How is Poverty to be Met?

First, I wish to say a few words in reference to some of Mr Green's remedies, because I wish to apply the same principle in dealing with Major Atkinson'8 or any other scheme. I do not believe in State interference in reference to becoming a publican any more than the State interfering in reference to dealing out sick-pay. I believe that if the State became the publican—the vendor of liquor—you would not stop drunkenness to any appreciable extent; and you would have other attendant evils, just the same as you have other attendant evils wherever the State interferes with what should be left to individual effort. In reference to a State paper issue, I will tell you what a paper issue means, or how far it could do any good. The only effect of a paper issue, supposing the Colony had a bank of issue, would be this: If instead of the banks issuing bank-notes, the Government did so, seeing that the banks issue only about a million a year, it would save £40,000 or £50,000 in interest. That is all that could be saved, because we have got to pay for things outside the Colony, and people outside the Colony will not take our banknotes except they can get them exchanged or recognised beyond our Colony. Therefore to issue more paper money in this Colony would have no effect further than bank-notes now have in the Colony—simply for the purpose of exchange. You would only save the interest on the money, which I believe would only amount to £40,000 or £50,000 a year. But you would have other attendant evils, because the tendency of every Colonial Treasurer in difficulties would be to use the printing-press, quite careless of the effect that would be produced a few months afterwards. I wish to point out, before I leave this question, two dangers in reference to Major Atkinson's scheme, one of which has been entirely overlooked in any criticism I have seen of it. One great evil would be that all our young people at 16 or 18—I mean those of the labouring classes who have not large means, and who could not pay those various sums to the Colonial Treasurer—would at once have to turn to some profitable employment. What does that mean? It means in one respect that no poor person's children would have a chance of higher education, because if they had at once to turn to work for their living they would be deprived of the chance of attending the higher schools. I say that is a danger existing even now in this Colony. As soon as youths come to the age of 16 they are removed from school and set to work. Some of the brightest boys who, if they were sent to the grammar schools and university, might become ornaments to the Colony, are sent to drudge for a living, and on account of the poverty of their parents they have no chance of attaining to high distinction.— (Cheers.) If we have this evil at present among us, I say it would be intensified tenfold if the Major's scheme were carried out. Then, I say, the standard of living must be necessarily lowered. If you have the people living up to a certain standard, and if they get less money to live on, they must lower their standard of living. What does that mean? It means either worse lodging, or worse food, or worse clothing, or less amusement. You cannot, the Major says, pet nothing out of nothing. Therefore, where is this money to come from? It must either come out of the savings of the people, or out of their expenditure. If it comes from the saving people, they would save their money in any case, and make a better use of it than by handing it over to the Colonial Treasurer, who will disburse it perhaps among those who are not provident. Now Major Atkinson gave us four causes of poverty—bad laws, want of thrift, over-population, and crime. I think the causes are different. I say the first cause is State interference with human rights.— (Cheers.) The second cause is physical weakness; third, mental weakness; fourth, moral weak- page 9 ness; and fifth, poverty—because I say that poverty produces poverty. Physical weakness is a cause of poverty when men cannot do the work that is obtainable; mental weakness may, perhaps, produce a want of ability to save, the person having no self-control; and that is included in moral weakness, such as giving way to drink an other vices. If you agree that these are the causes of poverty, I ask, how are they to be remedied? Will they be remedied by paying 15s a week to people when they are sick, and paying them 10s a week when they are over 65 years of age? The thing is perfectly ridiculous. First get at the causes. First remove bad laws. First have your land system changed; have your taxation system changed. Ana you must have your voting system changed to do that. Do not imagine that our Constitution is perfect. Do you call that a perfect Constitution which permits a man who has perhaps £25 worth of land in each ward in a city to vote for four members of Parliament, while a man with £5000 worth of property in one ward has only one vote? Do you think that a perfect system which gives encouragement to faggot votes? I don't. Again, do you consider it a perfect system of government—and here, I say, is an instance of bad laws interfering with human rights—where there is no attention paid to the laws of health, and where we have preventible diseases in all the large cities. I took up a Christchurch paper the other day and read a report of the medical officer of the Christchurch Board of Health. I do not know what our Mayor does with the Dunedin reports; they are very rarely published. I find that there were a vast number of preventible diseases in Christchurch—something like from 150 to 200 cases of actually preventible diseases; and the medical officer shows how they could be prevented. Through disregard of the first laws of health there had been typhoid fever, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and other fevers; and I say that in all our Colonial cities our attention as citizens has not been half devoted to this question. If we wish to get rid of the sickness we now suffer in this healthy clime, we must pay some attention to the laws of health; and that is one way of getting rid of poverty.— (Applause.) Further, we must pay attention in the education of the young to training them up to habits of thrift. I do not believe you can teach people thrift between the ages of 16 and 20 or 23 and 28. I say you must begin with the children. Some of those now present know that the late Mr Dalrymple, Miss Dalrymple, myself, and others fought to get savings banks established in the schools, so that children from the earliest ages might learn habits of thrift and self-reliance.— (Applause.) Yet what have we done in this respect? I believe that throughout the whole province there is hardly one savings bank yet established in connection with our schools. Then we must also have the children taught lessons of physiology, so that they may attend to their health; and if we wish also to see them well educated, and to get rid of one of the greatest vices of the Colony—drinking—we must teach them temperance. I fought, and others fought, to introduce into the schools temperance lesson-books, so as to teach the children in their earliest years—not to leave it until they are 16 or 23 years of age—the duty of abstaining from anything that will injure them physically, mentally, or morally.— (Cheers.) I believe that that is the only way in which social reform can be obtained. I ask you to cast your eyes on history, and see how social reform has been obtained in the past. As a race, what enormous advances we have made! If we go back, for example, to the time of the Plantagenets, and look at what even the king had to put up with: no glass in his windows, no paper on his walls. He had no fine Turkish carpets; he had no railroads, no telephones, no telegraphs. Why, he did not live half as well as a large merchant in our town. And if you go further back, just consider the Cave man—or what is termed by geologists the River Drift Man — and see what enormous advances humanity has made. I ask you, how have these advances been made? They have not been made by a short cut of 15s per week. They have been made by raising the standard of living, by training the individual, and they have not been obtained right away. I say to those who think that one or two generations, or three generations, will get rid of this question of poverty, which has existed for ages, or this question of intemperance, which has existed for ages, that they are trusting to a rope of sand.