I seem to hear my listeners say: “But at least it cannot do harm to feed the children,” and there I confess my economics break down! I have lived long enough in Whitechapel to see three generations, and I have watched the underfed boy grow into the undersized man, pushed aside by stronger arms in the labour market. I have seen the underfed girl grown into the enfeebled woman, producing in motherhood puny children. But, and it is a big but, if you feed the children, you must feed them adequately, and feed them as individuals by individuals. The practice of giving children two or three dinner tickets a week is bad economy, bad for the children’s digestion, bad for the mother’s housekeeping, and bad for the father’s sense of responsibility. We should not like our own children to be fed thus, and indeed if we would consider each child of the poor as we consider our own, the problem of feeding the children would soon be solved. I know you will think me Utopian, but if every one of us here were to have two or three children as kitchen guests daily! Well! It perhaps would not do much, but once we were told ten righteous men might have saved the city. This is a long digression, but the individual treatment of children is a subject that occupies much of my thought, and one which I would ask you to consider carefully as throwing light on many loudly voiced schemes of reform, which, lacking the personal touch, are apt to miss the deeper and spiritual forces by which character must be nourished if it is to grow. Now to return to the unemployed. Briefly they can be put into four classes:-- 1. The skilled mechanic. 2. The unskilled labourer. 3. The casual worker. 4. The loafer. Concerning the first, the Chart published in the “Labour Gazette” shows that the number approaches 7 per cent as against nearly 5 per cent last year. This is the only class about which we have accurate figures, but the returns of pauperism, and the experience of charitable agencies combine in agreeing that there is more want of employment in the other three classes than is usual at this time of the year, and that there are fewer “bits of things” to go to the pawnshop than usual, because, owing to the war, and some think to the fiscal agitation, the summer trade has been slack, and wages low and uncertain. No one can read the daily papers without seeing how many schemes are now being put forward to aid the unemployed, and in the space of time given to me it is impossible to name all these, let alone to discriminate between them, but certain principles can be laid down. (1) The form of help should be work. (2) The work should be such as will uplift and not degrade character. (3) The work should be paid sufficiently to keep up the home and adequately feed the family. (4) The work, if it be relief work--i.e., that not required in the ordinary channels by ordinary employers--should not be more attractive than the worker’s normal labour.