In his estimate, Professor Bowley calculated that about 8,000,000 adult men were employed in regular occupations in the United Kingdom, and that of these 32 per cent., or nearly one-third, were earning, at full-time work, less than 25s. a week. As we see, Mr. Snowden comes to a different conclusion, and reckons that 50 per cent. of the adult men in regular employment are getting less than 25s. a week. If we take the smaller of these two estimates and reckon that one-fifth of the adult men are unmarried, we get something like 2,000,000 families living on a wage which is under 25s. a week. Again, to quote from Mr. Snowden, “Sir Robert Giffen estimated twenty years ago that there were 2,000,000 families where the total income did not exceed a pound a week.” Allowing that the average family consists of a man and his wife and two children, we get 8,000,000 persons who are living more or less as are the people whose daily life has been described in the previous chapters of this book, while, if we take Mr. Snowden’s own estimate, the number is far greater. That means that the great bulk of this enormous mass of people are under-fed, under-housed, and insufficiently clothed. The children among them suffer more than the adults. Their growth is stunted, their mental powers are cramped, their health is undermined. A hundred years ago their fathers would have regarded these children as economic assets, and the family income would have been produced by every member who was over a very tender age. During the last century the State prohibited the employment of children under a certain age—an age which, as wisdom grows, tends to become higher and higher. By this necessary action the State formally invested itself with the ultimate responsibility for the lives and welfare of its children, and the guardianship thus exercised has continually been enlarged in scope until it has assumed supreme control of the nurture and training of the youth of the nation. A birth now means that a new human being must be fed, clothed, and housed in a manner which the State as guardian considers sufficient, for a period which we now hope to raise to sixteen years. If a man in these days sets his young children to earn money, or, if they be not fed, clothed, cared for, and sent regularly to school, he can be put in prison. If the children’s mother be a wage-earner, she can also be sent to prison if her children are not sufficiently cared for. Even the non-earning mother who has only what her husband chooses to give her can be imprisoned if a magistrate decide that any child-neglect is chargeable to her. It would seem reasonable to expect that when the ultimate responsibility for their welfare is undertaken by a rich and powerful State, children should at least be in receipt of sufficient food, shelter, warmth, and clothing.