The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1888. CHARITABLE AID.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2815, 4 February 1888, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1888. CHARITABLE AID.

If the North Wairarapa Benevolent Society had not already to all practical iutonts and purposes collapsed, the present visit of the official inspector, Dr. Macgregor, would have probably been sufficient to extinguish it. No doubt his report, when it does appear, will give the Sooiety its last kick. It is rumored that the Inspector, finding the affairs of the Institution all sixes and sevens, has made such an exhaustive investigation of them that the Trustees themselves are aghast at the situation, The books, it is said, are unposted, the voluntary subscriptions unoolleoted, and the distribution of charitable aid unsatisfactory. All this is not complimentary to the Trustees who have administered its affairs, and it may possibly be deemed that they have in some instances been guided more by benevoleut impulses than by sound judgment, that they have lent too willing an 6»' to all tales of distress, and as, long as they had money available to alleviate misfortune, given applicants the benefit of any doubt which might exist as to their circumstances or character. That the Society has made a failure is evident, but that the breakdown is the direct result of inefficient administration does not altogether follow. There are on the i North Wairarapa Trust some very good business men, and the.Society | certainly had in its management a few hard heads as a set off against its supj ply of benevolent hearts. The failure appears to us rather to be due. to tl]e inherent defects of tho Charitable Aid Act. This measure combines two antagonistic principles, a poor jaw being one and a voluntary relief the other. The Inspeotor, au exceedingly able officer, is the type of the one, the Eev, gentleman at the bead oi the Trust fairly represents the other. As we anticipated when the late Ministry framed this singularly injudicious Act, the poor law section of the measure has, in this district at least, killed the voluntary section of it. In the future in Masterton the administration of poor relief will be, no doubt, a business from which all sentiment will ba rigidly excluded. Our voluntary Benevolent Sopiety is now a thing of the past. Prior to the passing of the new Charitable Aids Act it did good work in this town in a jrind and sympathetic manner. The new measure put.it on a fresh footing,

and started it uuder new conditions,' under which it has simply collapsed. No one will now be found' willing to resuscitate it on the voluntary principle, or serve it as a trustee. Private citizens in Masterton, however willing they may be to act as stewards of a voluntary Charitable Aid Society, will refuse to act when they have to take the position of poor law guardians, when they have to levy compulsory rates, and satisfy the requirements of : a lynx-eyed Inspector and a red tape Governmental bureau. The new Act imposed upon. the Trustees arbitary responsibilities which they could not well meet without the aid of a rate. They no sooner resorted to this rate to make both ends meet than they found they had killed their voluntary income, and that their functions as a voluntary body had virtually ceased,