Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/831

 NOTES AND MEMORANDA 809 are sober men. None the less they present a problem of which no solution can be found while London continues to offer so many ways of living without working; it is so dicult to believe in mere idleness as a cause of distress that no doubtful cases have been placed in this class: the skilled artisan who threw up five good situations because he got tired of the job, the man who cannot get up in the mornings, and the man who likes a perpetual holiday on Monday such as these may fairly be termed idle. The bad-tempered people again, who are always leaving work because of' a few words,' are another stumbling-block for the theory which will cure poverty by providing work. The five cases of families which have been deserted by the responsible wage-earners do not fairly represent the actual proportion, as the greater number of these are dealt with directly by the Poor Law, and have not come under our notice. Turni.ng to the second column, ' ordinary illness' in- cludes only those cases m which the illness is of an amount and nature which should reasonably be expected by every man, and for which provision might have been made. ' Want of Stock' represents a not inconsiderable class of people, mainly costermongers, who habitually consume both capital and profit, trusting to chance, or Providence in the shape of some benevolent ahnsgiver, to supply the deficiency when the time comes. ' Ordinary Slackness,' again, represents the amount of ' out of work' which is normal in any trade ..q. building and its dependent industrie and which is compensated by high wages during the busy season. I But for the habit of spending all the mon.ey as it comes in there need have been no distress in these cases.! It is different where owing to stress of weather, etc., the slackness is of longer duration than usual, but it is comparatively seldom that families previously inde. pendent find their resources completely exhausted from this cause. The amount of distress due to decay of some special industry is small, and seems to point to the fact that a competent man can generally adapt his skill to solne cognate branch. ' Emergency' includes cases of sudden and unexpected misfortune which, from its nature, could hardly have been averted,--loss of stock by fire or frost, sudden death, bad investment of savings. Illness is counted as extraordinary when of such a persistent and overwhelming nature that no degreee of thrift or foresight can preserve the independence of the family; consumption plays the largest part in this melancholy list, breaking down all resources by its duration and hopelessness. Finally come the incompetert people, those who, without any special deficiency, are yet wholly wanting in ability; it is these Who are the most genuine representatives of the out of work class, and where these have been made fit for work i.e. taught a trade .they have rarely, if ever, failed to be employed. The threefold division of the causes of distress has been adopted to indicate the nature of the cure required. In the first six it is evident that nothing short of a moral regeneration, nothing which does not create and maintain a sense of responsibility, can possibly raise these ' unemployed' to the ranks of independence. The same is true, only in