THE CURSE OF POVERTY 3 



quietly starve and perhaps die, some of the saddest 

 cases of the kind are to be met with. 



It is an evil which is ever growing ; a curse which has 

 fallen on the people as a deadly blight, and the evil is not 

 to be uprooted and cast out, or the curse removed, by 

 the adoption of ordinary methods. 



We must battle with poverty as with a mortal foe, New Plan 

 but we must reaHse and frankly admit that the old Campaign 

 methods of warfare have failed, that our weapons are 

 obsolete, our tactics faulty to a degree, and that unless 

 we draw up a new and altogether different plan of cam- 

 paign, and arm ourselves with modem and more effective 

 weapons, we shall never'carry the war to a successful issue. 



But before we take the field against the foe let us ask 

 why he is there, why Poverty exists at all, and if Poverty 

 is really a necessary result of human life. 



There is always a good reason to be found for the ex- 

 istence of a thing if we look deep enough ; if we seek for 

 Cause rather than for Effect. Poverty exists as an Effect, 

 and it is because we have hitherto attempted to deal 

 with effects, instead of seeking out and uprooting the 

 cause, that we have signally and persistently failed. 



Who, for example, knowing that sixteen milhons of 

 the public funds are spent by the State annually in the 

 relief of only the most acute form of pauperism, and that 

 still vaster sums are given every year by philanthropists 

 and the charitably disposed (which embraces all classes 

 of the community), can say that we are right in dealing 

 with Effects instead of Causes, when it is seen that the 

 people still suffer from Poverty, and the results of poverty, 

 more acutely than ever they did? 



