable or unwilling to work—are in reality physical tragedies, knowing frequently nothing of the causes that produce inability to toil or repulsion of it. So that the basis of our social reform lies in the physical health of the individual. Eugenists of eminence and most medical men hold that the average infant born into this world alive has as good a chance of longevity and usefulness at the day of its birth as any other infant, if it is carefully tended afterwards; and careful tending) means good food and fresh air, light, sunshine, physical freedom, pure water, honest environment and human sympathy. The process that will eliminate dirt, disease and unemployment will eliminate the waster. It is a huge task to reform the adult waster—almost an impossible one—but the possibility is that he started as well on hifl first birthday as anybody else. The prevention of waste is much more reasonable than dealing with it in its developed stage. The Governor satd, with force and reason, that no matter who came to New Zealand and from whence, the New Zealand born would set the standard for all. The infant New Zealander has a better chance of life than any other infant. It is the duty of every normal adult New Zealander to do everything in his power to disseminate the gospel of physical and mental health. Every adult may have the making or marring of young lives—and no decent person desires that any young New Zealand'er, from any cause, shall be dubbed "a waster."