HOMES FOR WASTERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 6, 1 July 1911, Page 4

HOMES FOR WASTERS.

If Mew Zealand were not plagued with a too large proportion of wasters and wife deserters there would be no occasion for the resolution passed at the Hospitals Conference in regard to them. The waster has been a problem about which every Parliament in the civilised world has talked. He has been discussed by newspapers, charitable bodies anil churches. He has been blamed but never controlled. You may fine him t for drunkenness and send him to gaol, while his family starves; you may summon him for maintenance, which" is absurd, because you can't get money from an empty pocket. You may lecture him with as much effect as if lie were deaf. The only method we have of dealing with the waster is by punishment. In punishing a waster you punish his wite and family and the general public, out of whose pocket their means of sustenance must be ultimately found. You may move resolutions about him, but until you do something he will wax fat on idleness, and smile. The Hospital 'Conference's resolution suggests legislation whereby the waster shall be set "to work on State farms, in industrial home* and i;> other places of healthy restraint. At Hose places (should' Parliament have ; -mo to pass an Act in effect) the wast-'■r-i would be forced to earn money'they cannot spend. For many vears we have advocated this method as the-only fea.s'»le way„pf.lifting the intolerable burnoii from the SlfSitMero of ordinary pcowe aincerefojiope that at last

;i large proportion of waters are protected by those they use. Indeed, this phase is a constant wonder to all charitable bodies. The Imperial Conference discussed the question of federal legislation for the handling of wife deserters, and we are glad to ace that the New Zealand Hospital Conference has seized upon this fact to urge the Government to "take more active methods" in this matter and to set them to work. The waster and the wife deserter and the deserter of illegitimate children are all greater dangers than thieves. They are all thieves of the most malevolent type. And we hope that the time lias arrived for deeds — not words.