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CHAPTER XIII 



Prevention of National Waste — The Means 

 TO THE End 



lEFORE we can amend the Poor Laws, we must 

 ^ amend other things. The Poor Laws exist because 

 of excessive poverty. Poverty exists because of lack of 

 employment, and lack of employment is but a result of 

 fatuitous administration. 



We have done nothing in the past but to pull down, 

 at least in respect to the question we are considering; 

 now let us alter our methods and adopt a cow-structive 

 policy instead of a d'e-structive one. 



Let us tell those whom we send to Parliament to 

 administer our affairs that we can no longer bear with 

 official pedantry in regard to national economics, and 

 that we are not disposed to submit longer to the delu- 

 sion of an antiquated and worn-out system of fiscal 

 administration. 

 Must But in telling them this we should make it clear, 

 a Party ^t the samc time, that this vital question, upon which 

 Question j^^^gs the welfare of a people, must not be made a 

 party question. It is a question similar to that of 

 the Irish Land Bill of 1903, which, because of its 

 national importance, or for other reasons, passed through 

 Parliament practically without debate. We claim that 

 this measure, being of even more importance, must not 

 be made the subject of unseemly party wrangling, and 



