This must be understood, and understood clearly: _Whatever is true of
London in the way of poverty and degradation, is true of all England_.
While Paris is not by any means France, the city of London is England.
The frightful conditions which mark London an inferno likewise mark the
United Kingdom an inferno. The argument that the decentralisation of
London would ameliorate conditions is a vain thing and false. If the
6,000,000 people of London were separated into one hundred cities each
with a population of 60,000, misery would be decentralised but not
diminished. The sum of it would remain as large.
In this instance, Mr. B. S. Rowntree, by an exhaustive analysis, has
proved for the country town what Mr. Charles Booth has proved for the
metropolis, that fully one-fourth of the dwellers are condemned to a
poverty which destroys them physically and spiritually; that fully one-
fourth of the dwellers do not have enough to eat, are inadequately
clothed, sheltered, and warmed in a rigorous climate, and are doomed to a
moral degeneracy which puts them lower than the savage in cleanliness and
decency.
After listening to the wail of an old Irish peasant in Kerry, Robert
Blatchford asked him what he wanted.
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