The doctrines above given have unfortunately been accepted by many organised workers. A resolution of the Trades Union Congress at Leeds, in September 1904, asserted: "That having regard to the facts (_a_) that twelve millions of the population are living in actual poverty, or close to the poverty line; (_b_) that physical deterioration of the people is the inevitable result of this; (_c_) that it is impossible to teach starving and underfed children, this Congress urges the Government to introduce, without further delay, legislation instructing education authorities to provide at least one free meal a day for children attending State-supported schools." A resolution passed at the Scottish Miners' Conference on December 30, 1904, stated: "That this Conference is in favour of State maintenance of children, but that in the meantime we identify ourselves with the movement in favour of free meals for school children." Resolutions passed by the National Labour Conference on the State maintenance of children, at the Guildhall, City of London, Friday, January 20, 1905, declared: "That this Conference of delegates from British Labour Organisations, Socialist and other bodies, declares in favour of State maintenance of children as a necessary corollary of universal compulsory education and as a means of partially arresting that physical deterioration of the industrial population of this country which is now generally recognised as a grave national danger. As a step towards such State maintenance this Conference, supporting the decision of the last Trades Union Congress upon this question, calls upon the Government to introduce without further delay such legislative measures as will enable the local authorities to provide meals for children attending the common schools, to be paid for out of the National Exchequer; and in support of this demand calls attention to the evidence given by Dr. Eichholz, the official witness of the Board of Education on the Committee on Physical Deterioration, in which he stated that the question of food is at the base of all the evils of child degeneracy, and that if steps were taken to ensure the proper adequate feeding of the children the evil will rapidly cease." A Socialist has worked out in a widely read book the cost of free education and State maintenance, which will require a yearly expenditure of _458,750,000l._, a sum four times as large as the entire national Budget. This outlay does not deter him. Combining the State schools with State workshops, he promises that they will yield a profit of exactly _105,850,000l._ a year.[838] This scheme should recommend itself to Chancellors of the Exchequer in search of a few millions.