presidext's address section gi. 461 



who are untrained in any trade, and are only fit for factitious or 

 superfluous employments, and are unreliable even in those ; who 

 have no adaptability, and know no policy but drift — what is to be 

 done with these ? One clergyman, after five years' experience in 

 the East End, says: " There is no general rule. One by one those 

 poor brothers must be taken by the hand ; it is only thus that real 

 progress can be made." Another expert says : " There is no solu- 

 tion but death. Let them die out, and rather work towards a 

 remedy in the next generation." The true reformer adopts both 

 views — ameliorating the conditions of the present unemployed, and 

 setting causes to work to prevent the unemployed question ever 

 arising again. 



The Way Out. — ^Numberless indirect reforms are possible, 

 aiming at improving the outward conditions of the life of the poor, 

 and at the same time elevating their character. Healthier con- 

 ditions in factories and workshops, and in private dwelling-houses ; 

 increased sanitation in town life ; State education of all boys to 

 the age of 16, and the compulsory teaching of a trade or livelihood 

 to all youths ; stricter control of the drink traffic ; inculcation of 

 moral responsibility and the principles of self-help ; thrift and 

 temperance and the teaching of the ten commandments ; medical 

 inspection of all school children so as to conduce to the highest 

 hygienic conditions in school life ; legislation against the influx of 

 undesirable aliens and goods ; legislation on the science of Eugenics, 

 e.g., as in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Georgia, where it is proposed 

 to forbid the marriage of confirmed drunkards, consumptives, 

 imbeciles, and all who are affected with incurable disease, and to 

 compel all those desiring to enter the marriage state to produce a 

 medical certificate testifying to their physical and mental fitness ; 

 these are indirect, but none the less salutary means towards race 

 improvement, and a gradual but sure elimination of the feeble and 

 unfit from life's strenuous competition. This part of the problem 

 is national, not local. It is for to-day and for all time. It cures by 

 preventing. 



But as the practical reformer must deal with things as they 

 are, and not as they should be, what are the best remedies for 

 present unemployment ? There are three classes of agencies that 

 can materially help : — 



1. Agencies which find work and deal with the unemployed 

 before they have time to sink to the ranks of the unemployable, e.g., 

 trades unions, friendly societies, labour exchanges, private 

 registries, and newspapers. 



2. Agencies which make work, and, if necessary, provide 

 industries to equalise the periodic fluctuations of the labour market, 

 e.g., municipalities and the Government (working through labour 

 colonies or other related methods) and voluntary agencies, such as 

 the Salvation Army and the Church Armv, and 



