a drunkard, or if he is actively cruel to his wife and children, he will be discovered and "got at" through the various Committees, and will be "trained" or punished; and so, presumably, when many have been trained or punished the "moral factor" will once more assert itself. But until there has been some actual transgression of the moral law, some actual dereliction of duty, no action can be taken, and action can only be taken in individual cases. The "moral factor," as some of us conceive it, is of quite a different nature. It turns upon the effect that the expectation of public maintenance has, or is likely to have, upon whole sections of the poorer population in relation to pauperism and dependence. This is no question of active immorality. Pauperism is a negation—the loss of something, rather than a definite violation of any law. It is rather an economic phenomenon, the expression of the rule that human nature follows the line of least resistance, and, if encouraged to do so, becomes atrophied in body and soul. It is a question of morale rather than of morals. We have had and still have plenty of experience of it in this country. The Minority are quite aware of its existence. They speak in one place of the "demoralisation of the rural population by a hypertrophied Poor Law" before 1834. What they have now to prove, therefore, is that their present proposals—which are surely for a "hypertrophied" Poor Law, if ever there was one—will not have similar results.
Attitude of the Minority towards Charity.
Curiously enough, the Minority admit the demoralising effect of charity. In fact they view it with so much apprehension that they would abolish it altogether, except so far as institutional
