Working-men, in order that they may fulfil their obligation and deliver themselves of their responsibility, may rightly, I think, urge a moral claim on the community for the opportunities by which to fit themselves for the performance of their duties. They enjoy by the sacrifice of their ancestors the inestimable privilege of freedom, but the value of freedom depends on the power to take advantage of its possibilities: the right to run in a race is all very well, but it is not of great use if the runner’s legs and arms are crippled. Freedom, in fact, implies the capacity to do or enjoy something worth doing or enjoying. The working classes, who, as members of a free nation, have been entrusted with the government of the nation, cannot do what is worth doing or what they are called to do if their bodies are weakened by ill health and their minds cribbed and cabined by ignorance. How can they whose childhood has been spent in the close, smoky, and fœtid air of the slums, whose bodies have been weakened in unhealthy trade, take their share in the support or defence of the nation? How can they who have learned no history, whose minds have had no sympathetic training, whose eyes have never been opened to the enjoyment of beauty, understand the needs of the people or grasp the mission of the Empire? Working men have thus a moral claim that they shall have the opportunity to secure health and knowledge, sanitary dwellings, open spaces, care in sickness and the prevention of disease, schools, university teaching, and easy access to all those means of life which make for true enjoyment. But when such opportunities have been provided, poverty often prevents their use. This excuse does not, indeed, hold universally, and it is much to be wished that the Labour Press and other makers of Labour opinion would more often urge the importance of taking advantage of the provided means for health and knowledge. They may have reason for stirring men against the unfairness of an economic system and uniting them in a strike against the ways of capital, but success would be of little value unless the men themselves become stronger and wiser. Many workmen--for example, those engaged in the building trades--have abundant leisure during the winter. It would be well, if they, as well as those who consume hours in attending football matches, would spend some time in developing their capacities of mind and body. Labour indeed needs a chaplain who will preach that power comes from what a man is, and not only from what a man has. The Labour Press, with its voice reiterating complaints, and its eyes fixed on “possessions,” makes reading as dreary as the pages of a society or financial journal.