ead
of redeeming the destitute, we should seek to render generally available
the means of avoiding destitution, though in doing so we should
uniformly call on the individual for a corresponding effort on his part.
One method of meeting these conditions is to supply a basis for private
effort to work upon, as is done in the case of the aged. Another method
is that of State-aided insurance, and on these lines Liberal legislators
have been experimenting in the hope of dealing with sickness,
invalidity, and one portion of the problem of unemployment. A third may
be illustrated by the method by which the Minority of the Poor Law
Commissioners would deal with the case, at present so often full of
tragic import, of the widowed or deserted mother of young children.
Hitherto she has been regarded as an object of charity. It has been a
matter for the benevolent to help her to retain her home, while it has
been regarded as her duty to keep "off the rates" at the cost of no
matter what expenditure of labour away from home. The newer conception
of rights and duties comes out clearly in the argument of the
commissioners, that if we take in earnest all that we say of the duties
and responsibilities of motherhood, we shall recognize that the mother
of young children is doing better service to the community and one more
worthy of pecuniary remuneration when she stays at home and minds her
children than when she goes out charing and leaves them to the chances
of the street or to the perfunctory care of a neighbour. In proportion
as we realize the force of this argument, we reverse our view as to the
nature of public assistance in such a case. We no longer consider it
desirable to drive the mother out to her charing work if we possibly
can, nor do we consider her degraded by receiving public money. We
cease, in fact, to regard the public money as a dole, we treat it as a
payment for a civic service, and the condition that we are inclined to
exact is precisely that she should not endeavour to add to it by earning
wages, but rather that she should keep her home respectable and bring up
her children in health and happiness.

In defence of the competitive system two arguments have been familiar
from old days. One is based on the habits of the working classes. It is
said that they spend their surplus incomes on drink, and that if they
have no margin for saving, it is because they have sunk it in the
public-house. That argument is rapidly being