CHAPTER XIII 



HOW OUR PUBLIC MEN MISS THE WAY — PAUPERISM AND 

 UNEMPLOYMENT A RESULT OF EXISTING CONDITIONS 



A PROPER APPRECIATION OF CAUSE AND EFFECT 



ESSENTIAL 



" Feee-trade and Pauperism," and " Free-trade and Unemploy- 

 ment" are often bracketed together by anti-Free-trader,s, and 

 the facts which follow would seem to offer irrefutable evidence 

 of the justness of the charge. 



The people know only too well that abnormal poverty dogs 

 their footsteps with the pertinacity of a bloodhound, and, turn 

 whichever way they will, this fell presence is always on their 

 track. 



They have realised for many years that every trade, pro- 

 fession, and industry in this country has been so over-crowded, 

 that Employment has been hard to get and difficult to retain, 

 even by skilled men, in what are regarded as safe positions — 

 witness the comparatively recent discharges from the Woolwich 

 Arsenal, and the necessity for immediate exodus to Germany 

 and other countries which followed, because firms in the same 

 line of business could offer the men no employment. 



They know that every Government for the last fifty years 

 or more has been at its wits' end to decide what to do with 

 the ever-increasing burden of pauperism, which has settled 

 upon the country with crushing effect, and yet the burden 

 grows, and its weight becomes heavier. 



Tax-payees recognise "Necessity" for Poverty 



The tax-paying community have seen that, owing to its 

 constant presence in their midst, the people have actually 

 come to regard this foul thing as something that must be, 

 even, indeed, to accept it as a necessity, and beyond grumbling 

 at the financial strain which their acquiescence in the matter 



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