“The strength of a nation,” according to a saying of Napoleon quoted by Mr. Fisher, “depends on its history.” No reform is likely to endure which does not fit in with the traditions of the past. It might be possible to elaborate on paper a perfect scheme for the care of the weak and the sickly, but it would not avail if it disregarded history. Here in England the State has, during many centuries, recognized its obligation for the well-being of all its members, and it has performed its obligations by the service of individuals. The State, in more senses than one, is identified with the Church. In the new times, in the face of new needs and with the command of new knowledge, it is still the State which must organize the means to restore the fallen and it must still use as its instruments the willing service of individual men and women. The sketch of Poor Law reform which I have presumed to offer in this article fulfils, I believe, these requirements. SAMUEL A. BARNETT. THE UNEMPLOYED.[1] BY MRS. S. A. BARNETT. November, 1904. [1] A Paper read at a meeting in a West-End drawing room and afterwards printed by request. I am often asked to speak publicly, and when I express wonder as I open my letters at my breakfast-table, my family (with that delightful candour which is so good for one’s character) say, “Oh, they ask you because you always make them hear and sometimes make them laugh”. Ladies, to-day I shall, I hope, make you hear, but I cannot make you laugh. Those of us who have lived among the poor, as my dear old friend Emma Cons and I have done, in Lambeth and Whitechapel for over thirty years, know that there is no joke connected with the unemployed. Those of us who went through the awful winter of 1886, and saw the sad suffering which caused the still more sad sin, as the people lied and cringed and begged and bullied to get a share--(what they considered a lawful share, some called it “The ransom of the rich”) of the Mansion House Fund, know that this condition of want of employment is not only an economic question, but one involving deep and far-reaching moral issues, and it is this problem that is before us now.