THE CONDITION OF ENGLAND.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 12042, 16 April 1903, Page 3

THE CONDITION OF ENGLAND.

A public meeting, under the joint auspices of the Conservative and Unionist Association of the Lancaster division and the Divisional Council of the Primrose League, was held on February 11th at Lancaster, to hear an addres* by Sir John Gorst, >LP., on "Social and Labour Questions." Considering, first, the position of the children, Sir John recalled the-fact that when our schools assembled one out of every five children was absent altogether. Even allowing for the sick, it was found that there were at least 1,000,000 children outside the schools growing up without attention or care. Most of them were at work because their parents- were miserably poor; and the work was not of a kind to fit the children for after-life, because, with the exception of the number employed in street trading, they were confined at work in close workshops or in domestic trades at home in the most unhealthy atmosphere, were most imperfectly fed, "and had their minds entirely uncared for and untrained. These facts < were brought before the House of Commons some years ago. A committee was appointed, and veiy terrible were the revelations of the condition of not only the childien of whom be had been speaking, but also of the 200,000 children who, though nominally attending school, had yet, either before or after school hours, to work at some exhaustive form of physical labour. It was impossible that children so used up in their tender vears could make proper citizens, or be the healthy fathers and mothers of the generation which was to succeed. Sir John then called attention to the sad' case of the children of the tramp class, and said no one could be blind to the evils of keeping anv children whatever in workhouses, or any of those other great institutions where they were brought up by machinery, and where anything like individual treatment or individual love, which every child required as a necessity of its existence, was quite impossible. They, too, were turned out ill-fitted to take their part in the citizenship of the future. Most appalling, perhaps, of all was the case of the children of drunkards. Was it not in our interests as a nation that this social disease should be dealt with so that the children of the present generation might grow up into honest, healthy, intelligent men and women, bv whom the greatness of this country might be maintained in time to come? The people at the bottom of the social scale must be thought of. They hungered and thirsted: they had children who »shared their unhappy lot. They made a weak and diseased spot in the body politic. But the people would not get reforms By simnly sitting down and crying for them. Thev must put their shoulders to the wheel. He did not think it was fair to the political party to which they belonged or to the Government they had put in office to expect them to do everything for the people when toe people did not back them up. The Government could not do anything unless there was a strong force of public sentiment in favour of it. He thought the direotion in which, the necessary reforms should be looked for and asked for was in ; strengthening the powers and increasing the Nsponsibilitdeg of local authorities. Let

every great local centre have ample power of making and administering such laws as were necessary for the cure of these evils which lie had enumerated, and for the general welfare of the people. If the people would rise to their own interests, and see that what was good for them was really . carried out, they would be able to elect local authorities and persuade them to appoint officers and other persons by whom such reforms as were necessary for the social welfare of the people could be earned into effect. The facts were notorious. What was wanted in'.the first place was a mandate from the people, and then an Act of Parliament, which need not take a very long time either to draft or to pass, which would impose upon local authorities the duty of looking after the physical and moral condition of the people, and would clothe these authorities with the necessary powerto carry it into effect. If we got the condition of the children made satisfactory, local authorities might then be emboldened by success in that necessary branch of pubhe reform to address themselves to the evils arising from the lack of employment, the insanitary state of the houses of the poor, drunkenness, strikes, lock-outs, and other tilings. He was convinced that, with, the intelligent assistance of the Government at headquarters, a very great improvement might thus be made in the social condition of-the people. Out the same date Mr Augustine Birrell, who is to be the Liberal candidate at the nest Parliamentary election in Bristol North, addressed a crowded meeting in that division. Mr Birrell, who spoke on " Progress," said that the word was constantly pn their lips, and though, strictly speaking, it only meant moving on, nevertheless, it was usually, employed i» a sense that implied improvement. . Progress might well mean the improvement of -stlie environment of human life. This was our great task, and it was forced upon us by our huge • population. When we spoke of progress we for the most part thought of these social questions which haunted the imagination they once took possession of—the horrors of overcrowding, both ha large towns and small villages, the awful heritage of poverty, disease-stunted frames, the deadened intelligence, the craving for strong drink, the ingrained visciousness of habits; and then the truly awful power of reproducing a race more diseased, more decadent even than its progenitors; these were matters of urgency as much as a shipwreck or a fire. What was wanted perhaps at this moment more than anything else was the quickened sense of responsibility in each separate community.-- Let people not throw everything upon the House of Commons, which had already, though much remained for it to do, conferred on communities, corporations, district councils, and the like, more powers in sundry matters than they seemed to care to exercise. The greatness of a nation did not depend upon the size of what was called Empire, but upon the breed of its people; upon their characteristics, upon the ideas they entertained, upon ; the tasks they cultivated, upon the habits - of their lives, and upon their possessing in : ' all these matters a certain unity of thought ! ! and feeling, otherwise a nation could not | ' make itself felt as a force for good or HI.