Morning journal and courier., 1883-03-31
WHAT THE POOR WANT.

Tho SC who write nowadays about the ideas an d aims of the ''lower classes of socie- l ty" generally charge these classes with seek 1 ing 'equality" and then go on to show that 1 equality is impossible writer in the Lon | don Spectator takes different view of the
 matter and what he says is well worth atten- l ton and thought.
 | He points out that the thirst of the poor 1 was mainly for equality in the time when the world, and more especially the world of the European continent, was op- l pressed by the regime of privilege to a de-
 gree of which we have happily lost even the l memory, but it seems to him that the grand
 desire of the poor new-the desire which Anarchists, Collectivists, Communists, So- cialists, dreamers and agitators of all descrip- tIons as their leyer-is not so much for equality in any far reaching sense as for se curity. The indications of this, he thinks,
 are to be found on every hand. The country
 in which Socialism and kindred beliefs are
 weakest is England, where inequality is most perfect, but where insecurity is robbed
 of some of it's terrors by the operation oI the Poor law. The only poor class on the continent which does not rebel is the only one which is secure. and cannot be deprived of it's position, lowly as that may be, the peasant proprietary. The strongest desire of the tenantry in Ireland, in England, in Spain, in Italy, is for protection against evic- tion. The most serious movements among the artisans in France, Germany, and the cities of Austria are those which have for their object the vesting of the power to employ labor in the Communes, which the artisans would control, and through which they would indirectly be able to protect themselves from dismissal. Even in Eng land it is proposals for kind of security, security against accident, sickness and the pecuniary consequences of death. which elicit the greatest financial efforts from the opera tives, and excite their warmest enthusiasm
 This writer hopes to see wiser Poor law all over Europe, law under which not only property owners will be taxed, but they and the poor will unite to form the reserve fund of industry. Of mental relief he sees little hope Christianity is not gaining ground and of purely intellectual help there is as yet no trace '"There never was,' he contin- ues, 'sso little stoicism anywhere, except among the rich, who, Carlyle said, were full of it, and who, we should say, if we wanted to be cynical, show much fortitude in bear ing others miseries. Everybody who suffers nowadays either rages or whines in 8 way which our grandfathers would have pro- nounced shameful, but which is possibly not the result of weaker hearts, but of nerves more highly strung. We suppose that last is, in part at least, the explanation of the precise tone of the change which has passed over the poor They feel more aeuteIy. not so much because they have learned more, though that has something to do with it, as
 because, in the altered conditions of the world, their nerves haze become less hard, Life is little less of battle, and because it
 is less, because the danger is intermittent,
 and even avoidabls. its approach seems indef-
 nitely more formidable"
 This is ingenious and plausible, but it seems to us rather 'sfne., The poor are