How to Deal with the Unemployed. By Mary Higgs. (S.
C. Brown, Langham, and Co. 2s.)—With respect to our social failures, Miss Higgs is in favour of adopting vigorous measures. We have let the laissez-faire method prevail, and we shall have to reconsider our position. If any useful measure could be hoped for when social needs are continually post- poned to party aims, something might be done in the way of labour colonies and the like. Just now, when the summer has filled the roads with a vagrant population, the question enters On an acute phase. "There are no able-bodied male inmates in the Kent workhouses," reported an inspector the other day ; and the journalist who questioned him added that there was abundance of work in the fruit-farms and hop-gardens. 0 sancta simplicitas ! The able-bodied males are not there, but on the roads. Yet any one who will take the trouble to inquire will find genuine cases of want of employment. But these discussions are out of place. Our duty is discharged when we say that Miss Higgs gives us here a very thoughtful, discriminating, and vigorously written book. She knows her subject, and knows her own mind about it.
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