By dint of organisation they may be able very soon to exact
payment of a more substantial sum--State maintenance, to wit."[837]

The doctrines above given have unfortunately been accepted by many
organised workers. A resolution of the Trades Union Congress at
Leeds, in September 1904, asserted:

"That having regard to the facts (_a_) that twelve millions of the
population are living in actual poverty, or close to the poverty line;
(_b_) that physical deterioration of the people is the inevitable
result of this; (_c_) that it is impossible to teach starving and
underfed children, this Congress urges the Government to introduce,
without further delay, legislation instructing education authorities
to provide at least one free meal a day for children attending
State-supported schools."

A resolution passed at the Scottish Miners' Conference on December 30,
1904, stated:

"That this Conference is in favour of State maintenance of children,
but that in the meantime we identify ourselves with the movement in
favour of free meals for school children."

Resolutions passed by the National Labour Conference on the State
maintenance of children, at the Guildhall, City of London, Friday,
January 20, 1905, declared:

"That this Conference of delegates from British Labour Organisations,
Socialist and other bodies, declares in favour of State maintenance of
children as a necessary corollary of universal compulsory education
and as a means of partially arresting that physical deterioration of
the industrial population of this country which is now generally
recognised as a grave national danger. As a step towards such State
maintenance this Conference, supporting the decision of the last
Trades Union Congress upon this question, calls upon the Government to
introduce without further delay such legislative measures as will
enable the local authorities to provide meals for children attending
the common schools, to be paid for out of the National Exchequer; and
in support of this demand calls attention to the evidence given by Dr.
Eichholz, the official witness of the Board of Education on the
Committee on Physical Deterioration, in which he stated that the
question of food is at the base of all the evils of child degeneracy,
and that if steps were taken to ensure the proper adequate feeding of
the children the evil will rapidly cease."

A Socialist has worked out in a widely read book the cost of free
education and State maintena