WHAT SHALL WE DO? 351 



not uncommon. ' Misery/ as The London Standard 

 correspondent wrote, ' so deep and dreadful that the 

 most graphic pen can but faintly convey its depth of 

 sorrow, are witnessed/ Now that I have visited this 

 region and walked through it, and conversed with at 

 least a hundred of these industrial slaves, I am ready 

 to add my testimony to the facts contained in the let- 

 ter written from Edinburgh Christmas Day (No. 5). 

 I can simply say that I have not half told the misery 

 of this district, and of a dozen other industrial dis- 

 tricts in England, and that if any one doubts the 

 facts, I will gladly take them with me to any of the 

 places I have visited for The Tribune and let them 

 see with their own eyes. It is all very well to gloss 

 these things over and keep them out of the news- 

 papers, as they do in England, but the poor in Eng- 

 land are day by day and year by year getting poorer. 

 Not long ago, a journalist of ability undertook to 

 show the desperate condition of the working classes 

 here. I do not mean idle, worthless, good for nothing 

 people, but just such industrious people as those de- 

 scribed in this letter. He sent the result of his in- 

 quiries to a Liberal journal and the manager refused 

 to publish the facts. He wrote : ' It is better not to 

 call attention to such matters. Ifr could do no good/ 



" In this way they hope to tempt the United States 

 to throw down its protective barriers, and, at the awful 

 risk of bringing our own labor to this condition, give 

 back to England the sixty millions of customers she 

 has lost in so many important branches of industry. 



" It is time the truth about industrial England is 

 told. The London Standard has dared to speak out 



