I have not any fine theories, and I do not want to stir up enmities; and I therefore say to the instructors of the poor, “Instead of egging your men on to warfare, why not teach them how to use the laws which they already have?  No new laws are wanted; every rational and necessary reform may be achieved by dint of measures now on the statute-book—­measures which seem to slumber as soon as the agitation raised in passing them has glorified a certain number of placemen.”  Every year we have the outcry, to which we have so often alluded, about disgraceful dwellings; yet there is not a bad case in London or elsewhere which could not be cured if the law were quietly set in motion by men of business.  As a matter of fact, a very great portion of the wealth of the country is now at the service of the poor; but they do not choose to take it—­or, at any rate, they know nothing about it.  Look at the School Board elections, and see how many exercise the right to vote.  Yet, if the majority elected their own School Board, they could divert enough charities to educate our whole population, and they could do as they chose in their own schools.  Again, the Local Government Act renders it possible for the populace to secure any public institutions that they may want, and in the main they can order their own social life to their liking.  What is the use of incessant declamation?  Organisation would be a thousand times better.  Let quiet men who do not want mere self-advertisement tell the people what is their property and how to get it, and there will be no need of the outcry of one class against another.  It is a bitter grief for all thinking men to observe the inequalities that continue to make life positively accursed in many quarters, and the sights of shame that abound ought to be seen no more; but rage can do nothing, while wise teaching can do everything.  The population question must be dealt with by the people themselves; they must resolve to crush their masses no more into slums; they must choose for themselves a nobler and a purer life—­and that can be accomplished by the laws which they may set in action at once.  Then they will be able to say, “England is wealthy, and we have our share.”

Some excellent articles have been turned out by the brilliant professor of biology who inspects our fisheries for us.  He has done rare service for the people in his own way—­no one better, for he was one of the first who eagerly advocated the education of the masses; but I fear he is now becoming “disillusionised.”  He talked once about erecting a Jacob’s Ladder from the gutter to the university; and he has found that the ladder—­such as it is—­has merely been used to connect the tradesman’s shop and the artisan’s dwelling with the exalted place of education.  The poor gutter-child cannot climb the ladder; he is too hungry, too thin, too weak for the feat, and hence the professor’s famous epigram has become one of the things at which scientific students of the human race smile sadly and