STATE AID FOR AGRICULTURE 193 



" Land industry and tariff reform mean prosperity , less 

 taxes, and work for all." 



But do not let us accept this statement without con- 

 sideration. If it be true, it will bear investigation ; if it be 

 not true, then it will break down under the test. 



It is obvious that, in certain directions, less need for 

 taxation must result, while in others the incidence will be 

 lighter owing to the large increase in the area of taxation. 



Take " poor-rates," for example, which are largely 

 spent on pauper institutions of various kinds, as well as 

 in maintaining an enormous police force of upwards of 

 61,000 men; a costly criminal magistracy and an elabo- 

 rate system of industrial schools, reformatories and 

 prisons, the result of a large criminal population. 



Every schoolboy knows that pauper establishments 

 are not to help the rich, and that the great army of police 

 and the prisons are not to maintain order among the 

 respectable British working classes, the shopkeepers and 

 merchants, and the wealthy ones of the land. 



The criminal classes are not, as a rule, recruited from 

 the rich, the well-to-do and the respectable, self-respect- 

 ing citizens, but from the ranks of the poor; from that 

 large unfortunate section of our population which, for 

 various reasons, is first reduced to privation and want, 

 and then to despair and desperation. 



It follows, then, in logical sequence, that if you reduce Reduction 

 poverty and bring about a state of general prosperity, 

 there will be less want, less crime, and less necessity for 

 that elaborate expensive machinery which has been set 

 up to deal with crime, and, therefore, less cost in main- 

 taining it, 



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