The Times of Tuesday publishes a letter from Alderman Ben
Tillett in which the dockers' leader reiterates his state- ments about the unemployed, and repeats that Collectivism is the only cure for the miseries of poverty. We have dealt with his general thought elsewhere, but must mention here his delicious objection to statistics. They often, he says, "encourage a savage sordidness among capitalists." "What. good has been done by any census in the past P " "The poor might well say we ask for a crust and you give us a census." Facts, in truth, are to Mr. Tillett usually nuisances ; yet in the same letter he answers himself. He was disbelieved, he says, when he alleged that 50 per cent. of dock labourers were unemployed; yet Mr. Ritchie's official inquiry showed that in Wapping and St. George's district the proportion was Z5 per cent. Does Mr. Tillett really wish to assert that .statistice are only useful when they verify his own statements
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