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Show ENGLAND'S POVERTY PROBLEM. England's greatest and most pressing problem today is not imperial federation. Xor is it preferential prefer-ential tariffs within the empire. The problem that is worrying her most is, what to do with her paupers, pau-pers, says the Chicago Tribune. The people of the United States complain periodically peri-odically of "hard times." Their lean years would be fat years to the masses of England. One family fam-ily out of four of that country's whole population earns normally less than $5 per week, and S per ! cent of all the families in the kingdom have an average income less than this. In London one person per-son in every five dies in the workhouse (a public pour house in which adult paupers are made to work), in public hospitals, or in public lunatic asylums. asy-lums. In 1887, out of S2.545 deaths in London, 17,000 took place in public institutions for paupers. pau-pers. This being the normal state of affairs, some idea may be formed of the frightful conditions existing among the laboring class when, as now, the country is suffering from a severe industrial depression. Hundreds of thousands of men and women are out of work, their little savings are gone, and hunger and starvation stalk through every part of the land. j If the same conditions existed in France, French literary men would certainly get up a new and exhaustive ex-haustive political and social philosoplry, and the French people would probably upset the government. govern-ment. But the English, from the lowest ranks to the highest, have always been a peculiarly conservative con-servative and practical people. They have never gone much on finely wrought theories in any branch of philosophy, political or otherwise; nor has it ; ever been easy to work many of them up to the pitch where they wanted to bring on a quick, vio- j lent revolution. In the present emergency, as in past ones, they are not spiuning theories or in- dulging in violent talk of riots, but a large portion of the intellect and wealth of the country is ener- getically endeavoring to ameliorate present bad conditions and to contrive some means to prevent their recurrence. The rich are contributing generously gener-ously to the Mansion house and other funds for the relief of the poor; ami meantime both socialists social-ists and non-socialists are attacking vigorously the land laws, which probably are at the root of present pres-ent deplorable conditions. |