7 2 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Several motives have prompted this brief narrative. One is the 

 wish to prove that sympathy with the people and self-sacrificing ef- 

 forts on their behalf do not necessarily imply approval of gratuitous 

 aids. Another is the desire to show that benefit may result, not from 

 multiplication of artificial appliances to mitigate distress, but, con- 

 trariwise, from diminution of them. And a further purpose I have 

 in view is that of preparing the way for an analogy. 



Under another form and in a different sphere, we are now yearly 

 extending a system which is identical in nature with the system of 

 "make-wages" under the old poor-law. Little as politicians recog- 

 nize the fact, it is nevertheless demonstrable that these various public 

 appliances for working-class comfort, which they are supplying at the 

 cost of rate-payers, are intrinsically of the same nature as those which, 

 in past times, treated the farmer's man as half -laborer and half -pauper. 

 In either case the worker receives, in return for what he does, money 

 wherewith to buy certain of the things he wants ; while, to procure 

 the rest of them for him, money is furnished out of a common fund 

 raised by taxes. What matters it whether the things supplied by 

 rate-payers for nothing, instead of by the employer in payment, are 

 of this kind or that kind ? the principle is the same. For sums re- 

 ceived let us substitute the commodities and benefits purchased ; and 

 then see how the matter stands. In old poor-law times, the farmer 

 gave for work done the equivalent, say of house-rent, bread, clothes, 

 and fire ; while the rate-payers practically supplied the man and his 

 family with their shoes, tea, sugar, candles, a little bacon, etc. The 

 division is, of course, arbitrary ; but unquestionably the farmer and 

 the rate-payers furnished these things between them. At the present 

 time the artisan receives from his employer in wages the equivalent 

 of the consumable commodities he wants ; while from the public 

 comes satisfaction for others of his needs and desires. At the cost of 

 rate-payers he has in some cases, and will presently have in more, a 

 house at less than its commercial value ; for of course when, as in 

 Liverpool, a municipality spends nearly 200,000 in pulling down and 

 reconstructing low-class dwellings, and is about to spend as much 

 again, the implication is that in some way the rate-payers supply the 

 poor with more accommodation than the' rents they pay would other- 

 wise have brought. The artisan further receives from them, in school- 

 ing for his children, much more than he pays for ; and there is every 

 probability that he will presently receive it from them gratis. The 

 rate -payers also satisfy what desire he may have for books and 

 newspapers, and comfortable places to read them in. In some cases 

 too, as in Manchester, gymnasia for his children of both sexes, as 

 well as recreation - grounds, are provided. That is to say, he ob- 

 tains, from a fund raised by local taxes, certain benefits beyond those 

 which the sum received for his labor enables him to purchase. The 

 sole difference, then, between this system and the old system of 



