industries — are totally incapable of affording full employment
to those vast masses of the working population which now
necessarily depend upon such sources of occupation. The labour
market is, therefore, always congested and must remain so.
Glutted Labour Markets
The clerk, typist, dressmaker, milliner, shop-assistant,
" Hands " in textile factories, navvies, and dock labourers are
all subject to the pressure which congestion of labour involves ;
they have been sufferers from it for many years as they are
suffering from it to-day ; and it is absolutely certain that unless
other, readier, and more stable forms of employment are found
for that large section of the working community, which exist-
ing professions, trades, and manufactures cannot employ, and
will not be able to employ in the future, the congestion must
continue and the people must suffer.
It is affirmed by Free- trade adversaries that views such as
these are held by so vast a number of people nowadays that
the alarming features of the situation can no longer be hidden
from the public who have hitherto regarded the phenomenal
poverty of the people, and the widespread increasing unemploy-
ment of great numbers of our workers, as a simple result of an
intelligible economic law, and as an inevitable consequence
of human life, and, therefore, as a Necessity.
CHAPTER V
POVERTY NOT A NECESSITY — CONTRASTS IN HOME AND
FOREIGN STATISTICS — THE PEOPLe's ERROR AND THE
people's RESPONSIBILITIES
The necessity for poverty referred to in the preceding chapter
may be put to many tests, but perhaps the most practical way
of dealing with it will be to compare the poverty of Great
Britain with that of other nations, because, if other countries
do not recognise any necessity for its existence it follows that
there must be something wrong with our administration of
national affairs. This anti-Free-trade method of dealing
witli the case certainly has fair play and common -sense to
commend it.
The poverty of the United Kingdom, with its population
of about 43,000,000, costs proportionately more than it costs
any other civilised country in the world.
The State spends ujjwards of £16,000,000 annually in
relieving only the most acute cases of distress, apart from help
of a private and personal nature which amounts to colossal
proportions and which will be referred to later. Let us, how-
ever, compare our pauper expenditure with tliat of our near
neighbours across the Channel.
France has a population of 39,000,000 and spent, in 1908,
under her Pauper Act of 1905, 59,800,000 francs (£2,392,000)
of State and Communal funds. Other relief of a private nature,
similar to that referred to in Chapter XI — Private Charities —
is also afforded, but State funds are not used for this purpose.
Germany has a population of upwards of 60,000,000. No
statistics have been compiled since the year 1895, but there is
very little actual pauperism outside of the capital, Berlin.
Holland, with a population of 5,591,695, spends £1,629,201
on her paupers.
Switzerland, with a population of 3,250,000, spends about
£635,000.
Austria-Hungary, with a population of 46,000,000, spends
about £1,156,000 on the poor of the country.
30
POVERTY NOT A NECESSITY 31
Denmark, witli a population of 2,588,919, spends about
£464,000.
Italy, with a population of 32,966,307, spends about
£1,240,000, although, strictly speaking, there is no pauper rate
and no pauperism.
Leaving the Western States of Europe and going across
the Atlantic, we find that, although the United States of
America have Poor Laws, they are not bothered with poverty ;
in fact, the whole question over there is of such insignificance
as to be hardly worth recording. The expenses of the Alms-
houses is given at something over 2,409,000 dollars or about
£481,000 annually. The population is about 80,000,000.
Foreign States regard Pauperism as Unnecessary
If we then turn to the other side of the Western world and
seek for comparison in the United States of America, for
example, we still fail to find anything like a parallel to our
own case, or the least justification for the belief that poverty,
as it exists in our country, is an inevitable result of human
life, and therefore a Necessity. On the contrary, both in
Eui'ope and America, the general belief is that, although there
is bound to be a certain proportion of necessitous people, chiefiy
consisting of the old and infirm, the sick and young children —
orphans principally — anything like widespread poverty is an
anomalous condition, and therefore unnecessary — an accident, in
short.
It is interesting to note in this connection that in Holland
mendicity and vagabondage are treated as a crime, and persons
convicted of it can be placed in a State work establishment.
The Dutch, at all events, are no believers in poverty being a
oicccssary result of human life. And we notice that there is
very little pauperism in those countries where mendicity and
vagabondage are criminal, and treated as such !
The first great lesson to be derived from these statistics is
that ours is tlie only country in the world which has set up an
elaborate and costly system of pauper administration, whereby,
by legalising unlimited pauperism, we actually increase poverty
by encouraging improvidence, thriftlessness, and a careless dis-
regard of individual responsibility. The feeling that has been
engendered in a very large section of the British working classes
by this legislation of wholesale pauperism is this :
" I'll do what I can to get a living, but if I don't succeed —
well, there's always the ' House ' to fall back upon, which is a
blessing. At any rate there's always State aid for the asking."
32 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON
How Britain emasculates her Manhood
Now, if there is anything in life calculated to rob a man of
grit and backbone, of stamina, energy, and stalwart independ-
ence, to entirely deprive him of that masculine vigour which
is his pride, it is the feeling that the State is always ready to
dry-nurse him, to supply him with food, raiment, and light work
the moment he feels inclined to accept such aid.
Such knowledge reduces a man, bit by bit, to a poor, feeble,
inert creature, only fit to be cast up as a fleck of frothy scum
from the sea of human workers. Men of this type, and there
are plenty of them in the great army of toilers, soon fall out of
the ranks and drift onward to the workhouses and casual wards,
or seek outdoor relief from the many Poor Law offices scattered
broadcast all over the kingdom. Thenceforth these flabby
specimens of humanity fasten themselves on to these institu-
tions and become a lifelong burden to the rate-payers and tax-
payers of the country.
Then there is a great lesson to be learned from the wastrel
type : your slouching, dirty, public-house-corner loafer, the
frowsy tramp, professional beggar, et hoc genus omne. These
creatures muster in their thousands ; they are a curse to the
tax-payer, a shame to all honest workers, and a scandal to the
country.
The working man is forced to rub shoulders with the loafer
daily, and he cannot escape his touch. He swells the ranks of
the honest unemployed in their labour demonstrations merely
for what he can get out of it, but he has no intention of doing
any harder work than this. He makes a brave show in all
such processions, because of his rags and tatters, and because
his name is legion, but the real working man knows him to be
a fraud and a sham, and would willingly rid himself of his
presence if he knew how. The British working man holds in
supreme contempt this despicable wastrel, and would loyally
support any measures that would get rid of him.
Human Scum
These human specimens are lost to all sense of shame ; they
whine and cringe, or bully and bluster ; they cajole and flatter,
twist, turn, and dodge ; they will do anything for a living, from
house-to-house begging and petty theft up to highway robbery,
but they will not vjork : that is the only thing they will not
do ; and yet our comprehensive and lavish system of giving
away public money applies equally to this human scum as to
POVERTY NOT A NECESSITY 33
the deserving poor. Tlie law is : " Xo man shall starve," and
althougli this law, under proper conditions, may be merciful,
just, and even a necessary one, let us, in the name of common-
sense, safeguard the position by seeing that these conditions are
of a nature that are at least fair and equitable to those who
supply the funds — the British tax-payers — while not being hard
and impossible to the poor. The present system is one-sided
and unjust to the country ; it enables an army of loafing vaga-
bonds to fatten on misspent public funds ; it encourages vaga-
bondage among a certain section of the working classes, which,
in this unfortunate country, finds employment hard to get and
still harder to retain, and it is a disgraceful scandal to the
nation.
Our present Poor Laws would be open to widespread abuse,
and therefore unsuitable, even under conditions where every
honest worker in the kingdom could find employment at fair
wages, which would enable him to live comfortably and without
fear of the future on the proceeds of honourable toil ; but even
under such conditions it would l^e found that that section of
the community, which will not work under any circumstances,
would still be able to live in idle vagabondage just as easily
as it does to-day.
These Poor Laws, althougli they were framed in a spirit of
generous philanthropy and administered in foolish indulgence,
have, nevertheless, brouirht nothinii; but shame to the working:
classes by sapping their manhood; and gross injustice to the
tax -payers, by imposing upon them heavy burdens which serve
no purpose but to pamper the thriftless and encourage the
worthless.
Poor Laws — Mistaken Generosity
Anti-Free-traders now point out that when our forefathers
framed these Acts, they were full of the same Utopian ideas
that filled Kichard Cobden's ardent breast. Thev held the idea
that we were to be the manufacturing lords of the earth, and
that our great and ever-growing industries would find lucrative,
lasting employment for all our workers. They were full of
beliefs in our greatness, in the phenomenal prosperity that
would attend their country ; and, being full of these pleasant
thoughts, tliey were as broad in their views, and as generous in
their impulses as is a man after dinner, when he is filled with
the good things of this life. But, alas ! their ideals were fore-
doomed to failure. Had these generous legislators known that
pauperism, which they had provided for with such lavish
liberality, would grow into one of the biggest items of public
D
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.
POVERTY NOT A NECESSITY 35
The People's Erkoii
But the people must recognise their responsibilities, and
accept them iu a frank, manly manner. They must realise
that they are responsible for the present highly unsatisfactory
condition the country is in owing to their wrong mandate of
" lang syne," and then repair their error by giving a right one.
The People claim to possess the chief electoral power in the
country, and so they do. Good ! Let them exercise it. This
power was wrongly exercised in the days of Bright, Cobden,
and that fervid band of manufacturer-reformers who persuaded
the people to adopt certain fiscal and other measures which
particularly favoured their own industries, and which are
responsible for the present unenviable state of affairs. Let
them now exercise that same power in directions that will
relieve the intolerable strain and give their fellow-countrymen
prosperity and peace. This can be done, and easily done, if that
vast section of the electorate body which is widespread among
the masses of the people of this country could but be made to
see it. The power is in their hands if they choose to exercise
it. Then let that other vast section of the body electoral to
be found in the great middle-classes do the rest. They and the
working-class section form between them practically all the
elective power in this country ; but any one who takes
the trouble to study the attitude assumed by these puissant
bodies will find that their power is potential rather than
active.
Dissipation of Working-class Electoral Power
The working-class sections dissipate a good deal of their
power in organising strikes, fighting capital, brooding over
what they are pleased to term class-tyranny, siding with
those who foment political agitation and social unrest, and in
doing much that is foolish and unprofitable, instead of devoting
the great political power, which they undoubtedly possess, in
righting that which is wrong in the economic conditions of the
country. Unless they are prepared to do this, all the invectives
and fierce denunciations of this, that, and the other which tlie
more revolutionary sections of the great working-class electoral
body love to indulge in will not help them or relieve the
situation one whit. Their great trades unions offer ample
evidence of their splendid organising powers once their indi-
vidual interests are touched; let them, then, exercise tliat
36 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON
power now. Let them frankly admit that, as trades, manu-
facturing industries, professions, and every other form of
occupation combined have utterly failed to result in aught else
but widespread and ever-growing unemployment and consequent
destitution, in ever-congested labour markets, in uneven dis-
tribution of wealth, and generally in a state of affairs which
is as inimical to the workers as it is disgraceful to tlie country,
they should now have recourse to the only remaining industry
— the Land.
Eleventh-hour Eepentance a Necessity
If, at this eleventh hour, they prefer to cling to their old
phantasms that the situation will be relieved by manufactures,
by Labour fighting Capital, by joining the Socialist ranks, or
by the hundred and one dodges and resources that have hitherto
utterly failed them, they may do so. This is a free age, and
the working-classes are free agents as other men are ; but they
must accept the consequences of their folly as others have to do
in this world.
The situation can be relieved, as is clearly shown in other
chapters of this book, but it can never be relieved either by the
foolishly hostile attitude assumed by a large section of the
working-classes towards existing conditions, by antagonising
Capital and Labour, by class conflict, or by other violent
measures.
Middle-class Apathy
Eeferriug for a moment to the great middle-class section of
the body electorate, it is held that they have, by their apathy
and indifference, developed into a really negligible quantity in
the political economy of their country. They grumble and
growl and write irascible letters to the newspapers from time
to time ; they are full of complaints against the injustice of
certain taxes, the non-necessity for others, the ever-growing
burden of pauperism and the rest of it : but there it ends. The
working-classes do unite and organise ; they have their trades
unions and other institutions ; they have certain definite aims
and a political policy, albeit much of it is misdirected : but the
middle-classes do absolutely nothing but quibble. Overt action
in regard to organising some system of co-operation to express
their political views, and to impress them clearly and unmis-
takably on the minds of those who represent them in Parliament,
is lacking, and the enormous political power which they really
possess remains a potentiality rather than a living, moving
force.
POVERTY NOT A NECESSITY 37
The present unhealthy social and economic condition of the
body ])oUtic is as much the result of disobeying Nature's laws
as are the thousand and one diseases generated in the corpus
humanum by similar disobedience. Nature is a beneficent
motlier, but she brooks no disobedience, and he who overrides
her laws and sets them at naught must of necessity suflcr.
Disobedience of Natukal Laws
Nature intended that man should cultivate the soil. The
British people sixty j^ears ago threw aside their agricultural
industry and took to other pursuits. In this they disobeyed
one of Nature's greatest laws and — they suffer.
This is the simple fact underlying the entire situation, and
in it alone will be found the solution of the riddle and the key
to the position.
The British people have it in their power to right a self-
inflicted wrong; but if they will not do so — well, they must
continue to bear the burden.
Meanwhile, all classes share in the suffering, and herein
lies an injustice so palpable and widespread as to need no
demonstrating here. Every rate-payer and tax-payer in the
country has been fully cognisant of it for years, and has chafed
under the soreness which this shameful and yet altogether
unnecessary burden causes. But nothing of any jj?'«c^ica^
value has been done. The recent victory of Eeform over
Progressive Socialism in the London County Council, in other
municipal councils, and amongst Poor Law Guardians, may
check reckless expenditure in certain directions, and thus give
some relief ; but the great scandal of I'OOR Law ExrENDiTUKE
has not been touched, and millions of the taxpayers' money
are, in the meantime, being squandered annually.
Why is it, in spite of the fact that the Government and all
classes of the community are fully aware of this gross scandal,
that it is allo\ved to go on year after year, and decade after
decade, unchanged ? Why is it that each successive Govern-
ment finds the necessity of providing in their budget the
prodigious sums that are spent annually on pauperism ?
Only One Answer
There is only one reply : ]^)ecause in sacrificing its greatest
industry — agriculture — to a selfish fiscal system, the greatest
trading and manufacturing country in the world, with its
mighty P^mpire stretching to the confines of the earth, and thus
possessing all the inherent properties of phenomenal wealth
* • V > *: <;■> •i! r-
38 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON
and general prosperity, has been compelled to recognise the
necessity for poverty and the legalisation of pauperism as a
national institution.
Anti-Free-traders then naturally ask the question : " "Why
should we alone of all civilised nations in the world he in this
inglorious position ? " And their answer is : " Because in our
unwisdom we listened to the false doctrines of those who were
only capable of looking at a great fiscal question from one
narrow point of view, instead of studying it from the many
sides which so broad a question always presents."
Every question in this world has more than one side to it,
and because we, in our blind credulity, obstinately refused to
acknowledge this cardinal fact, we have wrought incalculable
injury to the whole nation. The masses and the classes,
employer and employed, capital and labour, Eadical and
Conservative, are all equally involved in the general loss, and
none have escaped the blighting influence of our folly.
They then add : " Let us recognise the fact that we have
erred ; that in our desire to improve the position of the people
we have cast away the substance for the shadow ; that certain
alterations are essential in our fiscal arrangements, and we
shall soon retrieve our position and build upon sure foundations
a great structure of national prosperity. If we neglect to
do this, poverty and distress will increase, and our ruin as a
great nation will surely follow,"
CHAPTER VI
MORE ANTI-FREE-TKADE OBJECTIONS — LOSS OF AGRI-
CULTURAL WEALTH — SHRINKAGE IN TAXABLE AREA
HEAVIER BURDENS ON TAX-PAYERS
Anti-Fkee-tradees further maintain that the Free-trade system
is such a record of losses all along the line that it is difficult to
plumb the profundity of their depth. For example, they point
to the enormous capital loss which agriculture has sustained
duriug tlie last thirty or forty years as affording another
instance of the destructive nature of the Free-trade policy.
They point out that in this busy workaday existence of ours
there is a kind of ceaseless barter going on, and each one of us
should be careful in ascertaining, beforehand, that we shall get
fair value in exchange for that wliich we give up. But in spite
of this we often neglect these little points on which so much
depends, and then we suffer in mind, body, or estate. The
same precaution should be taken by nations as by individuals.
Did we count the Cost ?
When we were offered a change in our fiscal system over
half a century ago — a change which was to do such great and
wonderful things for us as a people, and among others, convert
Great Britain into a land flowing with plenty of everything and
lots to spare — did we count the cost ? Did we sit in judgment
on the case and calmly sift the evidence for and against, and
then proceed to pass a well-considered decree ; or did we too
readily believe what we were told by one party to the suit, and
then pass a hasty, ill-considered, ex-parte jmlgment ? These are
questions we might reasonably put to ourselves.
That we took the last-mentioned course is unfortunately
too well shown by the many evils which have grown out of our
actions ; evils which, at this late period, are so widespread
among the people as to demand our best and immediate con-
sideration and decisive action.
In the latter part of the first half of the nineteenth century
39
40 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON
there was, it is contended, perhaps as much need for reform in
the fiscal administration of the country as there is to-day ; few
of ns, therefore, would care to carp and cavil at honest attempts
to relieve a strained position ; but as the Lest and surest way
to arrive at the true value of a thing is to measure it by the
amount of success it yields, let us test what our forefathers did
for the country by this standard.
The Failure of Cobden's Scheme
To prove the utter and complete failure of the scheme
thrust upon us over half a century ago, we should calmly view
the position from all points, without prejudice and without