94 



CHAPTER XI 



Pauperism as a Result of Free Trade — £35,000,000 

 Required Annually in Poor-Rates 



Gross "\T T'E have then, in the foregoing pages, presented to 

 njus i^e y V us a number of trenchant facts in respect to the 

 Tax-payers j^iost momentoiis question of the day, touching the wel- 

 fare of the British people. We know that abnormal 

 poverty dogs the footsteps of our unfortunate country- 

 men with the tenacity of a bloodhound, and, turn which- 

 ever way they will, this fell presence is always on their 

 track. 



We have realised for many years that every trade, 

 profession and industry in this country has been so over- 

 crowded, that employment has been hard to get and 

 difficult to retain, even by skilled men, in what are 

 regarded as safe positions — witness the recent dis- 

 charges from Woolwich Arsenal and the necessity for 

 immediate exodus to Germany and other countries 

 which followed, because other firms in the same line of 

 business could offer the men no employment. 

 A We know that every Government for the last fifty 

 Incubus yea^rs or more have been at their wits' end to decide what 

 to do with the ever-increasing burden of pauperism, 

 which has settled upon the shoulders of British tax- 

 payers with crushing effect, and yet the burden grows, 

 and its weight becomes heavier. 



We have seen that, owing to its constant presence in 



