INTRODUCTION xxi 



a lower grade, and, as age and incapacity come on, 

 sink finally into the ranks of the submerged. 



These Board of Trade returns, interesting so far as 

 they go, refer only to about one million of the pick 

 of skilled workmen, on the reports of whose organiza- 

 tions the statistics are based. They are no guide 

 whatever to the condition of the millions of persons — 

 the great bulk of the people — who depend solely on 

 employment for their living. 



The actual condition of large masses of our popula- 

 tion is best known to the devoted men and women who 

 work privately or in connection with such associations 

 as the Salvation Army, Church missions, refuges, and 

 numerous other similar agencies. But these workers 

 know too well that the result of their self-sacrificing, 

 faith-supported efforts is rather the alleviation of 

 existing human suffering than a permanent solution 

 of the seemingly hopeless social problems with which 

 they are confronted. 



Side by side with plethoric wealth we have our 

 Poor Law institution, peculiar to this country and, in 

 its present form, a standing disgrace to it. Organized 

 relief no doubt will always be needed for cases of 

 poverty, disease, and misfortune, which in some degree 

 will ever exist. But it should be given as far as possible 

 in a manner not calculated to demoralize and degrade 

 the recipients. The operation of our Poor Law has 

 been and is rapidly sapping the life and destroying the 

 self-respect of masses of the people. Numbers of 

 obscure respectable poor whose sufferings are per- 

 haps of all the most acute, shrink with a wholesome 

 dread from parish relief ; some prefer even to starve, 

 but as a rule poverty and hunger compel them at last 



