FEEDING THE BRITISH POOR. Commendable, but Inconclusive.

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 282, 25 November 1905, Page 6

FEEDING THE BRITISH POOR. Commendable, but Inconclusive.

MR. Seddon hardly lets the grass grow under his feet. He grabs a dilemma by botn horns as soon as it shows up. it isn't possible for New Zealand to even temporarily remove a tithe of the distress existing among the London poor, but to bring a bright spot into the lives of a few people by sending them a shipload of foodstuffs is a humane suggestion. • * ■* The objection tiiat food is cheap at Home and dear in New Zealand isn't really any reason why a few of the London poor shouldn't be fed with New Zealand food, and, anyhow, New Zealand food is cheaper to the Londoner than New Zealand food is to the New Zealander, the difference being that New Zealanders have money to pay the mgh rates demanded. Most of the immediate necessities of the poor af London will, of course, be relieved, even if that 'ship doesn't go Home, because millionaires will ease their consciences by writing a cheque that represents the merest trifle to them • • • The six thousand guineas from Rothschild is not so much to be commended as a child's penny should be. To-morrow it will roll back into the Rothschild banking account through my lord's land. To make our meaning clear, if Rothschild or any of the huge landowners paid to the British poor to-morrow one hundred million pounds, there would be no need to exalt the landowners for giving to the people what is theirs by right of humanity. • • • In fact, the Creator didn't create the earth for the millionaire, and he didn't create men millionaires, and he cuts the prince of finance off with six feet of land m the end. The gift of that food will be a moiv gracious gift than the gift of the land sharks of Britain. The poor of England don't realise why they are poor. They merely accept ir aa inevitable and hopeless. They are filled with deep gratitude at the gifts of the rich, who are rich because the people at large are poor. • * * -r» Imagine having to go to Russ.a ' far an example to England ! You read of the Czar's ukase to aboliso. payments on land to the tune of £8,500,000. You don't hear of the poor of England having any land on which payments can be abolished. You hear that the Russian total remissions of taxation are over a hundred and twenty millions. Thedemand the re-purchase of private estates by the State in Russia. Who demands it m England ? Who dares demand it? • * • The women of the unemployed in 'London did not cry "Give them St. Petersburg!" for any other reasoo than that they were out of work and hungry. Satisfy their hunger, and they are again docile. It js only by the education of the masses to a belief that they have the same right to some of the earth as n Rothschild that reform will be demanded. And while we praise Mr Seddon's promptness in suggesting that boat-load of food, don't let us forget that he is the advocate of repurchase of big estates, the only hope of the poor of England. • • • To-day they will get a meal. Tomorrow they will be again hungry.

As long as the land that was made far forty millions is m the hands of ten thousand, it will continue so. It is encouraging to find royalty willing to give of its abundance. We find King Edward and Queen Alexandra giving large sums to the poor. Some day King Edward may give a few of his many properties for subdivision. The late revered Queen Victoria was content with an occasional dole of two or three hundred pounds to the starving myriads. Royalty seems to improve as it goes along, but it doesn't get out of the cast-iron habit of doing things in the rather stupid style that is as old as the story of King Arthur. Mother gave money and grandfather gave money. If I give more money than either mother or grandfather, I shall be generous. It is not the proper way. It is the opportunity to live by their own industry that the people want.