THE POOR AND NEEDY.

White Ribbon, Volume 24, Issue 283, 18 January 1919, Page 11

THE POOR AND NEEDY.

(To the Editor.) Mad.im, —The war and the epidemic have opened our eyes to a lot of things. But thev have shown most that our social methods require a lot of altering. The general conditions of “the poor and needy” are a blot on our common-sense and moral professions. It does seem to me most unjust that because a child is born of certain parents, he should be penalised. We all profess to believe that we are the children of the Creator, and to exemplify our profession we should at least try to see that all children born get fair treatment. We arc all failures, and because a child is born of parents who are also financial failures, it is not his fault, and he should not be penalised. Which preludes that, I consider that we should humanise our treatment of all the ag-°d, invalid, widows and children. It is a dr°adful thing to know that because of “red-tape regulations” certain aged infirm must die paupers. It is dreadful also to think that invalids and widows should he • punished for being invalids or widows. It is distressing to think that children should have their lives warped because they hap’x ned to be born of certain parents. The aged, infirm and widows should have a sufficient j ension. Everything the children need should be guaranteed by the State, and provided. Those who are financial failures should be helmed by a paternal public on scientific self-help lines, by granting them th<* use of our collective credit. As Wolff puts it, “the poor are poor because they get no credit, and they get no credit because they are poor.” The land should be “humanised” so that no man could withhold the land from the poor, and no man could hold more land than he really needed or worked properly. Of course, any scheme for the improving of the conditions of the poor and needy, or anybody °lse, would be greatly hampered if not mad'' ineffective without Prohibition. Those who do not believe in Prohibition should read the “Ten Commandments” and see how many of them are not prohibitory. We talk of a League of Nations to keep the peace. But how can any oeace be built up on a substratum of undeserved poverty, and how can anv man be self respecting and a lover of peace who is not a free man, and how can any man be a free man who has not an inalienable right to a portion of Clod’s earth, and what impulse has a m »n to go to war when he is hanpv enough in his own olace? —T am. etc., S \M. A. BROWNE. Clevcdon, Auckland,