MR. GEORGE LANSBURY has done good service in pointing out the demoralizing result of “the wretched, miserable dole system” on the character of young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. A civilized community cannot allow any of its citizens to starve, and it is the proof of the failure of modern statesmanship that hundreds of thousands of men in the prime of their youth and strength stand day after day idle in the market-place with no man to hire them, compelled, whether they will or no, to live on the dole. Mr. Lansbury insists that if a man will not work he has no right to eat, but he must be given a chance to work, and there is surely something to be said for his suggestion that large numbers of men might be taken into settlements in the country and made to work on the land. We are continually told that farming does not pay and that the farmer is almost bankrupt. On the other hand, it is a matter of common agreement that England could produce many times more food than she does produce. There surely must be some way of using idle labour to supply badly needed food. In the debate that followed Mr. Lansbury’s speech Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland, the Minister of Labour, was sympathetic. But what is wanted is the translation into action of such common expressions of good will.
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