BERNARD SHAW HITS OUT.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 61, 10 May 1912, Page 2

BERNARD SHAW HITS OUT.

Poverty is the worst of crimes. AH other crimes aro virtues beside it; all the olher dishonors are chhalry itself by comparison. Poverty blights whole cities; spreads horrible, pestilences, strikes dead the vci.' souls of all who come within sight, sound or smell of it. What you call crime js nothing; a murder hero and a theft thoie; a blow now and a curse, then; what do they matter 'l They are only the accidents or illnesses of hie. Only fools fear crime; we ;ill fear povcrt'-. Pah I You talk of your half-saved ruffian in West Ham. Well, bring him to mo here, and I will drag his soul back again to salvation for you. Not by words -and dreams, but by 38s. a neck, a sound house in « haiidsomo street and a permanent job. In thr"o weeks lie will have a, fancy waistcoat; in three months a fall hat and a chapel silting; before the end of the year ho will shako hands nith a d'H-bess at a Primrose League meeting and join the Conservative Party. It is cheap wmk converting starving men with a Bible in one hand and a s'-ice of bread and butler in tho olher. 1 •ail) undertake t»> convert West Main 5 ili&XfliTriPd.iiiisui on tiie same terms. i fiftto poverty and slavery worso than any other crimo whatsoever. And let mo tell you this —poverty and slavery have stood up for centuries to your sermons and leading articles. They will not stind up to my machine guns. Don't, preach at them ; don't reason with them. Kill them.—From "Major Barbara," by Bernard Shaw.