CHAPTER XXVI
The Brigand's Cave
All through the severe weather the wise, practical, philanthropic, fat persons whom the people of Mugsborough had elected to manage their affairs, or whom they permitted to manage them without being elected, grappled, or pretended to grapple, with the 'problem' of unemployment and poverty. They continued to hold meetings, rummage and jumble sales, entertainments and special services. They continued to distribute the rotten cast-off clothing and boots and the nourishment tickets. They were all so sorry for the poor, especially for the 'dear little children!' They did all sorts of things to help the children. In fact there was nothing that they would not do for them except levy a halfpenny rate. It would never do to do that. It might pauperise the parents and destroy parental responsibility. They evidently thought that it would be better to destroy the health or even the lives of the 'dear little children' than to pauperise the parents or undermine parental responsibility. These people seemed to think that the children were the property of their parents. They had not sense enough to see that the children are not the property of their parents at all but the property of the community. When they attain to manhood and womanhood they will be, if mentally or physically inefficient, a burden on the community; if they become criminals they will prey upon the community; and if they are healthy, educated and brought up in good surroundings, they will become useful citizens, able to render valuable service, not merely to their parents, but to the community. Therefore the children are the property of the community, and it is the business and to the interest of the community to see that their constitutions are not undermined by starvation. The secretary of the local Trades' Council, a body formed of delegates from all the different trades unions in the town, wrote a letter to the
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