HOW OUR PUBLIC MEN MISS THE WAY 105 



involves, they do nothing to relieve themselves of this monstrous 

 incubus. 



The Government of the day, seeing this unfortunate attitude 

 on the part of the people and the tax-payers, and moved thereto 

 by Machiavelian political considerations, naturally shape their 

 course accordingly by imposing upon the latter those heavy 

 burdens called Poor-rates, which now amount to the stupen- 

 dous sum of £34,920,280 (nearly thirty-five millions sterling 

 annually), half of which is actually expended yearly on the 

 upkeep of our pauper establishments. 



The people have assumed this strangely anomalous attitude 

 in regard to Pauperism, because every Government that has 

 been in power since the passing of the Poor Law Amendment 

 Act of 1834 has led them to believe that pauperism is there 

 by constitutional right, and cannot be done away with. 



The Government of that day thought they had improved 

 the Pauper Laws by their new Act, and perhaps they had ; but 

 they had never dreamed that future Governments would take 

 out of the pockets of the people the colossal sum of thirty-five 

 millions sterling annually for pauper relief. Nor did the people 

 for a moment realise that in Legalising Poverty, Pauperism 

 would, in the next generation, grow into one of the biggest 

 National Institutions, demanding for its maintenance several 

 millions more than are spent on the Army, and even more than 

 is spent on our Navy — the most powerful in the World. 



Here is a monstrous anomaly, and yet the thing goes on 

 because of the self-interest of Governments and the ignorance 

 and apathy of the people. 



It has been truly said that — 



" It is the people who really make the laws of the land ; so it is 

 the people who have lirst to be influenced, and then the necessary 

 laws will come into being." 



The People must first be convinced 



Convince the people that pauperism, as we know it, is 

 nothing but a foul growth on the body politic; that poverty 

 even is preventable, and the country will soon witness a 

 M'onderful change, not only in our Poor Laws, but in the 

 attitude of the people themselves towards the entire question. 



Poverty, in an acute form, is no more necessary than 

 drunkenness is a necessity, and it is time we recognised this 

 fact. 



Make it clear to the people that, if the two great parties in 

 the House would but sink their differences for a brief space 



