Page:The Slippery Slope.djvu/21



late Lord Salisbury once advised those who wish to study foreign politics to do so upon large maps. The same advice may be given to those who wish to study social problems, and especially the problem of poverty ; for there is, perhaps, no department of social economy in which the field of observation is so wide and the phenomena are so persistent, and in which the sequence of cause and effect appears to be so inexorable. We are often warned against the danger of historical comparisons, and of course such a danger exists. There must always be controversy as to the interpretation of history, especially of that which is more remote. It is not suggested, therefore, that the comparisons should be pressed too closely ; but at least there is sufficient evidence to show that, even in the remoter periods of history, much the same things were being said and done in regard to the problem of poverty as are being said and done at the present time, and that certain principles and tendencies have established themselves beyond the reach of controversy.

The writer does not pretend to do more than to give the barest outlines of some of the best known phenomena in the social history of the past which appear to illustrate three of these principles and tendencies. Readers must form their own conclusions as to whether or no they are relevant to the social questions of the day. His purpose