Page:James Ramsay MacDonald - The Socialist Movement.pdf/39

 Rh the play: and counter-play of social and personal causes of poverty are of course difficult to compile. But various authorities have attempted to supply them. Commissioner Cadman says that 26•6 per cent. of those who come to Salvation Army Homes have been wrecked financially by drink and gambling. Mr. Rowntree commits himself to no figures regarding York, but puts drink and gambling, together with bad housekeeping, as the first of the causes which produce secondary poverty from which 13,000 persons out of a total poverty-stricken population of 20,000 are suffering. Mr. Charles Booth worked out, from a certain number of investigated families, that 14 per cent. of the A and B classes of poverty was caused by personal habits, and 13 per cent. of classes C and D, whilst "conditions of employment" accounted for 55 and 68 per cent. of the poverty in these classes respectively. I would be the last to seek to belittle the evils of drunkenness, but it must be reduced to its proportions. The Socialist movement in practically every country in the world has declared war upon drink, and at the International Congress at Stuttgart the question was considered. Nor must it be forgotten that the effect of social pressure is to increase the activities of those cravings and appetites which reduce individual efficiency and so create individual poverty. Did not the worldly-wise writer of the Proverbs say: ‘"Let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more."