34 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



expenditure, the present Poor I^aws would never have come 

 into existence. 



Poor Laws we want, because every great country should 

 support its poor. But I'oor Laws, like all other laws, should 

 be drawn up with the nicest consideration for every section of 

 the people. Let our Poor Laws be comprehensive and even 

 generous, but let them provide only for the support of the aged, 

 infirm, and deserving, those who have been rendered poor hy no 

 fault of their own. Let us provide liberally for this class of 

 paupers, but here let our provision cease. 



It may be said, " This scheme of yours is as Utopian as the 

 one you condemn, because it presupposes a condition of employ- 

 ment for all which does not exist." Precisely ! this is exactly 

 what it does presuppose, replies the anti-Free-trader. Castles 

 are always built first in imagination before they can assume 

 material form in stone and wood and iron, and every condition 

 in the material economy of human life is but the crystallisation 

 of human thought. You must first of all presup)pose a condition, 

 otherwise it is not likely to come into existence. To presuppose 

 is often to create, and this is exactly what must be done here. 

 The condition whereunder the people would find relief from all 

 their trouble must he created; and the way to create it is to 

 think about it. 



The People to the Eescue 



The people, and the people alone, can encompass these things 

 if they choose to do so, but they must first of all recognise past 

 errors and go back on their tracks. They must admit that 

 their mandate to Parliament of sixty years ago, although con- 

 sidered the best at the time, has turned out badly ; that while 

 building up their great manufacturing industry there was no 

 need to have sacrificed their still greater agricultural industry. 

 This is the great cardinal fact, and the only one they need to 

 recognise, and once the recognition be made, realisation of all 

 that it means to them and theirs will soon do the rest. Once 

 public opinion in favour of working our land for all it is worth 

 — as all other nations do — be set in that direction, land reform 

 of a rational character will soon follow, and once this be brought 

 about, the waste — yet splendidly fertile — lands of Great Britain 

 will soon be converted into higlily tilled soil that will produce 

 food for, and give employment to, millions of our fellow-country- 

 men and countrywomen. 



