CHARITY, TAXATION, AND PAUPERISM.

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Scotland , and driven the Germans in great hordes fromtheir fatherland. It breeds pauperism in every civilizedcountry. It is the continual dropping that wears awaythe stone, and if we would save the structure we mustfind means to arrest the causes of decay . 1

It is not to be inferred that all charity should be dis-continued until we can amend the tax laws, any morethan we should discontinue the dams and reservoirsintended to regulate freshets which result only fromstripping the country of trees. While the trees aregrowing, these things are indispensable. But the rem-edy for an irregular water-supply is the restorationof the trees; the remedy for a wrong distribution ofwealth is the restoration of justice.

I. Every practical worker knows that the first diffi-culty in dealing with pauperism is to find continuousand profitable employment for the poor. For profitableemployment, three things are necessary: encouragementto work, profitable work to be done, and a proper placeto live while doing it. Our present system of taxationmilitates against all these conditions. Taxes laid uponpersonal property tend to discourage the production ofit—as the dog tax was, in fact, intended to lessen the

1 “So exorbitant were these taxes that the husbandmen found it to theirintecest to let their fields lie uncultivated, as the burdens increased in agreater proportion to the produce than their profits. Hence the agricultureof the Roman provinces was almost ruined, and the rural population, whichkeeps pace with plenty, gradually diminished.” Tyler’s History, Book 5,ch. iii., p. 515.

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