Page:Local taxation and poor law administration in great cities.djvu/24

20 I regret to have detained the House so long. I hope I have not overstated the importance of the evils which I have brought under the attention of the House. I hope I am not too sanguine in believing that the remedies I have suggested would make the taxation more just and the administration more efficient; in believing that it would secure to the sick greater care, and to some extent check the attempts of what I may describe as our criminal paupers to prey upon the industrious portion of the community. I believe that it will tend to prevent our being startled at one time into hasty and therefore wasteful expenditure by those disgusting exposures which are occasionally made, at another time frightened by rising rates into equally inconsiderate and equally wasteful parsimony. I believe that a nation, the mass of whose citizens are individually virtuous and industrious, can stand very heavy and even wasteful expenditure, and yet prosper. But if that waste and expenditure tend, as I believe the waste and expenditure of the Poor Law system does, to destroy the industry, the virtue, and the independence of the working population of the country, it as surely tends to undermine the very foundations of national greatness and prosperity. I sincerely thank the House for the patience with which they have listened to me.