Nor is there much more substance in the theory that the provision of meals by a public authority weakens family life by "undermining parental responsibility." We are not, of course, concerned to deny that in the working classes as well as in the propertied classes there are a certain number of persons who are anxious "to get something for nothing." Cases, no doubt, do arise in which a parent who knows that the needs of his children will partially be met by the food supplied by an Education Authority may for that reason contemplate their fate when abandoned by him with less apprehension. At most, however, such cases constitute only 10 per cent. of those on the table, and the wisdom of withholding assistance from the remaining 90 per cent. merely in order to bring pressure upon this small fraction of all the families concerned is, to put the matter at the lowest, highly questionable. Moreover, even assuming that children who are neglected by their parents should be made to suffer in order to teach the latter a moral lesson, what probability is there that the lesson will be appreciated? In those families where a father is contemplating the desertion of his home, family relationships must obviously be weak and unstable. Is it seriously suggested that the mere fact that a public body is known to provide meals for children in attendance at school is sufficient to tilt the scale; that a man who is willing, _ex hypothesi_, to contemplate relinquishing his wife and younger children to the Poor Law will be deterred from leaving them merely by anxiety as to how the children of school age will obtain their midday meal; and that, when his apprehensions upon this point are removed, he will hasten to avail himself of his freedom in order to abandon them to much more serious evils than the loss of one meal per day? Such a suggestion carries its refutation on its face. When family life has been so disintegrated that a man is contemplating the desertion of his wife and children, he is not likely either to be encouraged to do so by the mere fact that meals for school children are provided by a public body, or deterred from doing so by the fact that they are not. And a similar answer may be made to those who argue that "the result of feeding children at school is merely to encourage their parents to spend more upon drink." No one, of course, would deny that, if a man has already formed the habit of indulging his tastes without regard to the consequences, an increase in his means will enable him to spend more upon such indulgence. But that is a very different thing from accepting the implication that every accession in the income of a class merely leads it to fresh extravagance. The evidence, indeed, points in the opposite direction. During the last forty years there has been a great extension of public provision and a rise in money wages. Yet it is a matter of common knowledge that the consumption of alcoholic liquor per