A third difficulty is the fact that money paid as wage for work done must, in the nature of things, belong wholly and entirely to the person who performs the work. He or she is free to devote such money to any purpose they think best, and cases are not unknown of children who do not receive even such nurture as their parents’ means could allow. Many people solve these knotty points by dropping women bread-winners out of the problem, by arranging that the family consists of five persons—a man, his wife, and three children—and by assuming that every parent thinks more of his or her children’s welfare than of self. By doing this, they deal with theories instead of facts. The two sums that have been seriously discussed by such various authorities as Mr. Rowntree, Mr. Charles Booth, and the Labour party are 25s. a week and 30s. a week. Neither sum is really enough in some localities should there be more than three children, who are to be properly housed as well as properly dressed and fed. And neither sum as a hard and fast minimum, even for men only, is considered practical politics by anybody. Scientific minimum wage schemes must consider and give weight to the conditions of each trade and locality. Many decisions in the worst paid trades will follow the example of the decisions under the Trades Boards Act, and when a minimum has been arrived at it will be—though an advance on present wages—insufficient perhaps to keep in real efficiency and comfort a single adult. Moreover, to keep the children of the nation in health and strength is too important and vital a responsibility to be placed entirely on the shoulders of one section of the community—namely, the employers of labour. It is a responsibility which should be undertaken by the only authority which is always equal to its complete fulfilment—the State. Therefore, although any minimum wage scheme which proposes to raise the bottom wages in any trade or trades, or for any group or groups of workers, is a necessary part of legislation, and must be urgently insisted upon in any plan for social reform, no minimum wage legislation now proposed, or likely to be proposed, will deal adequately with the question of all the children of the working poor. Yet unless we do deal with all of them, and deal adequately, the problem of the nation’s children goes unsolved.