two hundred and thirty years in this country, and that, so far from relieving poverty and improving the condition of the poor, it nearly ruined both the poor and the country. The plaister has never been as large as the sore. I have endeavoured to show that the underlying cause of this is to be found in the fact that the authors of the Elizabethan Poor Law left out of consideration the factor of human nature: in support of my contention, I have cited the authority of some of the wisest thinkers over two centuries. I could have cited many more if time had allowed. Next I have tried to show the gradually growing conviction, which found expression in the new Poor Law, that there must be some restriction or element of deterrence in public relief which comes to be looked upon as a right, as an alternative to a general pauperism.
In discussing the Circular of 1869, which is, in fact, a restatement of the position adopted by the Commissioners of 1834, I have endeavoured to show the respective characteristics of State relief enforced by distraint and imprisonment, and of voluntary charity, the burden of which is borne by those best able to afford and which has the virtue of spontaneity. I have urged, also, that State relief is destructive of voluntaryism, and that the latter is of altogether different quality, and more in accordance with the teaching of Christianity. I have also tried to show that the policy advocated by the Circular of 1869 is a possible one.
Finally, I have contended that State relief is, as Carlyle said, "a broken reed to lean upon, if ever there was one, and one which does but run into the lamed right hand," not only because it lames the right hand, though of that there is abundant proof, but because it breaks down owing to exhaustion of the exchequer, whether local or imperial, and certain reaction ; meanwhile, the burden of increasing taxation falls most heavily upon the working classes themselves, by handicapping the sources of their subsistence.
These are the points which I wish to place before the
