unhappy people who have learnt to lean upon State relief are left to face the world destitute of all reserves and bereft of their only real resources, namely, those that lie in their own industry and prudence.
We now come to the question whether the alternative policy contained in the Circular of 1869 is a possible one or no? I am prepared to be told that such a policy is antiquated and obsolete, and I certainly do not expect that those who talk of "the curse of charity" will subscribe to it. But after all they are, I think, still in a small minority and have not the nation with them: neither do I believe that the wisdom of the ages is concentrated in the year 1908, and that everything that has gone before it must be disregarded. The plain facts are these, that in London, where the Poor Law expenditure is some £3,000,000, the income of charities available for the Metropolis is about £8,000,000. That does not, of course, include the personal almsgiving of the community, which must be of enormous volume, nor does it include the still more important factor of that natural charity which I have referred to also as the repairing force of society, and which is the outcome of family and neighbourly sympathy and affection. I have no figures for the great provincial cities, but it is a well-known fact that most of them have large charitable endowments, whilst there is no reason to believe that they are behindhand in the other forms of charity. Is it impossible so to reorganise and reform this huge volume of charitable relief, which is at present largely indiscriminate and working upon no settled lines or policy, in such a manner as to make it really effective in dealing with distress which, as the Circular says, "can best be dealt with by charitable people"? Is it impossible to bring about co-operation between charity and the Poor Law upon the lines indicated? The answer is that it is not impossible, because it has already been done in several places both in town and country, and the experiment has stood the test of thirty years. But has it been attended by special hardships to the poor? all that can be
