To this end the economic reforms of the new Liberalism have been directed. The Labour Exchanges Act did not furnish work for all. It provided facilities for obtaining work for all who sought for it. The workman is no longer left to scramble about for fresh employment. He goes to a public office, where he learns what posts are vacant, and is put in touch with those who may be willing to employ him. No man can now complain that because he cannot afford to travel in search of work, or to delay {330} for more than a day or two before he finds it, he has suffered a permanent deterioration in health or character. If this Act can eliminate the evils of casual and irregular labour, it will have enormously increased individual liberty for growth.[353] The Old Age Pensions Act removed from the shoulders of working-class families what was to many an intolerable burden. Before the Act came into force some thousands of men and women, from no cause but the lapse of time, became incapable of supporting themselves. The alternatives were the workhouse and the generosity of their children. The first meant a loss of independence for themselves, the second a fetter upon the freedom of their relations. In the absence of sickness requiring hospital treatment, the pension of five shillings a week is generally sufficient to maintain the dignity of the pensioner and the efficiency of the children. The Workmen's Compensation Act, extending Mr. Chamberlain's Acts of 1896 and 1900, insures the working people against accident as the Old Age Pensions Act insures them against age, and the Insurance Act against sickness and unemployment due to causes beyond their control. So the Act providing for the feeding of necessitous children in public schools aims at preventing the permanent deterioration of body and character which is produced by inadequate nourishment in the early years of life. So the Wage Boards Act and the Miners' Minimum Wage Act established machinery for fixing a wage in certain employments which, having regard to the circumstances of each trade, would insure that the wage-earner should enjoy a reasonable standard of health and comfort. All these measures are based upon the same principle, that absolute liberty of the individual meant the degradation, if not the destruction, of many individuals who were poor. There can be no equal chance of growth so long as accidents which cannot be averted, by any effort of the individual, may permanently impair his natural capacity. Social reform is {331} justified as a national army is justified. It is a system of common organization for the purpose of common protection. What Mr. Churchill said of insurance may be said of all these economic projects: "I think it is our duty to use the strength and the resources of the State to arrest the ghastly waste, not merely of human happiness, but of national health and strength, which follows when a working man's home, which has taken him years to get together, is broken up