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CHAPTER XVI 



Problem for the British Tax-payer — Pauperism 

 OR Home Industries 



ONE of the most practical, up-to-date ways of deal- 

 ing with this big question of the poverty of the 

 British people is to ask the British lax-payer whether he 

 would prefer his money being wasted on bolstering up 

 national pauperism or usefully spent in developing 

 national industries? 



This, at first sight, seems a ridiculous question to ask, 

 but there is more in it than meets the eye. 



The British tax-payer has really a choice between 

 pauperism and prosperity, but he must look at the 

 whole question from quite a different standpoint from 

 that from which he has hitherto been in the habit of 

 viewing it. 

 State and So long as he regards the poverty of the people, as he 



Privfltc 



Charity knows it to-day, and the host of paupers bred therefrom, 

 as a necessary outcome of economic law, so long will the 

 civil administration of the day call upon him to hand 

 over the £35,000,000 annually, which it costs to support 

 and maintain this belief; but the moment he realises that 

 he has been throwing his mone}- away on false ideas, and 

 that he has really done more harm than good by his mis- 

 placed lavishness, the necessity for raising this colossal 

 sum for that purpose, at least, will cease. 



