"collectivism," as it is called. The evils of poverty are to be conjured away by State action. The "State" is to be invested with all the attributes of Christian charity. The "civic conscience" is to take the place of the individual conscience, and the civic conscience is to "find itself" in material relief and again more material relief—at least all the practical suggestions that are made from time to time appear to be in that direction.
Of course, if we are convinced that the improvement of the condition of the poor is to be found in the extension of material relief, then all questions of distinction between Poor Law and charity sink into insignificance. Our duty is plain. We have by all means in our power to bring about that condition, and to augment the volume of relief from every possible source.
No one probably will assent to the suggestion that material relief is the cure for poverty. On the contrary, every one appears to recognise—in theory at least—that material relief may do great harm. But theory is a slippery thing, and difficult to fix. Sometimes those who most vigorously denounce one form of relief as "indiscriminate" are foremost in advocating another form of relief differing only in name. There is possibly some rather loose thinking upon the matter, and a good deal of unwillingness to face facts. Above all, there is a sort of general feeling that it does not much matter what we do so long as our aims are right. The suggestion that we should be guided by experience is received—like most truisms—with ill-disguised impatience. We are told, for instance, that there are many paths to the same end; that the old economic ideas, hitherto universally accepted, are obsolete, and that new factors have come into existence; that "experiments" which have failed repeatedly in the past will
