POVERTY NOT A NECESSITY 33 



the deserving poor. Tlie law is : " Xo man shall starve," and 

 althougli this law, under proper conditions, may be merciful, 

 just, and even a necessary one, let us, in the name of common- 

 sense, safeguard the position by seeing that these conditions are 

 of a nature that are at least fair and equitable to those who 

 supply the funds — the British tax-payers — while not being hard 

 and impossible to the poor. The present system is one-sided 

 and unjust to the country ; it enables an army of loafing vaga- 

 bonds to fatten on misspent public funds ; it encourages vaga- 

 bondage among a certain section of the working classes, which, 

 in this unfortunate country, finds employment hard to get and 

 still harder to retain, and it is a disgraceful scandal to the 

 nation. 



Our present Poor Laws would be open to widespread abuse, 

 and therefore unsuitable, even under conditions where every 

 honest worker in the kingdom could find employment at fair 

 wages, which would enable him to live comfortably and without 

 fear of the future on the proceeds of honourable toil ; but even 

 under such conditions it would l^e found that that section of 

 the community, which will not work under any circumstances, 

 would still be able to live in idle vagabondage just as easily 

 as it does to-day. 



These Poor Laws, althougli they were framed in a spirit of 

 generous philanthropy and administered in foolish indulgence, 

 have, nevertheless, brouirht nothinii; but shame to the working: 

 classes by sapping their manhood; and gross injustice to the 

 tax -payers, by imposing upon them heavy burdens which serve 

 no purpose but to pamper the thriftless and encourage the 

 worthless. 



Poor Laws — Mistaken Generosity 



Anti-Free-traders now point out that when our forefathers 

 framed these Acts, they were full of the same Utopian ideas 

 that filled Kichard Cobden's ardent breast. Thev held the idea 

 that we were to be the manufacturing lords of the earth, and 

 that our great and ever-growing industries would find lucrative, 

 lasting employment for all our workers. They were full of 

 beliefs in our greatness, in the phenomenal prosperity that 

 would attend their country ; and, being full of these pleasant 

 thoughts, tliey were as broad in their views, and as generous in 

 their impulses as is a man after dinner, when he is filled with 

 the good things of this life. But, alas ! their ideals were fore- 

 doomed to failure. Had these generous legislators known that 

 pauperism, which they had provided for with such lavish 

 liberality, would grow into one of the biggest items of public 



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