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Whenever the laborer spends threepence for tobacco, he pays only a farthing for the tobacco itself: the other twopence three-farthings is a tax. Every glass of beer, every cup of tea, every mug of cocoa, every pound of currants is made dearer because the Government has taxed it. But all the money got by this taxation is used up, before it comes to the laborer, in making things pleasant for people like the squires, parsons, and other rich idlers. Now the laborer must vote only for those members of Parliament who will take the taxes off his tobacco and his beer, his tea, his cocoa and his currants, and put in their place new taxes on the backs of those who can best bear them.

Whose backs are these? Why, the backs of the landlords, of course: that is, those people who take the rent out of the land, though they never do a stroke of hard work to raise the crops. They did not make the land: why should they have the power to make other men pay for it? In past times much of the land was held by those that worked on it, and they kept for themselves the whole of the crops. Now the land is "owned" by a few landlords who, among them all, draw over fifty million pounds a year as rent of agricultural land alone. This amounts to more than a pound a week for every agricultural laborer in the country. Is not this reason enough why wages are so low ?

Some day we shall get back the rent which the landlords take from us, and restore the land to the people. Meantime it is only fair that those who draw the rent should pay the rates. All the things which the Parish Council can be set to do for the village, can be paid for out of the rates; and the landlord and the tithe-owner must pay those rates.

These, then, are the wants of the Farm Laborer :-
BETTER WAGES.

PARISH COUNCILS.

RESTORATION OF COMMON LANDS.

REAL FREE SCHOOLS AND BETTER ONES.
ALLOTMENTS.

PENSIONS FOR THE OLD PEOPLE.

BETTER HOMES. REFORM OF TAXATION.

All these things you can get for yourself by your Trade Union and your vote, if you and all the other laborers in the district will join the Union and will agree to vote only for those who will promise to help to get them for you.

NOTE 1. Send word of any encroachment on commons, waysides, or footpaths, to the Secretary, Commons Preservation Society, 1 Gt. College St., Westminster. NOTE 2. Any parent from whom school pence are still demanded should write to the Secretary, Education Department, London, claiming a free school.

For list and particulars of other tracts like this, write to the Secretary of the Fabian Society, 276 Strand, W.C. Complete set of 40 tracts, price 2/3 post free.

Published by the FABIAN SOCIETY, 276 Strand, London, W.C., and to be obtained of the Secretary, at 1/- per 100, or 1d. for 6.

Questions for Poor Law Guardians.

Second Edition, Revised February, 1893.

SIR,

In connection with your Candidature for the Office of Guardian of the Poor, I should be obliged if you would be good enough to inform me of your views on the following questions.

I am, yours faithfully,

Name of Elector.

Address of Elector.

(Information on the Poor Law and its administration will be found in Fabian Tract, No. 17, "The Reform of the Poor Law.")

QUESTIONS.

1.-A DEMOCRATIC BOARD.

1. Are you in favor of abolishing
(a) The rating qualification for Poor
Law Guardians (£5)?

(b) The existing Plural voting in pro-
portion to the rateable value of
each house?

(c) All ex-officio membership?

2.-Will you support the proposal that the method of Election of Guardians and the franchise be the same as that for the County Council?

3.--Will you advocate the Board and its Committees sitting at such times as will enable working men and women to serve as Guardians?

II. AN EFFICIENT POOR LAW ORGANISATION FOR LONDON. 4. Are you in favor of the equalisation of rates throughout the metropolis?

5. Will you advocate the transfer of the administration of all Poor Law institutions in London to an elected central Poor Law Council, having authority over the Local Boards of Guardians?

III. THE WORTHY POOR.

6.—Are you in favor of substituting for Poor Law relief a system of adequate pensions to the aged and disabled poor?

ANSWERS.

Whenever the laborer spends threepence for tobacco, he pays only a farthing for the tobacco itself: the other twopence three-farthings is a tax. Every glass of beer, every cup of tea, every mug of cocoa, every pound of currants is made dearer because the Government has taxed it. But all the money got by this taxation is used up, before it comes to the laborer, in making things pleasant for people like the squires, parsons, and other rich idlers. Now the laborer must vote only for those members of Parliament who will take the taxes off his tobacco and his beer, his tea, his cocoa and his currants, and put in their place new taxes on the backs of those who can best bear them.

Whose backs are these? Why, the backs of the landlords, of course: that is, those people who take the rent out of the land, though they never do a stroke of hard work to raise the crops. They did not make the land: why should they have the power to make other men pay for it? In past times much of the land was held by those that worked on it, and they kept for themselves the whole of the crops. Now the land is "owned" by a few landlords who, among them all, draw over fifty million pounds a year as rent of agricultural land alone. This amounts to more than a pound a week for every agricultural laborer in the country. Is not this reason enough why wages are so low?

Some day we shall get back the rent which the landlords take from us, and restore the land to the people. Meantime it is only fair that those who draw the rent should pay the rates. All the things which the Parish Council can be set to do for the village, can be paid for out of the rates; and the landlord and the tithe-owner must pay those rates.

These, then, are the wants of the Farm Laborer :—

BETTER WAGES.

PARISH COUNCILS.

RESTORATION OF COMMON LANDS.

REAL FREE SCHOOLS AND BETTER ONES.

ALLOTMENTS.

PENSIONS FOR THE OLD PEOPLE.

BETTER HOMES. REFORM OF TAXATION.

All these things you can get for yourself by your Trade Union and your vote, if you and all the other laborers in the district will join the Union and will agree to vote only for those who will promise to help to get them for you.

NOTE 1. Send word of any encroachment on commons, waysides, or footpaths, to the Secretary, Commons Preservation Society, 1 Gt. College St., Westminster. NOTE 2. Any parent from whom school pence are still demanded should write to the Secretary, Education Department, London, claiming a free school.

For list and particulars of other tracts like this, write to the Secretary of the Fabian Society, 276 Strand, W.C. Complete set of 40 tracts, price 2/3 post free.

Published by the FABIAN SOCIETY, 276 Strand, London, W.C., and to be obtained of the Secretary, at 1/- per 100, or 1d. for 6.

Questions for Poor Law Guardians.

Second Edition, Revised February, 1893.

SIR,

In connection with your Candidature for the Office of Guardian of the Poor, I should be obliged if you would be good enough to inform me of your views on the following questions.

I am, yours faithfully,

Name of Elector.

Address of Elector.

(Information on the Poor Law and its administration will be found in Fabian Tract, No. 17, "The Reform of the Poor Law.")

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7.--Are you in favor of such an administration of Poor Law Infirmaries, Dispensaries, and Sick Asylums as shall

(a) remove all stigma of pauperism from the public treatment of sickness or accident?

(b) facilitate the placing of the present endowed Hospitals, Asylums, and Dispensaries under the control of some public authority?

8. Are you in favor of housing the different classes of in-door poor (aged, ablebodied, &c.), whenever possible, in separate buildings?

9.-Will you insist that where aged married people, both over sixty, are in the workhouse, a separate apartment shall be provided for them, as directed by the Law [10 and 11 Vict. c. 109, s. 23], and report to the Local Government Board any infraction of the same?

10.-Will you see that the aged poor in the workhouse are (a) provided with books and newspapers, (b) allowed to smoke, (c) to interest themselves in some occupation, (d) not forced to wear a distinctive dress, and (e) allowed to go out on every fine day?

11.-Will you take care that all children whose charge devolves upon the community, in consequence of the death, desertion, or pauperism of their parents,

(a) shall not in any way be made to feel that their dependence is either criminal or disgraceful?

(b) shall not be marked out by dress or treatment from their fellows?

(c) shall receive such general education, whenever possible in Board schools, and special teaching of a skilled trade, as shall counteract any hereditary tendency to lapse into pauperism?

(d) shall be removed from the contact with pauperism which is inevitable in workhouses, and trained in special institutions, divided in the "Cottage Home System," or boarded-out in the country and sent to efficient public schools?

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