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An Address

DELIVERED TO

.1.. . \ J J,

SOCIAL PEOBLEMS

THE CONFERENCE OF COMBINED CITY CHARITIES

OF TORONTO

May 20th, 7889

BY GOLDWIN SMITH

President o/the Oonference.

TORONTO :

C. Blacke^tt Robinson

1889.

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SOCIAL PROBLEMS

An Address

DELIVERED TO

THE CONFERENCE OF COMBINED CITY CHARITIES

OF TORONTO

Maj> 20 //K /S80

BY GOLDWIN SMITH

President of the Conference.

TORONTO :

C. Blackett Robikson

1889.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS

UR formal report, ladies and gentlemen, of the Conference
of Associated City Charities, is necessarily succinct and
dry. dealing with nothing about which there can be any dif-
ference of opinion. I hope, as your President, I shall not be
doing what is unacceptable at the close of our session if, in a
less formal way, I recall to your minds some of the (piestions
arisintr out of our work or connected with it, which have
engaged your attention in the course of our meetings.

NK0E5SITY OF .V PUBLIC IlKLIK?^ OFFICER.

In the department of charity, as in all other depirtments of
municipal life and administration, (questions are raised by the
marvellous growth of Toronto. Whatsutticed for a population
of twenty, or even of fifty, thousand will not suffice for a popu-
lation of one hundred and eighty thousand, with a prospect of
further increase. These cities of the New World have traversed
in half a century the distance in the race of progress which it
has taken the cities of the Old World ten centuries to traverse ;
young in years they are old in magnitude, and the liabilities
and cares of maturity have already fully come upon them.
When I first settled in Toronto, a little more than twenty years
ago, cows wandered in the streets of my quarter, where land is
now selling at a high price per foot. The need of a more
re<mlar and skilled administration is felt in the department of

liealtli and in that of en,L>:ineerin,L,' : the time can hardly he far
distant when it will he felt in rei^'ard to the relief of destitution,
of which a certain portion unhci[)pily has its seat even amidst
the pleasant and stately homes of the fairest, proudest and
mo>t jirosperous city. We nust all sympathize with the
unwillin^'ness to introduce a poor law, thou<^h it is a great
mistake to suppose that pul)lic charity rej^ularly and justly
administered demoralizes or dej^rades more than private charity,
which, through ignorance and want of time for the examina-
tion of cases, must often be dispensed with a lavish and
capricious hand. We must all prize voluntary effort, which is
twice blessed, blessing the giver of the relief as well as the
receiver. On voluntary effort, in the main, we may still rely.
That Toronto receives a full measure of it from workers of
both sexes, who give not only money, but what is more precious
and meritorious, their time and energy to the cause, must be
well known to any one who occupies this chair. Notably to a
body of ladies whose charitable feet are always on the path
which leads to the house of suffering, and who carry with them
the Italm of comfort and good counsel as well as bread, the city
owes a large meed of gratitude. To voluntary effort, and
especially to that of the churches, we must look for the relief
of the indigence which shrinks f ron^ sight and would never ask
for pul>lic relief, yet is often accompanied by the keenest
suffering. But though you may rely mainly on these agencies,
you cannot, in such a city as this, rely entirely upon them.
Responsibility in the last resort must rest somewhere, and it
can scarcelv be thrown even on the most devoted volunteers.
Volunteers cannot give all their time, be ahvays ready at a
moment's notice, or be always in the city. Cases of emergency
may occur, particularly in the depth of winter, and if no one
is responsible for their relief the community may one day be
awakened to the necessity of a change by something that would
shock its humanity. The treatment of tramps and vagrants m

in some measure a matter of police, and i)oli('e authority is
necessary to maintain the proper rules and discipline in a
casual ward. Cases of wayfarers in need of passes to lielp
them to their destination often occur, and the Mayor of such a
<;ity of Toronto has not leisure to attend to them : indeed the
Mayor already finds it necessary to have special assistance in
this part of his work, and it may he said that the principle of
a re<juiar relief officer has been adopted. There are also cases
with which volunteers or private associations, from want of
authority, are unable to deal. What is to be done, for example,
where chronic destitution is the consequence of mental disease
or infirmity, and where a private individual or charity can
have no right to interfere V Besides, a centre of guidance,
information and observation is needed, and this nothing l)ut a
public office can supply.

One use of a centre of information would be the prevention
of imposture, against which, in the absence of the means
which such a record office affords of ascertaining the identity
and verifying the stories of applicants, it is very hard, at least
for those whose hearts are not fenced with the steel of experi-
ence, to guard. Several times have I been saved from imposi-
tion through information obtained from the Secretary of this
Conference, Mr. Pell, who in this and other respects has really
discharged in no small measure the functions of a relieving
officer for many 3^ears past, but who has now reached the
evening of a life dedicated to charitable work and to the study
■of the questions connected with it. It would perhaps be out of
place to go into any personal details, and their pul)lication
might possibly bar a return to the right path. Otherwise I
could narrate two or three remarkable cases of successful
imposture which have come under my own notice. Tn each
case an amount of ingenuity, tact, presence of mind and per-
suasiveness must have been exhibited which would have gone
far towards making the man's fortune in an honest walk of

/'■

life. Someone should <,'ive us a history of impostors, from
Perkin VVnrlieck (lo\vn\vai'(ls. Ft is vvoiulerful. iiml the in-
stances to vvhicli I liave referred as fallini^ undei" my own notice
were amont>- the proofs of it. how in these diMnocratic^'::. nmiini-
ties of ours we are (^auufht hy the name of n lord.

IMMKJUATIOX.

Of the destitution and sufferin*^ with which the charities
have had to deal in i)ast years not a little has arisen from
unsuitable immigration. The subject of emiufration seems to
have enteredon a new phase in rei^ard to this whole continent.
The people of the United States, whose ])oast it has hitherto
been that tliey o[)ened a home to all who needed one. have
become alarmed at the intlux, both on economical antl political
grounds, and have begun to think of closing the door. So far
as Canada is concerned, most of us, I believe, would say that
there is nothing to fear so long as emigration is left to itself.
A man is not likely of his own accord to leave his native
country and pay his passage across the Atlantic without goo»l
reason for believing that he will find employment on the other
side. It is when emigration is subsidized Iw (Tovernment or
solicited by steamship agents that the danger of mistakes and
suffering begins. No assistance, 1 understand, is now being
given to immigration, either by the Dominion (jrovernment ov by
the (tovernment of this Province, though the Provincial
(fovernment helps the immigrants on the" " arrival to find work.
The result is, I learn at headquarters, a marked improvement
in the description of immigrants, hardly any of whom of late
hnve been cast upon charity on their arrival. The demands
upon the St. George's Society and other national societies of
late have also been somewhat lighter. An alarm is still some-
times raised about the action of boards of poor law guardians
in England, who are suspected of harbouring designs of dump-
ing their pauperism on Canada ; but no facts of that sort have

recently come before us, and by this time the [)e(»[)le in the Old
(/Ountry must be pretty well disabused of their not unnatural
belief that population of whatever kind cannot fail to be
welcome to a colony. The Conference addressed some timeatfo
a word of caution throu<,di the de})artment at Ottawa to the
steamship comiianies. The managers of those companies
seemed to think that our fears were unfounded and injurious :
l)ut if they were, emigrants whose necessities we were called
upon to relieve must have told us unaccountable falsehoods.
Some distinction must be nir V^ in relation to this as to other
(questions between the different sections of our Jiow vvi<lely
extended and diversitied Dominion. The case of the North -
West, which needs al)Ove all thiuj^ - population, is not the same
as that of Eastern Canada, where i/early all the good land has
been taken up and the suppl of 'nechani.s is already large.
Por farm labourers, however, the lera.ind in Ontario is still
active, and emignuits of that c]a>.^, if they are healthy, tem-
perate and saving, seem pretty sure to do well. The ([uestion
whether there is a demand for mecimnics is one to which it is
not easy to get a satisfactory answer. Tho.se \vho are in pos-
session of the labour market naturally desire to deter an intlux
of new comers, which might have <i tendency to reduce wages :
they desire, as perhaps they would say, pi'otection for labour as
well as for the manufacturer : and their interest can hardly
fail to colour their perception of the facts. 80 fav as I can
learn, mechanics outside the building trade h ive still not much
difficulty in tinding work. The most important industry at
Toronto of late has been the building trade. Should the growth
of our city find a limit the employment of a good hiauy
mechanics would cease. That the growth of our city may tind
a limit seems possible when we consider that its apparent
source is not so much the development of commerce on the spot
as the passion for city life which seems to have taken posses-
sion of all the popuL'h'onof this continent and in some measure

of that of Europe also, and which has brought here a rush of
emigrants from the smaller towns, while some of the smaller
towns are threatened with depopulation and decay.

For good domestics who have had some training, and mean
to be really helpful and obliging, there is still plenty of room,
if we may trust the testimony of ladies who are keeping house
and whose wails arise on all sides. The main root of the.
trouble probably is the democratic idea, which at present is in
a crude and unsettled state. There is a fancy that service is
degrading to the free citizeness, as though any employment
under others^ whether in a Cxovernment office, a factory, a bank
or any other establishment were not service as well as employ-
ment in a household. Is not even a merchant practically in
the service of his customers, and does he not sometimes find
that service pretty hard '? So it is, however, that employment
in a factory, with harder work and far less comfort— anything,
in short, which bears the name of independence — is preferred
by the democratic girl to employment in a household. She
feels that the day's work done she is entirely her own mistress.
Perhaps the source of the trouble is not altogether on one side.
On the side of the employer there may be sometimes want of
judgment and not uncommonly want of experience. We talk
of the old English household. The old English household,
owing to the unsettled and restless habits of society in these
days, is fast becoming a thing of the past. Ikit in it the
relation between master and servant was not merely commer-
cial, and it was carefully cultivated on the side of the employer.
The servants were made to feel themselves members of the
family, and were assured that faithful service would l)e repaid
with gratitude, that they would not l>e neglected in their old
age or forgotten in the will. We can hardly expect that par-
ticular state of things to return. English girls have been
imported into Canada, but it seems with indifferent success.
They soon catch the prevailing ideas. Indeed, they are apt to

t'l

bring with them the notion that they are coming to a paradise
of high pay and little work, and to conduct themselves accord-
ingly. However, for good, or even tolerable, domestics my lady
friends tell me that there is plenty of room. The class of emi-
grants for which there is certainly no room is what may be
called the genteel class, those who seek clerkships, situations in
(lovernment offices, teacherships, or any employment of the less
manual and more intellectual sort. For these the market is
almost as glutted here as it is in England. English emigrants
of this kind cannot possibly come to a worse place than Canada.
They will find not only that the market is full, but that they
are regarded with a certain degree of prejudice as interlopers.
It might be thought that such cases did not come within the
purview of the City Charities, but unfortunately they do. If a
man, however educated and of whatever social grade, comes
without resources to a country where there is no use for him,
there is nothing to save him from destitution.

Child emigration, such as is carried on by Miss Ilye and Dr.
Barnardo, is a subject about which there is some difference of
opinion, though there can be none as to the benevolence of those
who devote themselves to the work, or as to the advantage to
the Mother Country of being provided with homas for children
who would otherwise grow up neglected or be trained to evil.
The opinion of those most competent to decide seems to be that,
of the boys at any rate, the vast majority do well. It is not to
be expected that in all cases the child should, even when placed
under the kindest influences in after-life, entirely work off the
moral taint contracted in a bad home.

TUKATMKXT OF TliAMPS.

We have to thank the management of the House of Indus-
tr3% and at the same time the City Council, which has liberally
and wisely furnished the means, for an immense improvement

Cleanliness, decencv

in the arrangements of the Casual Ward

■ipi

and sufficient comfort now reign where they did not reign
before. The decent though destitute wayfarer in need of a
night's shelter is no longer disgusted and degraded by the treat-
ment which he receives. While we discourage indolent mendi-
cancy and imposture, let us never forget that there is in the
world plenty of genuine misfortune and of destitution to which
unmixed pity is due. The management also does its best to
apply the Labour Test. But I find myself not unsupported in
the belief that this department would be better separated from
the almshouse and placed under the police. The extent of the
city, too, is now such that it may soon be necessary to have two
casual wards instead of one.

THE PRISOX QUESTION.

Between destitution and crime the connection is close ; each
is in some measure productive of the other. The special object
of one of the charities of our city is to receive the discharged
prisoner at the prison gate and save him from the want which
would drive him back into crime. The city gaol is being
enlarged to meet the re(|uirements of a population which by
growth or annexation has been trebled, or nearly so, within
twenty years, though happily there has not been a proportionate
increase of crime. It is to be hoped that in the enlarged build-
ing full facilities for separation and classification will be
afforded, and that contaminating intercourse will cease. The
excellent Governor of our City Gaol has been doing all that was
in his power to separate the classes of prisoners and prevent
contamination, but the means have been wanting to him. It
is said, and apparently with reason, that for minor offences the
term of imprisonment cannot be too short. Long terms must
break up the prisoner's industry, deprive wives and children of
support, perliaps throw them on charity ; and even in the
absence of bad companionship can hardly be morally improving.
In the opinion of those who are well qualified to judge, a few

f #

days of solitary confinement on bread and water would be a
penalty in minor cases sufficiently severe and deterrent. In the

I case of graver offences and long terms of imprisonment, we find

the best authorities agreeing in the conviction that if a prison
I is to be reformatory, or anything but a nursery of crime, labour

i is indispensable. Might it not be well that the labour, though

' compulsory, should be in some way recompensed ? The convict

is a man who has left the path of honest labour for that of
crime, and the object must be to win him back to the path of
honest lal^our. To make labour hateful to him, as the tread-
mill or anything of that kind does, is apparently to defeat the
object. If he is idle, evil is sure to breed in his vacant mind.
Long periods of solitary confinement are cruel and crushing.
Prison missions are no doubt excellent things, if it were only
that they show sympathy with the prisoner and assure him that
though an offender, and necessarily condemned to pay the
penalty of his offence, he is not cut off from humanity. But it
is by action that character is formed ; and mere impressions,
upon which the man cannot act, however strong at the moment,
can hardly be relied upon for the improvement of his character
when he is restored to practical life. Efforts are being made at
the City gaol to give the prisoners work, but there is difficulty
in providing it. Outside work close to a city makes heavy
demands on the prison staff for guards. There is also the fear
of awakening popular jealousy of prison competition. This is
^ most excited by indoor trades, the products of which come into

i the market, such as shoe making, which I saw being carried on,

« and I understood with good results, in penitentiaries in the

United States. I am told, however, that it would be excited
^ even by setting the prisoners of the City gaol to work at the

Don, and that the seat of a member for East Toronto who did
not oppose such a measure would be in jeopardy. We must
heartily sympathize with the feelings of the honest working-
man who thinks that the trade by which he makes his bread and

the bread of his wife and children is in danger of being exposed
to unjust competition. But we must ask him to remember, in
the first place, that the pi'isoners, if they were not in gaol?
would be competing with him in the labour market, so that
there is no increase in the amount of competition ; and in the
second place, that this is a question not merely of prison
economy, but of moral right. A prisoner. l)y his offence, has
forfeited for the time his civil privileges ; but he has not for-
feited his moral rights: no moral being can. If labour is indis-
pensable to his moral health and reformation, to labour he still
has a right, and to deprive him of it is to become responsible
for his continuance in criminal courses. The opinion best
worth hearing on all these questions would be that of experi-
enced governors of our gaols, and it is a pity that it should not
be heard. Perhaps the whole subject of penal imprisonment
may some day come up for review. Society is apt to run on
without reflecting in a groove in which it was perhaps at first
set running by accident. A prison, 1 take it, was originally a
place for safe-keeping, and hideous places for safe-keeping
some of them were : in ancient Rome the prisoner was let down
into the cell through a hole in the roof. Imprisonment as a
punishment probably was an afterthought, and still more so
was imprisonment as the means of reformation. The question
may be some day raised whether the best reformatory is what
the thieves expressively call "the stone jug."' The idea of a
prison camp for labour on public works has been suggested,
and the plan, I am told, has been tried with success in one of
the Southern States. A camp sounds more healthy than stone
walls ; it suggests greater possibilities of discipline ; being at
a greater distance from cities it could be more easily guarded,
and it would hardly excite popular jealousy on the score of
competition. However, as [ have already said, we should like
to hear from experienced governors of gaols.

There is such a thing, it is to be feared, as a hopelessly

criminal character. At a place which I sometimes visit in the
United States they had a case apparently of this kind. He was
a man, not only of considerable intellectual power but of literary
tastes, and while he was running a career of the most fearful
crime, murdering among other people his own wife and child,
he was inventing a universal language. The shape of his head
was remarkable, and seemed to indicate something monstrous.
The frontal development was highly intellectual, but the rest
of the head, which was enormously broad between the ears,
seemed to bespeak the intensity of animal and brutal ^.assions.
The man spent a term in a penitentiary of high repute, but
without any good result. He came out only to recommence his
murderous career. He was hanged at last after two attempts
had been made to save him, one on the usual plea of lunacy,
the other on the plea that his execution would extinguish a light
of learning and science. In such a case the only thing appar-
ently to be done is to cage the wild beast and prevent him from
tearing other people. But in ordinary cases it is probably as
much circumstance as natural character that has made the
criminal, so that reformation is possible, at all events in the
■early stages of his career. These tramps, about whom we are
so much alarmed, and whose habits verge so closely on those of
the criminal, may, after all, be men out of whom nomadism,
the habit of primitive man, has not been thoroughly worked,
and who, though disinclined to sedentary or settled labour,
might, under discipline, make good soldiers perhaps, not o-ly
in an army of war, but in an army of industry.

We are sorry to hear that there are still some lunatics in
the City gaol. This is unjust, not only to the lunatics them-
selves but to the other inmates, who, though they have been
condemned to imprisonment, have not been condemned to the
society of the insane. The arrangement, however, is only pro-
visional, pending the enlargement of the accommodations for
lunacy, which appears to be on the increase, though fro)n what

^BBPwwieww^ywra

cause is not clearly explained : probably from a complication of
causes, including the enhanced strain and excitement of modern
life. The practice of using the gaol as a poorhouse for
broken-down labourers, committed to it on a nominal charge of
vagrancy, we are happy to know is at an end. These men are
the disabled veterans of industry, and as much entitled to relief
v/ithout degradation as the veterans of war. It is strange, with
all our democracy and enlightenment, how extraordinary a pre-
ference is still given by popular sentiment to service in war.
Policemen and firemen often do things fully as heroic as were
ever done bv the soldier. Yet we do not think of crowning
them with laurel.

THE AN'Tr-POVERTY MOVEMENT.

To vary the ordinarv business of our meetings we had the
pleasure of receiving a deputation from the Anti- Poverty
Society of this city, the excellence of whose object cannot be
questioned. It may be with doubtful feelings that a lawyer or
a physician would receive a plan for putting an end at once to
litigation or disease. But this association would receive with
unmixed pleasure a plan that would terminate its functions by
putting an end to poverty. Not that it is with poverty, properly
speaking, that we are concerned : we are concerned with desti-
tution, which arises from a multiplicity of causes, certainly
beyond the reach of any economical reform, such as individual
misfortune, infirmity, age, accident, idleness, improvidence, and
vice. But we may admit that if there were no longer any
poverty the need for charitable institutions would probably
cease. Political economy has been called "the dismal science.'"
It is not easy to see why the study of the laws which regulate
the production and distribution of wealth should be moi-e
dismal than the study of any other set of natural laws. No-
thing, it seems to me, can be more beautiful than the arrange-
ments by which workers all over the world are brought into

co-operation with each other and the price of the smallest manu-
factured article, thouj^h it he but a single cent, is divided
amoncr all who in different parts of the World have contrilmted
to its production. Nothintr can be more beautiful than the
machinery of credit, by which gold is economized and capital
supplied for trade. Nothing can be more interesting than the
investigation of the fiscal policies and other causes which
increase or diminish the wealth of nations. With more justice,
perhaps, might political economy i)e called '"the science of false
hopes."" [t continues at least in a strange way to be the field
of Utopian speculation. Tn other departments of science people
have given up looking for the philosopher's stone, the elixir
vitu% pei'petual motion, and universal cures. Hut in political
economy we have still men of great talent as well as ardent in
their philanthropy, who believe that they have discovered uni-
versal cures for poverty. Some propose to stamp a number of
pieces of paper with the names of gold or silver coins, and to per-
suade or force the community to accept them as coins, believing
that they will thereby fiood the world with wealth. They are
not moved by the proof which repeated experience furnishes
that the community cannot be persuaded or forced to take a
shower of bad promissory notes for money, and that the only con-
sequence of tampering with the currency is the fatal derange-
ment of commerce and industry. Others propose to effect a
magical change in the general condition by abolishing private
ownership of land, and turning all the land over to an entity,
which they call the State, and suppose it to be something apart
from and above the members of the community, with a wisdom,
a beneficence, and also apparently a purse of its own; as though
the State were anything but the members of the community
collectively or their representatives the politicians, whom re-
formers seldom describe as endowed with superior wisdom and
beneficence. The benevolent extirpators of poverty, if they
propose to transfer all ownership of la)id from the present

proprietors to the State, either directly or by the use of the
taxing power, will have to begin by reducing the landowners
as a class to the very condition which they propose to extirpate;
or rather they will have to begin by fighting the farmers, who
will certainly defend their farms, and the opening of the mil-
lennium will be an agrarian war, in which it seems by no
means certain that the victory would remain with the philan-
thropist. The world began with common ownership of land of
which in barbarous or half- barbarous countries vestiges still
remain ; and the almost universal change to private ownership
is the verdict of almost universal experience. What the com-
munity wants is that the land shall produce as much bread
for us all as possible, and how can we expect the highest rate
of production without the stimulus of private ownership ?
Have not the land reformers in their crusade against land-
lordism been alwavs telling us that the land could never vield
its fruits in due measure while the tillers were mere tenants
at will ? Systems of taxation may always be capable of
improvement, aiid it is highly probable that in cities real pro-
perty is the best and the fairest basis of taxation ; but how the
world as a whoie can be made much richer by merely shifting
the burden of taxation from one shoulder to the other seems
difficult to conceive. It appears to be assumed that in the social
and economical sphere perfection is the law of nature, and that
imperfection is the consequence of bad legislative arrangements
which might at once be set right if labour reformers and
poverty-destroyers could only get power into their hands.
Unhappily everythino- which meets our eyes pro -iaims that not
perfection but imperfection is the law, the law of the social as
well as of the physical organism, of the body politic as well as of
the individual body ; of man's dwelling-place and life : of the
solar system itself, which seems to be full of gaps and wrecks ;
of the stellar system, if it be true that astronomy has witnessed
the destruction of a star. The only optimism countenanced by

facts is that which, trustinjr the counsels of the universe, hioks
forward through all this imperfection to the attainment of per-
fection as a distant ((oal. If the Lfifts of fortune or the faculties
l)y which wealth is produced and saved are not fairly distributed
amonf( men. neither are the gifts of i)hysical strength and
beauty, brain power, or the blessings of health, offspring, and
long life. Reputation itself, which ought, to be proportioned to
deserts, how little is it often enjoyed in accordance with real
worth I Evils, often great evils, attend the institution of pro-
perty. We have bloated fortunes, with all the dangers which
they involve to society and morality, on one side ; on the other,
we have often insufficient remuneration for lal)our not only in
the case of the mechanic, but in the case of the merchant, who
doing his l^est, fails to get custom, and of the professional man
who. doing his best, fails to get employment. We liave, besides,
all the vices which attend the making and the spending of
wealth. c(n'etousness, avarice and fraud, the selfishness which
the intense pursuit of gain engenders, the habit of gambling
speculation produced by the passion, so rife in these commercial
communities, for becoming suddenlv rich. But the desire of
property is our only known motive power, and if property
ceased to be secure, production, at least any production but that
necessary to allay the immediate cravings of hunger, would
cease: there would be an end of the accumulation of wealth
and at the same time of human progress. Socialists have
pointed to military honour as an instance of a motive power
different from the desire of wealth; but it has been well replied
that military honour is not left to its spontaneous action but is
sustained l)y a code of law exceptionally severe. T would not
for a moment connect the philanthropists of the Anti- Poverty
Society with certain Labour Reformers who make it their aim
to set class against class, labour against capital, the toilers — to
use their favourite phrase — against the spoilers, and to sow the
seeds of industrial war. Once at least in history the theories of

tliese men and the passions to which they appeal have had full
play, ['nder the ascendancy of the Jacobins tlie spoilers were
plundered, guillotined or l)anished by thousands : capital was
either destroyed or driven into hidin(jf-places, and the result,
Ijesides an avalanche of crimes and horrors, was the total wi-eck
of commerce and industry, followed by a national famine in
which it is computed, that more than a million of persons
l)erished. It is possible, by violent measures, to lacerate the
social and industrial frame ; it is not possible to transform it.
That gradual improvement is going on we have every reason
to feel assured. Conclusive statistics seem to show not only
that there has of late been a great increase of the sum of wealth
in commercial and industrial communities, but that there has
been a gradual redistribution in favour of the workingman; in
other words, that a larger share of the increase has gone to
wages than to profits, while, huge as some of the great fortunes
are, the aggregate of small fortunes has increased in far larger
proportion. Among the proofs are the returns of the savings
banks in this country as well as in England. For this im])rove-
ment we are chiefly indebted to the natural operation of econo-
mical laws. Legislation has done something and legislation
may do more : nobody would wish to discourage legislative
effort : but the name of the Anti-Poverty Society promises, it
is to be feared, more than can be performed. The suffering
caused by the pressure of population on the means of subsist-
ence in overcrowded countries is what no kings or laws can
cure, any more than they can prevent the occurrence of the
accidental distress with which it is mainly the business of the
charities to deal.

On the other hand, let not those who have the larger share
of fortune's goods forget that the inequality, however inevita-
ble, is an imperfection in the social frame, not a perfection; or
at least a perfection only so far as it may be conducive to
human progress and civilization. If nobody has comparative

I '

wealth or leisure, not only literature, art. refinement of all
kinds, and the various trades and employments wliirh depend
upon them, would cease to exist, but science and invention, so
far as we can see, would come to a stand. Nay, the very ideal
and the standard of livint^ which ai-e necessary to ^ive birth to
upward effort could hardly survive. But a man is not pro-
motinc; progress or civilization who lives in idle luxury, and if
to idle luxury he adds that ostentation of wealth which exc'hes
envy and bitterness in the hearts of the poor, he may consider
himself a member of the most dangerous class. The dyna-
miter's best allv is the Haunting luxurv of the millionaire.
These are troublous times. The social and industrial world
heaves with the action of sul)terranean fires, which have already
burst into erui)tion on a terrible scale at Carthagena and Paris,
and on a smaller scale at many other places, some of them on
this continent, as at Pittsburg and Chicago. In the imperfect
and twilight state of i)0pular education, social chimeras have
power, especially when hunger and envy second the delusion.
It is an age of general disintegration and peri)lexity. From the
minds of a large number of workingmen, especially artisans,
the old belief in the existing frame of society as an ordinance
of Providence, to which man must submit, has departed. 80
has the old belief in the compensation of a future state of exist-
ence for those whose lot is hard, but who do their duty here.
That the working class will no longer allow their claims to be
put off to another world, but will claim their full share of
enjoyment here, is a sentiment frequently expressed, which no
doubt is a serious factor in the present social situation. Care
for their own safety, then, as well as higher considerations,
counsels the natural leaders of society to be at the post of duty.
"We have good reason to be grateful to our captains of industry
for the services rendered by them, not only in the way of indus-
trial and commercial organization, but of social leadership. It
is lucky for us indeed that we are practically governed in part

by them, not, wholly hy the politicians. Ihit in new communi-
ties like ours, where the atoms of society are very shiftin*^,
where there are no stronL' family or local ties, or even old com-
inei'cial Hrms, men havin;/ made their pile, as the phrase is, are
naturally tempted to ^o and enjoy it where it can be best
enjoyed, [un'haps in European cities where society is most bril-
liant an<^ all the services are most perfect, without much con-
sideration where or l)y what hands it was made. There is a
continual rush of wealthy Americans to the pleasure cities of
Europe, which must leave serious social jj^aps, besides takinjT
away a ^n-eat deal of wealth. Often these people are muniticent
in their <cifts to charitalde institutions, but j^ifts to charitable
institutions will not make up for the absence of the natural
leaders of society from the i)Ost of duty.

Of this, at all events, we may be pretty sure : in ()ctober,
when the meeting's of the Conference will commence, the saying
that the poor we have always with us will not be much less true
than it is now. The world is not likely to l)e re-made in the
interval by a wave of any leifislator's magic vvand. Amidst all
the noise and smoke of political, social, and economical war,
Charity pursues her c^uiet course, appealing to the feelings that
unite, not to the passion^ that divide us, and satistied with the
comparatively humble task of providing shelter for heads which
must be sheltered, and food for mouths which must be fed.

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