NATIONAL PAUPERISM AND TAXATION 51 

 We have contended elsewhere in these pages that the 

 £16,000,000 of State funds spent on pauperism is, in 

 itself, a monstrous injustice to the British tax-payer, 

 particularly so because there is no real necessity for 

 poverty at all in our country ; but what is this compara- 

 tively insignificant sum when set side by side with the 

 colossal amount subscribed annually by a philanthropic 

 public? Oh! the shame of it aU! that our Governments 

 and our political parties have permitted this foul thing 

 to fall upon our people as a deadly blight, because, for- 

 sooth, the righting of the wrong would have clashed 

 with party interests, and perhaps unseated the Govern- 

 ment that attempted it. 



The British people and the British tax-payers have a 

 deep-seated grievance, and they should wage a bitter, 

 deadly feud against that principle in our political Ufe 

 that has only served the narrow selfish policy, on the one 

 hand, of building up a few individual reputations, and in 

 amassing large individual wealth ; while on the other it 

 has resulted in nothing but poverty and degradation to 

 the great masses of our countrymen and countrywomen. 



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