HALF-A-MILLION OF PAUPERS.
TO THE EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—Does any one doubt that in England at this moment the most potent cause of penury, beyond all comparison, is —not want of money—but want of thrift, management, and self-restraint, and that by the discouragement of thrift penury is aggravated out of all proportion to any alleviation that can be afforded by doles of money ? From its highest rate in 1834 the annual rate of pauperism was at first anxiously and then joyfully marked as it diminished year by year, indicating faithfully the slow and steady, and latterly the more rapid, rise of the working class to an unprecedented position of independence and self-respect, a rise in which the Friendly Societies bore a large and honourable part. Not till the " nineties " came a change. Corrupted by vote-hunting M.P.'s, the Friendly Societies were untrue to their principles. They asked, and finally obtained, from Parliament exceptional and degrading privileges as regarded outdoor relief. Then came Mr. Chamberlain. And now we have Mr. Asquith with his proposal deliberately to create out of independent men and women half-a-million of paupers ! Did ever statesman meditate such a wrong to his fellow-countrymen P—I am,
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