THE CHURCH AND THE QUESTION OF THE HOUR.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.""
SIR,—Your appeal to the clergy of the Church of England on "the question of the hour" (Spectator, November 21st) seems to me weak, because I think its central position lacks foundation. You urge us to form a decision only after care- fully considering "the claims of the very poor." And you say : "a very little rise in bread may push them over the edge of the precipice." "Those on the verge of starvation will find
no compensation in reduced taxes on tea, sugar, coffee, and tobacco, for these are luxuries which they practically do not use."
Now, first, tea, coffee, and sugar are not "luxuries" for the very poor. They are absolute necessaries of life. Take two men. Give one his fill of bread for a year ; no tea, sugar, or tobacco. Give the other a short allowance of bread, but tea, sugar, and tobacco with it. Which at the end will have enjoyed "life" more ? My acquaintance of the "very poor" is that they manage to get their tea, sugar, and tobacco. I do not know where to find the "very poor" who " practically do not use" tea, sugar, and tobacco. I asked an old man on outdoor relief of 2s. 6d. a week to tell me what he did with his 2s. 6d. This was his answer :— " Well, I gets three loaves at 21d. each, 5d. worth of Quaker oats, some bacon trimmings; then I maun have my tea, sugar, and tobacco, and then it is partly done ; I have to make it spin out some road." "And do you never get any butter"' I asked. "Well, if I can raise it."
It made me think of what I heard the late Sir Smith Child, Bart. (may his tribe increase), say at a meeting in the Potteries : "People in our station have but little idea of what a working man can extract out of a shilling" Now, this is to be noted. The fractional rise in my old friend's bread and oats would be more than compensated by the reduction in his tea, sugar, and tobacco. Then there is a great waste of bread,—who has not seen slices of bread, half eaten, lying about? I do not think there is any throwing away of tea, sugar, or tobacco ! If a rise in bread made mothers more careful, would that be any harm? A. work- ing man said to me some years since : "Bread is too cheap." It was ?i propos of the young men in the parish idling about and getting into trouble,—poaching, &c. "If bread was dearer, they couldn't afford to play so much ; they would have to work," he said. Cheap bread does not seem an unmitigated boon, even to a working man.
Colwick Vicarage.
[We prefer not to comment upon the above, nor will we deal with the question of what the poor can extract out of a shilling, nor debate the Moral blessings that would flow from dear bread. We might, if we once embarked on such a controversy, be tempted to discuss the question whether it is not a kind of insolence in the poor, or certainly a sign of their consistent unreasonableness, to want to eat so much and so often. All we will do is to refer our correspondent to a passage quoted from a paper by Mr. Holyoake which appears in our review columns this week under the heading "Labour and Protec- tion."—En. Spectator.]
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