SATIRIST SHAW.

NZ Truth, Issue 116, 7 September 1907, Page 7

SATIRIST SHAW.

THE POVERTY OF THE POOR

Lectured Upon by Shaw,

Which Greatly Amuses Hss Wealthy Audience.

"The destruction of the poor is their poverty," said the wise Solomon, some thousands of years ago. In spite of this having been said by. so wise a man so long ago, and its having been recorded m so famous and greatly read a book as the Bible, ' there are still foolish or pratting people, who tell us that What the poor suffer from is not •poverty, but lack of thrift, lack of temperance, lack of industry, or some similar lack. The famous satirist, George Shaw, is not one of these. On the contrary, he does not hesitate to say that "the disease from which the poor suffer is their poverty."- This he said to nn audience of well-to-do people, who received tlie statement with laughter They do not suffer from povi crty • therefore, the pom of those : who do strikes the well-to-do people 'of Great Britain as something ex- ! tremely comic. Shaw's address is \ thus reported m London "Justice • i A meeting, held under Ihe aus- | pices or the Anti-Sweoting League, | took place on Thur^nv. Ju^e G, at the lesser Queen's llr>H, Lang- ' ham-place. It was attended by a

purely society audience, which mainly consisted of exquisitclygowned, fashionable women. Fleeing from the demon ennui, they had doubtless gone there to enjoy the brilliant wit of Bernard Shaw rather than out of sympathy with -the sweated. THEY LAUGHED INANELY at Shaw's "gallery strokes," and did not seem to mind m the least the nasty, almost insulting remarks he occasionally made about them and their class. H. G. Wells, m opening, said that both he and Mr Shaw were notorious Socialists, and as such they realised that Socialism was the only true remedy. Still, any measure tending to effectively deal with sweating must result from action of the State. Mr Shaw was then called upon. He said it had been reserved for him to tell the truth about what the poor suffered from. It was poverty. He had heard all sorts of other explanations from well-to-do people, who said that it _was due to intemperance, improvidence, anything but the truth— but it was just poverty all the time. And the only way to relieve the poverty of the poor— strange though it may .seem— was to irivc them money. If they saw

A LITTLE GIRL CRYING because it was hungry, the best way to cure the : hunger of that child was not to have lcngthv -discussions about it, or to read books about it, but to take it to the nearest shop and give it something to eat. The poor should be given money— there was no lack of it. There m the West End of London a perfect science was made of providing the wealthy with means of getting ri-d of their money. And it was extraordinarily, easy to produce wealth. An Austrian economist had calculated that if the wealth of Austria were equally shared, tbe entire population would be kept m luxury each nerson working only two hours a day. But it really isn't the poor people who object— they LIKE BEING POOR. They seem to think that there is. something virtuous m being misergble. You rich folks pay to hear me speak on the minimum ■<—/•>. And vet I have repeatedly offered to address meetings of the poor on the same ouestion for, not-hinc— l have stood at the street corner, and delivered the most soul-stir-ring harangues unasked— but it is the hardest thing possible to pet them to listen to me at all. I appeal to 3-011 accordingly ; and I .appeal to you on ptireiv selfish grounds. You want to enjoy your money— but you don't enjoy it. All you do is to distribute it very foolishly amongst people you don't care much about— your chauffeur, your gardener, and so on— who enjoy it for you. He then w.nt on to deal with the complaint made concerning the moral character of the workers. "I will bargain," he said, "to REDUCE YOUR MORAL. CHARACTER by CO per cent, by just taking you on the streets to hunt round for a job." Ho .said there had been .some talk of old asrc tensions — what he would advocaie was life nensions of £300 to £500 a vcar. He then went on to show the oeoessitv of State interference. -