Page:Dwellings of working-people in London.djvu/37

tion of one penny in the pound. Should it, however, appear on a closer examination of the subject that rather more than one penny in the pound was required to carry out the proposed improvements, I venture to think that no better time could be selected than the present, when Local Taxation is proposed to be so largely relieved by the Budget of the present Session. Passing away from the mere pecuniary view of the question, I could appeal to the House to support this motion upon higher and more forcible grounds. The people of this country are never tired of subscribing money for the religious education of the poor. The whole country has recently been very properly taxed to provide secular education for every child. I venture to say, without fear of contradiction, that if the labours of the ministers of religion are to produce the hoped for result, if the work of the schoolmasters and the school boards is to bring forth good fruit, the homes in which the working population in over-crowded cities are compelled to live must be improved. We, I fear, as a nation are too prone to consider our own civilisation as far in advance of the civilisation of other countries, and when we read of the indifference with which the lives of human beings are sacrificed among barbarous nations, of the ruthless manner in which infants are placed in the baby towers of the East, we are too apt to cry 'Thank God! we are not as wicked as other nations'; but if the statements of our leading physicians, if the returns of the Registrar-General, are to be relied on, who can doubt that thousands of persons, and especially children under two years of age, die annually from preventible causes? If this be true, I would ask the House to support the resolution, with the hope that some suitable solution may be found for this great and important problem. If in dealing with this question I have spoken too warmly or too strongly, I trust the House will excuse me, and will attribute it to my great interest in the subject rather than to any want of respect for the House itself.