THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1907. A PAUPERISING PROCESS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9021, 7 January 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1907. A PAUPERISING PROCESS.

The distribution of charitable aid as it is carried on by Benevolent Trustees and similar organisations throughout the dominion bids fair to become a greater evil than it has hitherto been a more or less recognised good. It is a deplorable fact that the continued general prosperity of the country finds an ever-increasing demand upon the funds of the charitable institutions, and the natural deduction from this is that a considerable section of the community is becoming pauperised. From all parts of the dominion there are serious complaints of the scarcity of labour, and the hundreds of immigrants that have been arriving in New Zealand of late have found no difficulty in securing profitable employment. Yet in face of this fact the expenditure upon charitable aid to our own people goes up and ever up. This has been shown by official reports published in the different centres. The secretary to the Wellington Benevolent Trustees has reported to the Board that taking the period of eight months from April Ist to November 30th, 1907, the issue of rations had increased by 56 per cent, over the corresponding period of the previous year, and that a larger amount was expended in aid of rents than formerly. A somewhat similar state of things has been experienced by the North Canterbury Charitable Aid Board, and the chairman at the annual meeting pointed out that while on the one hand there were deserving objects of charity who would not allow their wants to be known even to their own friends,

there were numerous others, with a disinclination to work, whose ambition was to get "someihing for nothing but the asking," and who, if they were in want, were in want owing to causes within their own control. A (Jhristchurch contemporary, referring to the present position of affairs, sayg:—"The truth is that our system of outdoor relief, without any sort of labour test in the case of ablebodied persons applying for assistance, is breeding up a race of inveterate pauperb in this country, and, if it is not reformed, will land us in very serious difficulties—exactly as did the old Poor Law in England, which ic closely resembles. . . . Nothing has been more clearly proved than the fact that the plan of giving outdoor relief to sturdy, ablebodied applicants is a sure way to destroy any chance of a return to selfI reliance on the pert of the individual so relieved, and gradually to pauperise the community." There is much force in these remarks, and our contemporary fully endorses the opinion expressed in tho "Age" some time ago when dealing with this question, that the whole system of charitable aid in the dominion should be gone into by the Legislature without delay with the object of reforming it altogether.