THE BURDEN OF POVERTY
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—Commenting upon the social survey in Bristol, you conclude: " The main cause of poverty here and elsewhere is unemployment."
Surely poverty and unemployment are effects of a deeper cause.
Within the present century the secret has been discovered, how to apply solar energy, which is practically limitless, to the production of wealth. Sun-power has displaced man-power and horse-power. The realm of industry has undergone a revolution. Powerful labour-saving inventions follow thick and fast on one another. Labour-saving machines are wage- saving machines. Muscular energy has ceased to be indis- pensable to wealth production, although wealth production is vastly increased by the machine.
Industrial unemployment is no temporary phenomenon. It must tend, not to decrease, but to increase.
The root cause of poverty in millions of homes is the lack of family purchasing power. This state of affairs can only be remedied by a readjustment of the public mind to the new industrial revolution : the growing conviction that new con- ditions of wealth production must be balanced by new conditions of wealth distribution.
There are financial and economic experts who are engaged on the pressing problem of the present day—how more purchasing power may be put into the hands of the masses of the people, for the good of all, and for the advancement of the standard of human life. This is the essential solution of the present problem of poverty, and of the kindred problems of decay in agriculture, slowing down of trade, and decrease of the health and stamina of the nation.—Yours
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