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 further increase of material relief or does it lie elsewhere?

As has been already pointed out, the tendency of the present day is towards such increase. Both Poor Law and charitable relief have greatly increased in the last decade, and all sorts of schemes for the acceptance of further responsibility by the State are in the air, all of which take the shape of further relief. And in spite of it all poverty shows no sign of diminution. On the contrary, if we may accept the statements of such an authority as Mr Rowntree, things are growing worse and worse and more hopeless. In his book, which is attracting so much attention, he states that in the city of York 9 per cent, of the poor do not earn sufficient for the bare support of a "moderate" family, computed at three or four, even if all expenditure upon luxuries such as beer and tobacco be eliminated. Though there will probably be some difference of opinion as to the bases of his argument, and the inferences drawn, yet no one will doubt that there is sufficient truth behind them to call for our most anxious attention; and that is, probably, the object of his work.

If the solution of the problem lay in further schemes of relief, we should all be in favour of them. On the other hand, if we think otherwise, it is our duty to say so, and to point out what we believe to be the better way even though that way be difficult and hard to follow. Those who have studied the history of the question in the past and watched it closely in the present day, those who have been engaged in Poor Law and charitable administration for many years, and have watched the effect of relief upon individuals and families over a long period, have gained the right to be heard in this matter, even though their voice be a "voice crying in the wilderness." Perhaps it