The "hungry children" argument is a valuable one for purposes of agitation, and it is used by the Socialists to the fullest extent. The workers are told: "The children are too ill provided for to be educated. This is not because the worker is idle or thriftless, but actually because he is too industrious and produces so much that his labour as a producer is at a discount. It is objected that to provide free State maintenance for all the children would be to destroy parental responsibility. But it is too late in the day to urge this objection, seeing that the State has taken upon itself the education of the children and is prepared to undertake, and does undertake, their maintenance and bringing-up when the parents are so careless of their responsibilities as to neglect them entirely."[832] "The old-fashioned prejudice fostered by the capitalists and their hangers-on that it is degrading to accept anything from the State is fast dying out"[833]--That workmen who are daily told by their leaders that it is unreasonable to expect that they should bring up their children frequently desert their family is natural. Every year many thousands of wives and children are deserted. At every police station the names of such men may be seen posted up, and those desertions are undoubtedly largely due to Socialistic teaching. The real object of the Socialists in demanding free maintenance for the children is not humanity. In making that demand they do not even think of the welfare of the children, as the following extracts will prove, which clearly reveal the real object of their demands. "Free maintenance for children should be accepted by trade unionists as tending to raise the standard of comfort. All should demand it with the object of personally benefiting themselves."[834] "In nine cases out of ten it is the hungry child who breaks the back of the strike. Let them feel assured that their children's dinner is secure, and they will continue the struggle to a victorious end."[835] "Free maintenance for children would be a tax on that surplus wealth which the capitalists and the aristocracy share between them. To the worker free maintenance for his children would be equivalent to an additional income. His standard of living would rise. No doubt the capitalist would reduce his wages as much as possible, but the worker would then be able to fight him on more equal terms. His children being well cared for, he would be able to hold out against the capitalist for an indefinite period."[836] "We counsel the workers to accept the offer as a small payment on account of a huge debt, but to accept it with no more gratitude than is shown by the class which is maintained in luxury, parents and children alike, by the collective industry of the workers. By dint of organisation they may be able very soon to exact payment of a more substantial sum--State maintenance, to wit."[837]