heavy.[1] London has also made an experiment in the direction of the "reclamation of foreshores," of which we hear so much as a remedy for unemployment. Two hundred acres of land at Fambridge in Essex have been—rather doubtfully—reclaimed at a cost of £25,000, and the land is now valued at £800. Such has been the experience, after two years' working, of this flirtation with the main tenet of the Socialist creed, that it is the duty of the State to find work for everyone who is able and willing to do it. It has done little or nothing to mitigate distress from want of employment. On the contrary, the interference with the mobility of labour and the great expectations that have been aroused have rendered the position more critical than ever before. And I venture to prophesy that the longer we persist in a mistaken policy, the greater will be the extent of the evil.
The next plank in the Socialist programme which has been accepted by both political parties is the proposal for Old Age Pensions. Here, again, non-Socialist Parliaments have again and again accepted the principle as a measure of "social reform." As to this, we have to recall the fact that the question has been considered again and again by Commissions or Committees of experts who have in all cases decided against them, and that the only support has come from Committees composed exclusively of politicians. The main line of cleavage is between those who believe that the true line of social progress is to be found in the gradual improvement of the payment of labour and in the prudence and self-control of the working-classes themselves, and those who believe that such
- ↑ The expenditure on establishment charges in London from Nov. 1906 to June 1907 was £11,090, or 7s. 4d. per case registered, 9s. 6d. per case investigated, £3, 2s. 6d. per case provided with temporary work.
