MR. LANSBURY AND DISTRESS.
LTo THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
your issue of October 15th Mr. George Lansbury writes: " We find the task of relieving potterty by means of doles, medical inspection, free milk, &c., a hopeless one. . . . As soon as we pull out one child and save it a dozen others tumble in." Exactly so, but if Mr. Lansbury would realize that poverty and distress are greatest among the classes that have the highest birth-rate, he would be able to find alternative measures to those Socialistic schemes of doles, 8:c., which lie condemns but practises. If the wage-earners did what the middle-classes have done for years, namely, wait to get married until they have saved, limit their families to their economic capacity to pay for them, and deny themselves in order to shoulder their own responsibilities, then there would be far less distress, unemployment, &c., and far less call for doles. Socialistic legislation has encouraged the wage-earners to be reckless in marriage and parenthood, and our present troubles are largely the result. What right has a navvy to have seven children or more when the clerk cannot afford more than two? We middle-classes have developed through our fathers cutting their coat according to their cloth. The wage-earners must do the same if they want to progress. There is no other road. Socialistic schemes, such as those of Poplar and Mr. Lansbury, merely intensify our troubles, and blind us to one of their prime am, Sir, &c., C. W. M.
Previous page
