PAUPERISM AS A RESULT OF FREE TRADE 95 

 their midst, the people have actually come to regard 

 this foul thing as something that must be, even, indeed, 

 to accept it as a necessity, and beyond grumbling at the 

 financial strain which their acquiescence in the matter 

 involves, they do nothing to relieve themselves of this 

 monstrous incubus. 



The Government of the day, seeing this unfortunate 

 attitude on the part of the people, naturally shape their 

 course accordingly, by imposing upon the tax-payers 

 those heavy burdens called poor-rates, which now 

 amount to the stupendous sum of £34,926,280, nearly 

 thirty-five millions sterling annually. 



The people have assumed this strangely anomalous 

 attitude in regard to pauperism, because ; every 

 Government that has been in power since the passing 

 of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, has led the 

 people to believe that pauperism is there by constitu- 

 tional right, and cannot be done away with. 



The Government of that day thought they had im- 

 proved the Pauper Laws by their new Act, and perhaps 

 they had, but they had never dreamed that future 

 Governments would take out of the pockets of the 

 people the colossal sum of thirty-five millions sterling 

 annually for pauper relief, nor did the people for a 

 moment realise that in legalising poverty, pauper- 

 ism would, in the next generation, grow into one of the 

 biggest national institutions, demanding for its main- 

 tenance several millions more than are spent on the 

 Army, and even more than is spent on our Navy — the 

 most powerful in the World. 



Here is a monstrous anomaly, and yet the thing goes 



