"Tae Wonkens? Suane""—A Study Waser and Poverty: by AW.
lamphrey. George Allen & Unein Mr, Humphrey contributes a thoughtful examination into the economic condition of the British workers on the basis of various authoritative enquiries. He obviously writes with the object of fortifying the modern case for socialism, on which he has written a by no means negligible book, Economists and social reformers! will go a very long way in supporting Mr. Humphrey's condemnation of certain aspects of industrial 1 and it cannot be denied that the present system has not been able to Femove the many evils and abuses which are rightly abhorrent to the decent minded man and woman, 'Mr, Humphrey is no violent' revolutionary, and it is, therefore, Quite possitile to discuss his declared belief that further socialization of the economic structure of British life would create better conditions. What the keynote of his argument is can be found in the peroration to this little volume rear ian ong. wim lat life is tt 2 itbeby way Slice of ben the morrow, facing the wet freet frith broken beats and'tholdy. lathe Inge, or offering ether ofthe. longes 2 bel doen open, the poor come frequent' and. are of "he man farthest
easily forgotten, and we must expect their volume to'grow, and encourage into grow, while eiviltzntion is. bot veneer beneath which the man} wage a perpetual battle poverty." it would be idle to pretend that the picture there presented is luridly overdrawn. It exists, and the best of British thought tively at work in endeavouring to put an end to that, existence Thoughtful studies like" these o Humphrey's will undoubtedly ist this endeavour—but it is necessary to sound a warning. Experiences of the last five or six years, in which socialist. principles have' had a very free play in domestic affairs in Great Britain, do not support the view that socialism is likely to achieve more rapidly where capitalism has faltered. The Socialist, of course, will say that it has not had a free hand—but the Capitalist can with equal truth argue that his system ha been hampered by half-and-half schemes of nationalization and the Like—and as in this imperfect world no one can ever have exactly what they want, Mr. Humphrey must be content for' his statistical plea to be carefully noted and for judgment be suspended regarding the solution which he so confidently
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.