The paradise in which a few theorists lived, listening to the talk at social science congresses, has been rudely broken. Lord Mayors, merchant princes, prime ministers, and able editors have no better means for relief of distress than that long ago discredited by failure. One of the greatest dangers possible to the State has been growing in the midst, and the leaders have slumbered and slept. The resources of civilisation, which are said to be ample to suppress disorder and to evolve new policies, have not provided means by which the chief commandment may be obeyed, and love shown to the poor neighbour. The outlook is gloomy enough, and the cure of the evil is not to be effected by a simple prescription. The cure must be worked by slow means which will take account of the whole nature of man, which will consider the future to be as important as the present, and which will win by waiting. Generally it is assumed that the chief change is that to be effected in the habits of the poor. All sorts of missions and schemes exist for the working of this change. Perhaps it is more to the purpose that a change should be effected in the habits of the rich. Society has settled itself on a system which it never questions, and it is assumed to be absolutely within a man’s right to live where he chooses and to get the most for his money. It is this practice of living in pleasant places which impoverishes the poor. It authorises, as it were, a lower standard of life for the neighbourhoods in which the poor are left; it encourages a contempt for a home which is narrow; it leaves large quarters of the town without the light which comes from knowledge, and large masses of the people without the friendship of those better taught than themselves. The precept that ‘every one should live over his shop’ has a very direct bearing on life, and it is the absence of so many from their shops, be the shop ‘the land’ or ‘a factory,’ which makes so many others poorer. Absenteeism is an acknowledged cause of Irish troubles, and Mr. Goldwin Smith has pointed out that ‘the greatest evils of absenteeism are--first, that it withdraws from the community the upper class, who are the natural channels of civilising influences to the classes below them; and, secondly, that it cuts off all personal relations between the individual landlord and his tenant.’ He further adds that it was ‘natural the gentry should avoid the sight of so much wretchedness ... and be drawn to the pleasures of London or Dublin.’ The result in Ireland was heartbreaking poverty which relief funds did not relieve, and there is no reason why in East London absenteeism should have other results. In the same way the unquestioned habit by which every one thinks himself justified in getting the most for his money tends to make poverty. In the competition which the habit provokes many are trampled underfoot, and in the search after enjoyment wealth is wasted which would support thousands in comfort.