[...] the unemployed are drawn from the lower fringe of a great variety of trades and from a great variety of places. Their numbers are augmented by elements which exists in all karge towns--- those who rarely work at any time, preferring to love on charity and on the earnings of their wives, and by the criminal classes. Sounc policy would uege that no effort should be spared to prevent the unemployed from being concentrated in one place, and from being mixed up with the deteriorating elements last mentioned. If these men are, as we hope, to be got back into the ranks of industrial society, they must return by the same door by which they went out. Two or three must find employment here, two or three in another place, until all are absorbed. If a trade is hopelessly decayed, it is essential that those who formerly worked at it shall find other kinds of employment.

But what is the policy which Mr. Hardie and others in all parts of the country invite us to follow? The hope of the unemployed are already concentrated by this agitation on one particular exit, namely, vestry or parish relief-works. The aidea has not been discouraged by a certain Local Government Board circular, for political exigency has obliged successive Presidents of the Board to hold out hopes which, to say the very least, are delusive. The result is a congestion of labour under conditions which defy any improvemnent.