NATIONAL PAUPERISM AND TAXATION 93 



But the question has to bo asked : Wliat is this stupendous 

 charity wortli V What real lasting good does it do to those 

 whom it is our readers' desire to help on in the world, when 

 vast masses of our people remain sunk in the slough of 

 poverty ? 



We have contended elsewhere in these pages that the 

 £16,000,000 of State funds spent on pauperism is, in itself, a 

 monstrous injustice to the British tax-payer, particularly so 

 because there is no real necessity for poverty at all in our 

 country ; but what is this comparatively insignificant sum 

 when set side by side with the stupendous amount subscribed 

 annually by a philanthropic public ? Oh ! the shame of it all, 

 that our Governments and our political parties have permitted 

 this foul thing to fall upon our people as a deadly l)light, 

 because, forsooth, the righting of the wrong would have clashed 

 with party interests, and perhaps unseated the Government 

 that attempted it ! 



The British people and the British tax-payers have a deep- 

 seated grievance, and they should wage a bitter, deadly feud 

 against that principle in our political life that has only served 

 the narrow seltish policy, on the one hand, of building up a few 

 individual reputations, and in amassing large individual wealth ; 

 wliile on the other it has resulted in nothing but poverty and 

 degradation to the great masses of our countrymen and country- 

 women. 



The main point, however, that is under consideration here 

 is the part all this prodigious State and private charity plays in 

 the Free-trade movement. That it is a factor, and an important 

 one, there is no room for doubt, and that it has been hitherto 

 ignored by all parties alike, is also true. The State expenditure 

 of £16,000,000 annually on the most acute forms of pauperism 

 is a prodigious one, but when it is found necessary to su]>ple- 

 ment that amount by something like £100,000,000 annually 

 out of that characteristic philanthropy of the British race, to 

 keep the people from starvation, it is clear there must be some- 

 thing fundamentally wrong with the fiscal and economical 

 system of the country. The system of economics on which the 

 country has been working for many years is based upon the 

 principles of Free-trade, and anti-Free-traders reasonably hold 

 tliat if this system requires something like £116,000,000 

 annually to keep tlie people from literal starvation, it is faulty 

 to a degree, unsuited to the requirements of the country, 

 socially cruel, and economically suicidal. 



These are truly grave charges to bring against Free-trade, 

 but as results certainly appear to justify them, anti-Free- 

 traders are content to abide by the issue. 



