CHARITABLE AID BILL.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 323, 11 July 1889, Page 2

CHARITABLE AID BILL.

The fate of the Charitable Aid Bill, in its present form at any rate, may now be reckoned upon as having been sealed, for surely no important measure ever presented to parliament ha 3 produced such a chorus of disapprobation as this Bill. The keynote of the Bill may perhaps be drawn from the followins isgfract from Dr McGregor's report i “In my last year’s report I dealt mainly with the charitable institutions gf the colony, and especially with fhg abuses which are almost inseparable from the administration of outdoor relief. This year the fact that the whole question is to be brought under the consideration of Parliament, because pf certain amendments demanded by various hospitail districts, has led jne to

deals more fully with the general L problem of our hospital system. The ■ central difficulty of the whole question ( is that it raises the vexed question of ) town versus country. On the one ' hand it is maintained that everwhere . our social detritus drifts into the Iwgqf | towns —the unfortunate, the’ idle, and , the vicious, from the natural instincts i of their kind; and the sick poor of the superior advantages of the larger, hospitals. This fact, together with ajll its manifold complications, cannot be denied. All that can be done is |o point out that probably the most serious rock ahead of our civilization is precisely this fact —namely, that the whole tendency of our industrial organisation is to make the towns too attractive as compared with the country, and the townsfolk must make up their minds to put up with, at any rate, some of the drawbacks. Further the chief difficulty to be got over in the working of our charitable institutions is the impossibility of getting the taxpayers of the large towns, where the most lavish charity is dispensed, to take the least trouble to prevent, or even to try to hinder, the wholesale pauperisation that is going on. Nothing, I am persuaded, but the tax-gatherer at the door will make the towns organise themselves to stamp out the professional pauper, by separating, on full and discriminating inquiry, the sheep from the goats, the deserving from the undeserv-

ing poor. This is the key of the position which, if a determined assault were made on it now, before our towns have become too large, might be conquered once for all. But so long as the State gives money out of the consolidated fund, and allows the towns to tax the country, what hope is there that this problem will be seriously faced ?” From the above it will be observed that the Bill has not the remotest application to the circumstances of this district, but it would mean the thrusting upon us of a very heavy additional burden. The Borough Council took the proper course in protesting against the Bill, and the County Council very well make an informal resolution on the subject, at its special meeting to-morrow. One or two of the points raised in the course of the discussion at the Borough Council may be alluded to by us on a future occasion.