2 THE MURDER OF AGRICULTURE 



Poverty has indeed, cast a deep gloom over the whole 

 nation, and not even our legislators and municipal 

 councillors may hope to escape from its paralysing in- 

 fluence.W are all, therefore, naturally enough, interested 

 in the question and desirous at least of studying it from 

 a point of view that will enable us to help in its solution. 

 Complete The entire question relating to the poor of this 

 Remfirfd country is in a most unsatisfactory condition, and it 

 is certain that unless the British tax-payers look at the 

 matter from a totally different point of view from that 

 from which they have hitherto been accustomed to re- 

 gard it, and demand a complete change in the admini- 

 stration of the laws relating to the subject, their millions 

 will continue to be spent annually to no purpose, save 

 to maintain the upkeep of an enormously costly ad- 

 ministrative staff which does no real good. 



Ample justification for the most drastic change in the 

 Poor Laws in the first place, and then in their admini- 

 stration, will be found in the simple fact that, in spite of 

 the enormous amount of public money spent annually 

 by the State in its endeavour to meet the requirements 

 of the case, poverty still exists in a widespread and most 

 acute form; poverty and its offspring — dull apathy, 

 drunkenness, and that nerveless inertia which is so hard 

 to stir. 



Poverty is no respecter of persons — it is the common 

 lot of millions of our fellow-countrymen. It is to be 

 found in the homes of the poorly paid clerk, the typist 

 and dressmaker, the shop-assistant and small trades- 

 man, as readily as in the slums of our big centres of 

 population; while among the poor gentlefolk who 



