143 



EOOT MATTERS IN SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC 

 PEOBLEMS. 



By E. M. Johnston, F.L.S, 



Ts THE Poverty of the Masses a Necessary Concomi- 

 tant OF Increased Accumulation of Wealth in 

 THE Aggregate ? 



All observers are nearly agreed that the accumulation of 

 wealth and wealth-producing power have prodigiously increased 

 within the present century. Of this there can be little 

 doubt. Modern discoveries — as regards the properties of 

 matter, the discovery and development of new lands, the uses 

 of steam, electricity, and labour-saving inventions in every 

 department of social and industrial life — have enormously 

 increased man's power over the forces of nature. "With this 

 immense gain of power vast continents of virgin forest and 

 barren swamp have become gardens of plenty. Eivers, 

 mountains, and other formidable obstacles to communication 

 or distribution of products have been bridged or pierced by 

 railways, roads, and other superior means of distribution ; 

 and the wide ocean, connecting far distant lands, now forms 

 the easy and open highway of magnificent steamers, which 

 vie in regularity and speed with the railway train in bringing 

 to local markets daily supplies of the fresh meat, fish, fruit, 

 and cereals of lands many thousand miles away. As a 

 natural consequence famines, such as are known to have been 

 so common and so terrible in England in the immediately 

 preceding centuries, are rendered an impossibility. 



How is it, then, that we are again brought face to face with 

 the old terrible problems : " The Misery of the Masses," 

 " The Labourer's Struggle for Existence," " The Growth of 

 Poverty," " The Increase of Pauperism and Crime ? " If we 

 can judge by the popular literature of the day, the state of 

 the masses in Europe seems to be verging into as hopeless a 

 condition as that which existed prior to the introduction of 

 our vaunted discoveries. 



Indeed, one writer, who recently has been heard above all 

 other claimants for reform, confidently af&rms that " it is 

 true wealth has been greatly increased, and that the average 

 of comfort, leisure, and refinement has been raised; but 

 these gains are not general. In them the lnv>est class do not 

 share." He broadly insists that increase in poverty is the 

 constant concomitant of increase in aggregate wealth, and 



