A GREAT SOCIOLOGIST.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17335, 25 November 1916, Page 8

A GREAT SOCIOLOGIST.

Th j-.uk Wets a tendency among some of tho pamphleteers a few years ago to deny to the Right Hon Charles Booth, whoso death is now'announced, the title of sociologist, because, they said, ho was a student only and not/ a scientist—a.t though a true scientist could ever bo. anything but a student. There seemed to bo an idea in their minds that Mr Booth had not progressed beyond tho recording of facts, and than his attempts to point tho way to a solution of the problems of poverty had been futile; and in truth the pamphleteers were unwilling to believe that a great shipowner could have a sincere and sympathetic interest in the sufferings of the poor, But this ungenerous and wholly wrong attitude on the part of the critics was soon abandoned, and for many years the magnificent work that -Air Booth did in London has been appreciated at its real value. At twenty-two Mr Booth had become a partner in a Liverpool shipping firm, and there was no reason why his friends should not have regarded his career as definitely fixed. Certainly there was no reason then why they should baxo anticipated the direction in which he subsequently used his mental energy. By 'the time he was fifty, however. Mr Booth's title to fame as a sociologist was established, even though ho had not yet completed tho publication of the results of the vast inquiry on which he had been engaged. Wherever problems of poverty in great cities are under discussion one is sure to find Charles Booth's monumental " Life and Labour of tho People of London" quoted. This records the results of a prolonged and detailed investigation of the occurrence of poverty in Loudon, with observations on the causes' of pauperism and on the methods by which they might be 'removed. Whatever view may be held regarding the reforms ho proposed, it is at least conceded that ho furnished tho basis for an intelligent discussion of London problems, a basis that had previously been wanting. His classification of the grades of poverty was necossarily arbitrary, but it was essential to the exjet study of the problem and it came as close to being accurate as human investigation could make it. There was at o'no time quite a heated controversy concerning the (twentythree main causes of pauperism that Mr Booth enumerated, for every critic had his own idea of the primary origins and every school of reform wanted tho facts to fit its own theories. Looking back over the years that have elapsed since the publication of the book, one may perhaps say that its main influence was to break down the traditional attitude of both Liberal and Conservative towards the great problem. Booth had no patience with 'the theory that the mass of poverty in London was a necessary and incurable evil. He had oven less patience with tho doctrine that it was industrially desirable as a reservoir of labour, to be drawn on in 'times of increasing activity. Of tho three classes below the poverty line—the occasional labourers, loafers and semi-criminals in the first, the very poor with casual earnings in the second, and the very poor with intermittent earnings in the third—he regarded the second as the source of the other two, and he proposed, by bringing it under rigid State supervision, to obtain control of tho main springs of pauperism. This was' a definite, practicable scheme, not to be accepted, of course, without inquiry and discussion, but at least promising the possibility of curing a great evil by a comparatively simple process. There was perhaps too pronounced an element of Socialism in the idea to commond it to tho dominant schools of political thought, and in later years Booth turned to old age pensions as offering an easier, though not necessarily a more satisfactory method of improving the position.