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1 4 METHODS OF SOCIAL REFORM.
moante, or considers the evidence given before the Commission,
can avoid seeing that they must either break in the end
or throw E most unjust charge upon a future generation.
They trust too much to the constant incomings of each week.
And thie is the great error of all the working-classes. Hence
shes the distress at every temporary oscillation of trade;
the wrly marriagea ; the crowds who need employment; the
young who cannot go to school because they must add their
penm to their parents’ shillings ; the necessity of medical
cbaritiesi and, most sad of all, tho crowding of the old into
the wards of the workhouse. It is no doubt true to say that
out of 20s. a week it is not easy to save. I admit it, but say
that it must be done if things are to be better than t,hey have
been. In improvidence and in ignorance, the majority of the
population are involved in 8 vicious circle. They are ignorant
because their fathers wcre ignorant, and so will their children
be ignorant to the end of time, unless the State interferes
with a strong hand. They cannot be provident because
their fathers were not so for many generations back, and,
were there not a prospect of some change, I should look
upon improvidence and pauperism as the lusting curse of the
English people.
But though the cause may seem ~1 slight one, I should
anticipato the best results from workmen receiving part of
their earnings in yearly dividends. It would insensibly teach
them to look beyond the week ; it would give an opportunity
for making a fair beginning ; and from the evidence we have,
suoh does appear to be the result. There is no doubt that
the very poorest clssses of labourers are really unable to save
any appreciable sum of money, but I believe that this is by
no means the oase with artizans. Receiving often 275 or
8100 a yeat, they EPB really much better eble to save than
matry aferke, shopmen, and others who would nevertheless be
more provident. WB ought by this time to give up the notion
that one who weem a black coat is better off than one whose
coat ia rough and soiled with work. The poorer section of the
working-cla8ses, I have allowed, must still for 8ome time bo
dependent and incapable of placing themselves beyond the