Perth Amboy evening news., 1911-05-10

produce enough of anything lest 1t
be a drug on the market. In some
lines WI use almost as many men and
as much money to sell things as to
make them. Agents, middlemen, ad-
vertising, expensive attractions,
catchy features to make them sell at
an outrageous price, in comparison
with the cost, meanwhile keeping the
production down so that there are
not enough to go around.
''In view of natures readiness to
produce and the capacity Of ma
chimes to manufacture, we ought to
take Christ's words, 'Ye have the
poor always with you,' as a rebuke
rather than a prophecy. Certainly
1t is not an e~xhortation. Some treat
1t as If It were a command.
1T is a mistake to consider pow
Ierty a hard and complex problem.
There are at least half a dozen more
| difficult problems before US. The re-
ligious problem, the social problem,
the temperance problem, the labor
problem, the problem OF the individ-
ual and the state, the problem of
equality are all harder and more
complex. The problem of poverty Is
related to most Of these others, Of
course. but 1t is also distinguished
clearly from them. Especially bear
It in mind that the abolition of pow
erty does not mean the doing away
of inequaIity-that is something
much more difficult. l am not so
sure that that would be a good thing,
though some Of the Inequalities
IT z-x Ill l. J1-n NC NTH
But the abolition Of poverty would
not undertake at all to reduce men
to a level of mediocre pros
perity and well-being, but to set GER
tain forces so powerfully and per
s~istently at work as to drive and to
draw and to lift many out OF the pow
erty region, and to make it possible
for all to come out, and incidentally
to drive to the wall the few who will
not leave poverty or allow them
selves to be lifted out-thus to make
poverty unnecessary, criminal and
ere long impossible-in a sense for
the inspector to go through the
streets of this poverty region with a
charity and employment agent on
one side and a policeman on the 9TH
err. We would lift the whole column
to a higher base-out of the mire of
poverty.
"If the method seems severe, it Is
only in keeping with the urgency of
the need and the certain great and
constant evil Of poverty.
Prof. Alfred Marshall, of Cam
bridge, England, referring in his
Principles of Economics to the So
--IJ-J a..I3,y-, ~ tho ait{nd ava
Ne doubt their physical, mental and
moral ill-health is partly due to 9TH
err causes, but poverty Is the chief
cause And further, in addition to
this residuum, which we may con-
slider the lowest stratum, there Is a
vast number of people both in u
try and town who are brought up
with insufficient food, clothing,
~house-room and education, and
have, therefore, no chance Of the de-
velopment of their higher mental fac
ulties. Their life is not necessarily
unhealthy or unhappy. Yet for all
that, their poverty is a great and al
most unmixed evil to them. Even
when we'll, their WEAKNESS almost
amounts to pain, their pleasures are
few. and when sickness comes, the
suffering caused by poverty increases
tenfold. Though a contented spirit
may go far toward reconciling them
to these evils, there are others to
which it ought not to reconcile them.
Overworked and undertaught, weary
and careworn, without quiet, without
leisure, they have no chance of max
ing the best of their mental facul-
ties The destruction of the poor Is
their poverty. (Prov. 10:15). The
study of the causes of poverty is the
study of the causes Of degredatipn Of
q Yafge part or mankind. What are
the causes of poverty?
81. Lack of self-control. This
includes extravaganza, bad habits,
such an intemperance, gambling, the