" These words of Mr. Arnold White express the common view of
those philanthropists who do not understand what is meant by "the
industrial system," and of the bulk of the comfortable classes when they
are confronted with the evils of poverty as disclosed in "the sweating
system." Intemperance, unthrift, idleness, and inefficiency are indeed
common vices of the poor. If therefore we could teach the poor to be
temperate, thrifty, industrious, and efficient, would not the problem of
poverty be solved? Is not a moral remedy instead of an economic remedy
the one to be desired? The question at issue here is a vital one to all
who earnestly desire to secure a better life for the poor. This "moral
view" has much to recommend it at first sight. In the first place, it is
a "moral" view, and as morality is admittedly the truest and most real
end of man, it would seem that a moral cure must be more radical and
efficient than any merely industrial cure. Again, these "vices" of the
poor, drink, dirt, gambling, prostitution, &c., are very definite and
concrete maladies attaching to large numbers of individual cases, and
visibly responsible for the misery and degradation of the vicious and
their families. Last, not least, this aspect of poverty, by representing
the condition of the poor to be chiefly "their own fault," lightens the
sense of responsibility for the "well to do." It is decidedly the more
comfortable view, for it at once flatters the pride of the rich by
representing poverty as an evidence of incompetency, salves his
conscience when pricked by the contrast of the misery around him, and
assists him to secure his material interests by adopting an attitude of
stern repression towards large industrial or political agitations in the
interests of labour, on the ground that "these are wrong ways of
tackling the question.
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