19 



charitable purposes lias increased to so serious an extent, ancT 

 will probably be still further augmented. 



Since these remarks were written I have met with the 

 following passage in an article entitled " The secular studies 

 of the Clergy," in Tlie Gontemporarij Review for December, 

 1871. The writer is speaking of the value of various secular 

 studies to clergymen : — " So too with political economy. I 

 suppose no one can be blind to the terrible evil of English 

 pauperism, but 1 am afraid a majority of the English clergy 

 through their ignorance of political economy, are quite blind to 

 the large share they have in maintaining and propagating that 

 pauperism by their unwise and indiscriminate almsgiving, which 

 is as far removed as possible from true charity. The same 

 Apostle who wrote that famous panegyric of charity which 

 has commended itself to the heart of all Christendom, is also 

 he who has laid down the stern rule, * He that would not 

 work, neither should he eat.' The fatal encouragement of 

 sloth and dirt, of lying and theft, of ignorance and disease, 

 from generation to generation, through clerical neglect of 

 this Apostolic law, has done incalculable harm to the 

 morality and progress of the country. And, on the other hand. 

 Canon Girdlestone^s example has taught us that a careful 

 observance of the laws of political economy may enable a man 

 to confer permanent benefits on his poorer neighbours, instead 

 of merely giving them continual and useless sops ; for he 

 struck at the root of the local pauperism in an overcrowded 

 rural district, by providing means for the transfer of labour 

 to places where work was abundant and well paid, but men 

 scarce."* 



If some such plan as this were adopted, the constant 

 applications to Government for work by " the unemployed" 

 would be avoided ; and by equalising the supply and demand 

 in regard to labour, the productive power of the country 

 would be materially increased, as well as its power of con- 

 sumption. 



But it may be urged on the other side, that in 

 establishing such an arrangement. Government would be 

 overstepping the proper limits of its functions, and that 

 supply and demand ought to be left to adjust them- 

 selves. Theoretically this is true ; but the theory is pushed 

 aside for the time by a disturbing force, just as a comet is 

 drawn out of its orbit by ihe attraction of some other body. 

 When the supply of labour in the towns greatly exceeds the 



* Until my sclieme had been matured and committed to paper, I was not 

 aware that it had occurred to any one else. That it has been tried, and 

 has succeeded elsewhere, makes me feel the less hesitation in proposiug ita 

 adoption here. 



