CORRESPONDENCE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81899, 7 December 1906, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE

SOCIALISM—ITS REMEDY. To the Editor. - I Sir,—Mr Hyndman, the well known English socialist, in his historical basis of socialism, writing' of the state

of society before the Lutheran era, states: "The lands of the Church were liel' in great part for the pcop.e whose absolute right to assistance ( when in sickness or poverty was never disputed." and lie further adds, ( "permanent pauperism was unknown." Is it net singularly significant that the rise of permanent/ pauperism should be co-incident with the change in religion and that the indigent should henceforth be compete 1 to seek relief through the degrading and demoralising poor law system? It is somewhat startling to hear that every thirty-seventh person you meet in England and Wales is a pauper. The exact number is 920,741, in a population of 34,152,07. This- laiuen,!' able state of affairs coincides with a .time that England is growing in wealth at a rapid pace. Added to this we find that there are io,Q9s>n7 over ten years of age unoccuped, which is pauperism also. While the total popu'.artion is increasing at the rate of twenty-five per cent, the unoccupied are increasing at the rate of 'thirty-five per cent. There must be something out of gear, or something wanting m any system of economics, which however it may stimulate the industrial spirit or multiply spinningjennies, produces a few millionaires and a mil'iion paupers. It is not a law of nature that man should b« a Croesus, but it is a law of nature that no man should starve. Let us bear in mind the social problem is before ali things a religious and moral problem, it is not a question merely of stomachs; it is quite as much and more perhaps a spiritual question: a question of the soul. Social reform can only be accomplished by means of moral reform. In order to raise the life of the people we must :aise the soul of the people. In order to ■form society we must reform man—

reform the rich, reform the poor, re form the workman, and reform the master, and give back to each of them what is a* present lacking equally n each of them—a Christian spirit. In accomplishing this great, work we must build on a Christian bas-s, otherwise our efforts will be ineffectual. If your correspondent "R.A.J, would explain what he meant to convey, by the last two sentences of his letter in Tuesday's issue I should fee! grateful—l am, etc., COSMOPOLITAN.