ohm Rowntree, author of "Poverty, A Study of Town
Life," puts it at 27.84 per cent. Mr. Rowntree also states that an
average of one person in five, or 20 per cent. of the population, die in
some public institution, i. e., prison, poor-house, hospital or insane
asylum. These statements are depressing enough as they are, but they
become worse when we learn that the standard of living upon which they
are based are those enjoyed--we use the word advisedly--by poor-house
inmates. Think of this, ye Pharisees, Christian and otherwise, 30 per
cent. of the population of the British Isles living under such
conditions! These are not the idle statements of long-haired reformers
or yellow journalists, but of two very estimable Christian gentlemen,
both of them manufacturers and successful business men. They are
different from the ordinary exploiter only in the sense of being honest
and humane enough to recognize that something is radically wrong with
modern civilization and make an earnest attempt to remedy it.

In this connection it is worthy of note that when the proprietors of the
London "Daily News" had a systematic canvas and investigation made into
the housing conditions in London, some six or seven years ago, it was
found that 900,000 people, one-fifth of the population, were living in
violation of the law. This was the case notwithstanding that the law
says 400 cubic feet of air space for each adult and 200 cubic feet for
each child must be provided, whereas Professor Huxley, who at one time
was a physician in the East End of London, said at least 800 cubic feet
for an adult and 400 cubic feet for a child was absolutely necessary to
keep the air in a fair state of purity.

It was and is the proud boast of millions of people that they are
co-inheritors of this glorious empire, an empire the greatest the world
has ever seen: 400,000,000 souls and an area so vast that the sun never
sets on all its parts at one time. Pete Curran, the Trade Unionist and
Socialist, once remarked he knew parts of the empire upon which the sun
never shone, and Pete knew.

Glory and aggrandizement based upon injustice brings its own reward, and
when a people subjugate and exploit another, they must inevitably pay
the price of their own brutality and injustice. The handwriting is on
the wall in the shape of the present census report. Decaying at the
centre, the British Empire is rapidly going the way of the Persian,
Greek and Roman Empires, and her