Now it is obvious that an economic policy which was determined primarily by a consideration for the "solidarity of the family" would lead to far-reaching measures of industrial reorganisation. If the ideal is a society in which "the bread-winner" is by his "exertion and self-restraint" to guarantee "the fortunes of his whole household," the immediate object of attack must be those industrial evils which effectually prevent him from doing so at present, and of which the principal are low wages, casual labour, recurrent periods of unemployment and bad housing. That a crusade conducted in the interests of the family against these regular features of modern industry is entirely desirable need not be questioned. But in its absence it is obvious that, so far from allowing "the sins of the parents to be visited on the children," what we are really doing is to allow the sins of the employer to be visited on the employed or the sins of the community to be visited upon future generations of unborn children, and it seems almost frivolous to ascribe the results of this constant and vicarious sacrifice to the measures which, like the provision of school meals, are directed merely to the partial mitigation of some of its worst effects. The truth is, to put the matter bluntly, that what breaks up the family is not the presence of food but its absence, and that, if the public conscience is unperturbed by the spectacle of numerous homes in which economic circumstances have deprived the parents of the means of providing meals for their children themselves, its sudden sensitiveness at the thought of meals being provided by some external authority would be ludicrous if it did not lead to such tragic consequences. The reader who reflects on the thousands of dock-labourers in London, Liverpool and Glasgow who, through no fault of their own, can obtain only three days' work a week, or on the 25 to 30 per cent. of the working-class population of Reading who have been shown by Professor Bowley to be receiving a total family income below the low standard fixed by Mr. Rowntree,[529] and to be receiving it, in 49 per cent. of the cases, because they are "in regular work but at low wages,"[530] will scarcely argue that the mere provision of meals, however injudicious he may regard it, is likely to contribute seriously to the weakening of family relationships which have been already strained or broken by industrial anarchy or industrial tyranny. _Sublata causa tollitur effectus._ But does any one seriously believe that a cessation of school meals would restore the desired "solidarity of the family" to the casual or sweated labourer? Footnote 529: