WHAT ANTI-FREE-TKADERS THINK OF FREE-TRADE 27 



frightens and appals the people — while it affords so wide a 

 scope for charitable effort that philanthropists have begun to 

 despair of ever being al)le to grapple with it effectually. 



Futile Parliamentary Measures 



Many an Act has been passed by Parliament, and many a 

 relief measure undertaken by the multitude of small municipal 

 authorities throughout the country, with the object of improving 

 a position of affairs which to-day is admittedly as bad as, or 

 even worse than, it was five, ten, or twenty years ago, but as 

 these were of a half-hearted, tinkering nature they have been 

 in vain. In a word, vast sums of public money have been 

 thrown away on measures that have not proved even palliative. 



Poverty has, indeed, cast a deep gloom over the whole nation, 

 and not even our legislators and municipal councillors may 

 hope to escape from its paralysing influence. All sections of 

 the community are, therefore, naturally enough, interested in 

 the question and desirous at least of studying it from a point 

 of view that will enable them to help in its solution. 



The entire question relating to the poor of this country is 

 in a most unsatisfactory condition, and it is certain that unless 

 the British tax-payers look at the matter from a totally dill'erent 

 point of view from that from M'hich they have hitherto been 

 accustomed to regard it, and demand a complete change in the 

 administration of the laws relating to the subject, their millions 

 will continue to be spent annually to no purpose, save to 

 maintain the upkeep of an enormously costly administrative 

 staff which does no real good. 



Ample justification for the most drastic change in the Poor 

 Laws in the first place, and then in their administration, 

 will be found in the simple fact that, in spite of the enormous 

 amount of public muney spent annually by the State in its 

 endeavour to meet the requirements of the case, poverty still 

 exists in a widespread and most acute form ; poverty and its 

 offspring — dull apathy, drunkenness, and that nerveless inertia 

 which is so hard to stir. 



Poverty no PiESpecter of Persons 



Poverty is no respecter of persons — it is the common lot 

 of millions of our fellow-countrymen. It is to be found in the 

 homes of the poorly paid clerk, the typist and dressmaker, the 

 shop-assistant and small tradesman, as readily as in the .slums 

 of our big centres of population ; while among the poor gentle- 

 folk who quietly starve and perhaps die, some of the saddest 

 cases of the kind are to be met with. 



