158 THE MURDER OF AGRICULTURE 



It is easy enough to give and give lavishly when Gov- 

 ernments find the British public so yielding, but to give 

 judiciously; to give with wisdom, and in a manner that 

 will help a man to become prosperous and not pauperise 

 him, is quite another matter, 



Mr Andrew Carnegie, in returning thanks for the Free- 

 dom of Abergavenn}^ which was conferred on him on 

 May 31, 1907, said : " The true sense of money is to help 

 those who help themselves." And we may depend upon 

 it that that shrewd millionaire knew what he was talking 

 about when he gave utterance to that pithy sentence. 

 Help the jf [^ jg necessary to call upon the British tax-payers for 

 Injure £35, 000, 000 annually to assist their needy compatriots, 

 let us use that colossal sum in a way that mil help the 

 people and not injure them. 



The writer of a letter which appeared in The Daily 

 Express, on May 28 of last year, over the signature of 

 " B," said: 



" If, however, the object of all sane citizens is not to 

 pauperise, then it follows that poor relief must not be a 

 system of largesse, for largesse inevitably converts the 

 merely poor into the pauper pure and simple. On the 

 other hand, it is a national question and not a question 

 for the individual. The State provides against destitu- 

 tion — and the Poor Laws are really laws for the destitute 

 — mainly in self-defence and for its own purposes. It fol- 

 lows that it is not to the advantage of the State that this 

 relief should be easy to get or pleasant to retain, and that 

 in any case the relief should itself be as far as possible a 

 remedial process, 



