Then, as to expenses. Assuming the cost to be L200 a member, that would make a gross sum of L2000 for ten members, which sum would not amount to quite fivepence a head for 100,000 voters. But do voters find this money? If not, why not? Then, as to maintenance. Allowing each member L200 a year, that would mean another fivepence a year for the 100,000 men. So that it is not too much to say that, without passing one of the Acts in the seven-branched programme, the workers of Manchester could, at a cost of less than one penny a month per man, return and maintain ten working men Members of Parliament? Now, my practical friends, how many working-class members sit for Manchester to-day? And if the people, having so much power now, make no use of it, why are we to assume that all they need is a little more power to make them healthy, and wealthy, and wise? But allow me to offer a still more striking example--the example of America. In the first place, I assume that in America the electoral power of the people is much greater than it is here. I will give one or two examples. In America, I understand, they have:-- 1. No Established Church. 2. No House of Lords. 3. Members of the Legislature are paid. 4. The people have Universal Suffrage. There are four out of the seven branches of the practical politicians' programme in actual existence. For the other three-- The Abolition of Dual Voting; The Payment of Election Expenses; and The Second Ballot-- I cannot answer; but these do not seem to have done quite as much for France as our practical men expect them to do for England. Very well, America has nearly all that our practical politicians promise us. Is America, therefore, so much better off as to justify us in accepting the seven-branched programme as salvation? Some years ago I read a book called _How the Other Half Lives_, written by an American citizen, and dealing with the conditions of the poor in New York. We should probably be justified in assuming that just as London is a somewhat intensified epitome of England, so is New York of America; but we will not assume that much. We will look at this book together, and we will select a few facts as to the state of the people in New York, and then I will ask you to consider this proposition:-- 1. That in New York the people already enjoy all the advantages of practical politics, as understood in England. 2. That, nevertheless, New York is a more miserable and vicious city than London. 3. That this seems to me to indicate that practical politics are hopeless, and that practical politicians are--not quite so wise as they imagine. About thirty years ago there was a committee appointed in New York to investigate the "great increase in crime." The Secretary of the New York Prison Association, giving evidence, said:--