Then, as to the other able-bodied and able-minded unemployed who have become idle and almost enemies of society. It has long been agreed that it is necessary to detain them for periods of three or four years, during which they would be given the opportunity of learning to work. The place of detention would not be a prison, but a School of Industry, in which their capacities would be developed and their self-respect encouraged. The organization of such a place of discipline might involve thought, but its establishment need involve the Government in no long controversy. The Poor Law Commission and the Vagrancy Commission are at one in urging the necessity, and it must be obvious to anyone that until some means is discovered for removing from “the unemployed” the “idle and vagrant class,” the public mind will never AGREE TO WISE DEALING WITH THE PROBLEM. Here then is something possible, something which even a Government so burdened as the present might accomplish. The direct effect would be great, if boys were checked on their way to the ranks of the unemployed; if some untrained men and women were taken from the streets and restored trained to the labour market; if the feeble-minded and the idle were removed from unwise sympathy and unfair abuse. The indirect effect would also be great, as the conviction would spread that the Government was indeed taking a matter in hand which has been year by year postponed. There would be more hope of peace and good-will between rich and poor. When so much is at once possible, is it reasonable that nothing should be done till a complete scheme has been devised? It does not seem to be over-sanguine to believe that there are earnest men among the younger M.P.’s who, putting party aside, will agree to do what has been shown to be possible for the young people, the feeble-minded, and the unemployed. SAMUEL A. BARNETT. CHARITY UP TO DATE.[1] BY CANON BARNETT. February, 1912. [1] From “The Contemporary Review”. By permission of the Editor. The tender mercies of the thoughtless, as of the wicked, are often cruel, and charity when it ceases to be a blessing is apt to become a curse; A Mansion House fund we used in old days to count among the possible winter horrors of East London. The boldly advertised details of destitution, the publication of the sums collected, the hurried distribution by irresponsible and ignorant agents, and the absence of any policy, stirred up wild expectation and left behind a trail of bitterness and degradation. The people were encouraged in deception, and were led on in the way which ends in wretchedness.