It is useful sometimes to imagine ourselves in the year 3000 or so looking back with critical eye on the twentieth century. One pictures the future historian—some narrowly specialised expert on the social life of the second decade of the twentieth century—discoursing on us. A strange and interesting people, he will say. They boasted of their intelligence, and they really did display a creditable measure of intelligence in their research and their applied7 science. They regarded themselves as far superior in humane8 sentiment to the Middle Ages, to which they properly belong, and they put forward many excellent vague proposals of social improvement. Yet it is not easy to understand their slavery to ancient prejudices, sometimes of a quite barbaric character. A superficial observer would say that the contradiction was due to their unhappy practice of leaving the majority of the community at a low level of culture, so that the intelligent minority were checked by a slower-minded majority. But it is a singular fact that some of the most intelligent men among the minority, such as Mr. A. Balfour and Mr. F. E. Smith, held much the same views as the agricultural workers, and made a kind of religion, which they called Conservatism, of this obstinate9 retention10 of old traditions. They seem, with all their pride in their culture, to have mistaken their place in the evolution of the race. No people is entitled to be called civilised which complacently11 tolerates war, squalid and widespread poverty, dense12 areas of ignorance, political corruption13, and the many other remnants of barbarism which they tolerated. The twentieth century was the last hour of barbarism, lit by a few rays of the civilisation14 which dawned in the twenty-first century.
If the infliction15 of pain and misery16 is, as I believe, the worst form of crime, this retention of war and poverty is the gravest of our social transgressions17. But the guilt18 of our generation in regard to these two crimes is very unequal. The way to abolish war is clear, but the remedy of this other open sore of our social organism, a poverty which stunts20 and embitters21 the lives of millions in every large civilisation, is not at all clear. The plain man who, oppressed by the spectacle of this desolating22, unchanging poverty, seeks a remedy in social literature, is at once beset23 by a dozen rival theorists. The Socialist24, the Anarchist25, the Eugenist, the Malthusian, the Single-Taxer, and other austere27 thinkers press on him their contradictory28 formulae and their mutual29 abuse; these in turn are assailed30 contemptuously by men who are not less acquainted with economic matters; and the older political parties observe, with a sigh, that poverty seems to be an inherent evil of every industrial order, and we can do no more than mitigate32 its hardships. To this last position the plain man usually comes.
Let us grant at once that the older political parties have done much toward the alleviation33 of poverty. No one who is acquainted with the condition of the workers a hundred years ago can hesitate to admit this. Impatience34 is too rare a virtue35, it is true, but this does not dispense36 us from cultivating wisdom. A great deal has been won, and generally won by the middle class, for the oppressed workers. Between 1830 and 1880, at least, thousands of middle-class men were working in Europe for the advance and enlightenment of the workers. The old doctrine37 of laissez-faire has been forced to compromise with decency38. We have entirely39 abolished the horrible exploitation of cheap child-labour which was common early in the nineteenth century. Our Francis Places and Robert Owens have won for the worker the right to form Trade unions, and others the free education of his children. We no longer permit the employer to fix the conditions and hours of labour as he wills. The cotton-worker of Manchester, labouring twelve or fourteen hours a day, and living in a squalid cellar, one hundred years ago, would be amazed if he could visit the factories and homes and places of amusement of his grandchildren. Even the poorer workers are no longer left to God and the clergy40; while the bulk of the workers have numbers of cheap luxuries which would have seemed an apocalyptic41 dream to the worker of Napoleon’s day.
But let us not imagine that we have got our axe26 into the roots of poverty and are in a fair way to abolish it. This is one of the most dangerous fallacies of our age; and against that comfortable assurance I, knowing well all that has been done, plead that not one of our reforms makes for the abolition42 or the material restriction43 of poverty. We pension the very aged44 worker and the still more aged widow: on the pauper45 scale. We build substantial, if rather cheerless, homes for the destitute46, and we put warm, if ignominious47, clothing on the back of the orphan48. We appoint minimum wages, and permit maximum prices. We have labour bureaux, and district visitors, and a Salvation49 Army, and a Church Army. All of which means that we give a drink to the crucified; it might be well to study if we can cease to crucify.
The plain man or woman who earnestly wishes to help in the improvement of life will inquire first, and most resolutely, what the actual range and depth of poverty are; will study, secondly50, how far our measures of reform afford us any hope of curtailing51 it; and will, in the third place, ask whether there is any other way of action which does offer some hope of restricting, if not removing, the evil.
In the mind of many people poverty means that somewhere in the darker depths of our cities, happily remote from the shopping centres, there are a number of people who, from lack of skill or excess of drink, cannot find regular employment, and must live. ... One does not know exactly how they live, but certainly on unpleasantly short and dry rations52. In earlier times one dropped a half-sovereign into the poor-box at church for these creatures, if they would come to church and learn resignation. To-day one subscribes53 to the Charity Organisation Society or the Salvation Army, or joins one of the many enterprising associations which are going to make the poor richer without making the rich poorer. We have a social conscience. We believe in laissez-faire, but, being humane, we will not push it to extremes. At the same time, being sensible men, we are not going to push humanitarianism54 to extremes. The phrase-maker is the great benefactor55.
For a first acquaintance with poverty I would recommend a man to spend a few hours, some Saturday evening, among those markets of the poor which still line many of our more dingy56 thoroughfares. As the night draws on, and the oil-lamps begin to flare57 and splutter over the stalls, the grim courts and narrow streets of the district discharge their grey streams of life upon the market. There is plenty of laughter, you observe; there are plenty of round-faced matrons, with clean, honest eyes and comfortable dress. “We ain’t got much money, but we do live,” I heard one of them remark, in an interval58 between bursts of raillery. The wives of regularly employed, and often not ill-paid, workers are there, as well as poorer folk. But study some of the quieter figures which move slowly among the throng59 or linger enviously60 before the cheap shops. Notice the puny61, shrivelled infants, with quaint31 staring eyes, which, at the door of the public-house, lie lightly in the arms of women whose faces are bloated with drink and coarse food: the lean and ragged62 boys and girls, with hollow and prematurely64 sharpened eyes, who hang about the fruit-stalls, ready to dart65 upon the rotten castaways, or foster, in darker spots, the premature63 sex-development which will drain their scanty66 strength: the woman who, with drawn67 face, waits near the Red Lion to see how many shillings her sodden68 brute69 of a husband will at length hand her for a week’s shopping: the weary old couple who have seen better days, and now pass in silence through the babel of vulgarity: the haggard-faced widow in mouldy black who hides her paltry70 Sunday dinner in a worn bag: the eager eyes of the poorer hawkers, which light up pathetically when a penny comes their way: the men whose faces change at a drunken jibe71 into such faces as we have seen behind the bars of a cage in a zoological garden, and the crowd of men, women, and children rushing to enjoy the gratuitous72 spectacle of a fight: the cheap, middle-aged73 prostitute, whose features are a caricature of the features of woman.
You may see these things in all parts of London—north, south, east, and west—every Saturday evening, and many other evenings, all the year round. You may see them in all the other large towns and cities of Britain, and the cities of France and Germany and the United States and all other “great civilisations.” I have studied them on Saturday nights in half the cities of Britain: in Amsterdam and Brussels and Cologne, in Paris and Nice, in Venice and Rome and Naples, in New York and Chicago: and in the light of our historical research one sees their ancestors in all the great cities of all the great civilisations that ever were. As it was in the beginning ... But that refers to the glory of God.
Follow to their homes these more pathetic figures of a London crowd. You need not do so literally74, for more observant and sympathetic visitors have been there before you, and they told London long ago, as far as London was willing to hear, how the majority of its citizens live. Mr. Booth’s book, Life and Labour in London, had better be suppressed when its work is done, lest the men and women of a more humane age learn too much about us; also Mr. Rowntree’s book, which shows this same fetid poverty lying at the feet of a superb minster, the symbol of ages of ecclesiastical wealth and power; and many other books. Let me summarise75 the relevant record of the natural history of London.
We may begin with the lowest depth, with life as it is lived in some of the streets which still linger about Covent Garden, and in east and west and south. We are beginning to see the grim humour of tolerating the existence of these hotbeds of corruption under the very shadow of our marble palaces of justice and our marble hotels for millionaires, and we are destroying them; but the life remains76 still in sufficient quantity to fill a large town. In tenements77 of this order fifteen rooms out of twenty are indescribably filthy79. Legions of bugs80 lurk81 by day behind the faded rags of ancient wallpaper or in the crevices82 of the unwashed floor, or even venture forth84 as securely as if they were conscious of free citizenship85 in these places. The “windows” are a rough mosaic86 of dirty glass and roughly plastered paper. The ceiling is pale black, the floor filthy. A table, one or two dilapidated chairs, a kind of bed—the “landlord” would, in most cases, not raise two shillings on the lot—and an entire family of ragged, vermin-eaten human beings fill this foul87 box, which is often only eight or ten feet square.
These people are thieves, cheap prostitutes, hawkers, porters, charwomen, flower-sellers, ragmen—the most pitiful of the irregulars which we suffer, age after age, to live and breed and die beyond the extreme fringe of our industrial army. Sometimes they have nearly as much food to eat as a workhouse-idler: generally not. Drink—the vile88 mixtures of the cheaper public-house—they have more constantly; and their children are not in their teens before they are familiar with all the vice83 and crime and brutality89 which seven out of ten of these rooms breed as naturally as they breed lice or bugs. In winter the doors and windows are sealed, and men, women, and children huddle90 together or, at times, crouch91 over a few lighted sticks. And year by year, century by century, babies are ushered92 into this underworld in edifying93 abundance, to live its ghastly life until the yellow frame and dull brain are worn out.
Shocking, you will say, but happily rare. Do you know that, according to the best authorities, 50,000 men, women, and children in London alone live in this atmosphere of squalor and brutality and chronic94 hunger?
Let us pass to the next higher circle of the modern Inferno—the category of casual or very badly paid labour and chronic poverty, the makers95 of your cheap furniture and clothes and brushes, your match-boxes and chocolate-boxes, the hawkers and costers and regular porters and dockers. Now there are generally two rooms to each family, but the vermin still thrive in more than half of them, and the rooms are filthy, and the children breathe an air that is foul with drink and cursing and the most open and gross sexuality: not now in fifteen cases out of twenty, it is true, but in ten cases out of twenty. Food is habitually96 insufficient97, for labour is uncertain, and profit is infinitesimal; and, as a man must drink, there are constant disturbances98 to break the monotony and help one to forget the customary hunger. You may have at times noticed the dejected hawker returning, on a wet summer’s day, with his tomatoes unsold: or the children eager to collect fragments of the lids of orange-boxes in the winter. Countess Russell told me that she once visited, unexpectedly, a group of homes of this class, within a few minutes’ walk of Gordon Square, in the depth of winter. Hardly any had the material for a fire, and few had food in the house. So they live, year in, year out; and all that we propose to do is to give them five shillings a week each if they will sustain the burden honestly for six decades, or house and feed them in jail if they do not succeed in curbing100 their criminal impulses.
Once, in the Westminster Court, I saw a young and humane judge hand certain tickets to the jury, when they had established the guilt of two petty criminals of this class. “These, gentlemen,” he said, “are permits to inspect the jail; go some day and see the place to which you send criminals.” A very wise and benevolent101 innovation, but we still await the judge who will send the jury to inspect the homes in which these men conceive crime.
About 400,000 citizens of the greatest city in the world belong to this class. If 400,000 do not constitute a sufficiently102 important problem, let us see the homes of the next category. These are the irregularly employed and badly paid, though not the worst paid, workers: costers, labourers, dockers, etc. There are about a million of them in London alone. They know quite well what hunger is: for weeks together, sometimes, the wage does not suffice to buy that minimum quantity of nitrogen and carbon which men of science have declared to be necessary, and the money is ill expended103. They know what cold is, for many a hard spell of winter finds them in want. They have two or three rooms to each family, but, as a rule, not much of that “Christian reticence” on which our clergy congratulate us.
To the great majority of these million and a half of London’s poor, sexual pleasure is the one cheap luxury; and we encourage them to breed industriously104. My wife, with other ladies and gentlemen, addresses them on the subject from the tail of a cart in South London, and teaches the heavy-burdened mothers how to avoid having so many children; and the leader of this little group was sourly and menacingly (and quite falsely) told by a distinguished105 Churchman, sitting in a Royal Commission, that they were breaking the law of the land. A friend of mine has been hounded out of the United States by the police for attempting to give similar information to the poorer mothers of New York.
Even in this third and very large category of London homes there is much filth78; and the windows, across which is drawn an odd cloth or a ragged and dirty curtain, abound106 in broken panes107. They have periods of comparative plenty, when the children get boots and socks, and their elders soak in beer and may even venture to a cinematograph show, if the crude pictures on its garish108 façade promise a sufficiently silly or sufficiently bloody109 programme. All that the police and the clergy care about is that not more than an inch or two of underclothing are exhibited in these places. They have also periods of want, when the clothes go to the pawnshop, and life runs on the exasperating110, brutalising lines of the lower class. The daily round of life is itself stupefying. At five or six they are dragged out of an insufficient sleep, and they dully take their tea (of a kind) and bread and margarine on a dirty table. After ten or twelve hours of anxious quest of minute profits they return home for a slightly better meal—a kipper, perhaps, or a few bits of cheap meat—too tired in mind and body to do more than smoke and drink. They have plenty of fun, of a sort, and take their tragedies lightly; but the angels, if there are any, must fold their wings over their faces at the aspect of these fellow-immortals. Even a politician might be expected to blush for this self-governing democracy. It is a squalid, degrading, stupefying life, below the level of civilisation.
Nearly one-third of the citizens of London do not rise above this level. The three classes that I have described, or the mass of people who spread continuously over these classes, were found by Mr. Booth to number 1,300,000 of the four and a half million inhabitants of the city. The figure for the Greater London of to-day is, of course, immensely higher. “The submerged tenth” is a most unfortunate phrase. It leads many, who know little of these matters, to suppose that only a tenth of the inhabitants of London are very poor. The truth is that a tenth live in a condition of misery, filth, and degradation111 of which the ordinary decent citizen can form no conception. They are the shirkers, the abnormal, and the worst casual workers. But the life of this further million—or nearly one-fourth of the total inhabitants of the Metropolis—the irregular or badly paid workers, is a grave and accusing problem to every man of decent sentiment. Their condition is not consistent with civilisation. Certainly large numbers of them live clean and cheerful lives, but even in these cases it is scandalous that sober and willing toil112 should receive wage enough only to secure cleanliness and the necessaries of life; while a far larger number sink under the burden, and are dirty, intemperate113, gross, and improvident114.
Conceive the extension of this class all over Britain: the further vast contingents115 of this army of poverty in the slums of Glasgow and Liverpool and Manchester, in all our great manufacturing and shipping116 towns, even in the heart of pretty rural England, where the wretched wage and low standard and large family stunt19 and degrade our agricultural worker. It is a very serious error to imagine that this is merely an unhappy issue of the crowding in our great cities. In picturesque117 and highly respectable York Mr. Rowntree found that thirty per cent. of the citizens lived in very real poverty: that ten per cent. did not earn money enough to buy a normal and sufficient quantity of plain food, to say nothing of luxuries.
This is the problem of poverty. If you want it in figures, a fourth of the inhabitants of London, where rents are appalling118, live on from eighteen to twenty-one shillings weekly per family, and some hundreds of thousands live on less than this. One might with some profit and pertinence119 go on to inquire into the life of the half of the population of London who are described as “comfortable workers.” Whether the little luxuries they have are a fit reward for the hard work they usually do, whether there can be any development of distinctively120 human powers among them, whether we may cherish a feeling of entire security in basing our political system on that foundation, are questions worth putting; and some day they will put them to us. But it is better for the moment to confine ourselves to that pitiful fourth of the community which lives in degrading poverty because it has only irregular or wretchedly paid employment. Is it an exaggeration to suspect that this vast acreage of poverty will make the future historian hesitate to class us as civilised?
Our social structure is of the nature of a pyramid. At its apex121, glittering in the sun, calling forth our pride and praise, are culture and wealth and power, and all the fine things they bring into existence. At its base are the supporting stones, crushed into the soil by the towering mass: the millions of stunted122 or brutalised lives. I know both extremes of this social order, and I have felt, hundreds of times, that if it is permanently123 to retain this pyramidal form, the refined lives and great achievements of the few resting on this broad base of squalid and undeveloped lives, civilisation is an impossible dream. I have felt that, if men and women realised the full meaning and range of poverty, they would suspend the progress of art and science, of commerce and industry, for a hundred years, if need were, in order to concentrate the best intelligence of the race upon the search for the remedy of this vast disorder124. And, if it be true, as I think, that these people, once dead, are dead for ever, and that the tradition of a hundredfold reward in heaven for their privations on earth is an illusion with which pastors125 and masters have reconciled them to their burdens, I would, if I could, send that assurance like a trumpet-blast through the slums of the world and make this vast army of the stricken summon us, the intelligent minority, to a tardy126 judgment127.
I do not, as will appear later, advocate the equal distribution of wealth. I do assuredly not plead that one who has wealth should give it to the poor: to see it gather again, perhaps, in less worthy128 hands. I add the contrast of wealth at this point only in order to make quite sensible the darkness of the life of millions. One’s first task is to establish, with what faint power the pen has, the appalling magnitude of the evil. If any very large number of us did really grasp the human significance of these facts and figures, the industrial problem would not long be resigned, as it is, to bloodless economists129 and obscure propagandist bodies.
And the second aim of those who would see the world bettered is, as I said, to inquire into the effect of the remedies we actually trust and apply. Here we enter the mistier130 region of controversy131, and I can but set out the grounds of my sincere convictions.
Of labour bureaux, in the first place, it will not be doubted that they are an advantage to employed and employers. They are an advance toward organisation. They bring the worker more promptly132 to the work that awaits him. But they, obviously, do not add one iota133 to the insufficient work, for which myriads134 are struggling: they do not add one penny to the wage that is earned: and they are of little or no service to the poorest workers, who chiefly concern us.
Old age pensions and insurance and free education are, similarly, great advantages to the workers, in which we may justly take some pride, but they do not promise to abolish or greatly diminish poverty. The pension, or the insurance benefit, is necessarily granted on the poverty scale, and is in some sense a recognition of it as one of the permanent institutions of life; and the elementary instruction which we give has raised the qualifications for work, as well as the equipment, so that the proportion of unemployed135, or ill-employed, is little changed. Nor would it be entirely wrong to say that, in relieving the poor man of the direct charge of education and insurance, we have put the difference on his rent.
Of our poor-law system, that lamentable136 compromise with a stupid old tradition, it is difficult to speak with patience. The able-bodied idlers of our workhouses and our countryside are a mockery of the workers. The tramp, the professional idler in search of idleness, maintained in his repulsive137 ways by an undiscriminating system of poorhousing and by a large body of “charitable” women, is one of the quaintest138 survivals of an older order. His father idled through life before him, and he in turn drags along the road a mate and children who will sustain the ignoble139 tradition. He ought to be washed, clothed, and put on an industrial estate; and, if his disease prove incurable140, he ought to be anæthetised out of existence, or at least prevented from reproducing his like.
Then there are the emigration societies. One fears that in large part they transport to the colonies either the men whom the colonies do not want, the men who will enlarge the slum-area of colonial cities, or the men whom we ought not to spare. At the best, emigration is a means of leaving the problem of poverty to our grandchildren, who will find no more open spaces for the dumping of our human surplus. In point of fact, however, apart from the dispatch of a small proportion of specially141 prepared boys, emigration is not affecting our problem of poverty. The half-million very poor of London, with the corresponding hundreds of thousands in our other cities, do not make emigrants142 at all; and very few of the next and far larger class are, or could be, fit for agricultural deportation143.
Lastly of these devices which the less thoughtful are apt to regard as relieving poverty, we have the Salvation Army, which is quite the most preposterous144 social sham145 of our age. But its religious-social burlesque146, its pretentious147 concealment149 of bad results and loud proclamation of good results, its refusal to print a plain balance-sheet from which a social student can measure the definite good done and the cost of it, its undercutting of existing work, and so on, have been sufficiently exposed to excuse us from dwelling150 on it. It contains some earnest men and women, and has had undoubted successes, but the system is too nebulous, garrulous151, and wasteful152 to merit serious attention.
Let us turn to graver matters. The mass of the workers, apart from the more advanced bodies of Socialists153 and Syndicalists, believe that the solution of the problem of poverty will be found in the development of Trade unions and of the political power of Labour. By political power, with the aid of sympathetic members of the middle-class, they have won the right of combination and a whole code of labour-laws; by an increased political power, ultimately a political all-power, they will secure all the legislation they deem expedient154.
In spite of the distraction155 of many of the workers by Anarchists156 and Syndicalists, who despise political action, and in spite of the restrictions157 of the franchise158 which are maintained by the older political parties, it seems plain that at some not very remote date the workers will control the world. Ever since the door of the political world was opened to Demos, eighty years ago, he was certain eventually to reach the throne, no matter how long he might be seduced159 to tarry by the way. Those who think otherwise must put their trust in the permanent unintelligence of the workers. The interests of the mass of workers are so far identical that they must finally combine to promote them. We are plainly moving, all over the world, in this direction. In Australasia, where the virgin160 soil permitted an exceptionally rapid growth, we see the farthest point yet reached, and within a decade or so Labour will have unshakable power all over Australia, at least. “Conservatism” has already disappeared, or changed its name to “Liberalism.” In Germany and France and Belgium we see the same disposition161 of the rival parties to unite in face of advancing Demos. In England there are signs that we shall at no distant date see a similar redistribution of political forces, and it is anticipated in the United States. In all countries the political energies are slowly gathering162 about two poles: Liberal (including the old Conservatives) and Labour. Even in such countries as Spain, Russia, Turkey, Japan, and China the initial stages of the development may be detected. When the workers at last unite and secure an absolute majority-power, they will legislate163 on familiar lines. Wages will rise, hours of labour will be shortened, and place will be found for larger numbers of workers.
It is little use moralising on this change. It is coming on like the tide. There will, no doubt, be temporary abuses of power, as there have always been, but the workers will learn the vital needs of an industrial order, and they will not starve the roots of their new prosperity. Let us assume that a state of equilibrium164 has been reached: that the workers have paramount165 political power, and wages are considerably166 increased. Does this promise a solution of the problem of poverty?
I am purposely leaving out of account the contemporary growth of rings and trusts. Paradoxical as it may seem to say so, they are not an essential element of the problem. The employers will (as is happening) form unions in face of the men’s unions, and the strain laid on individual employers and small companies will favour the growth of trusts. In so far as these make for economy, they are clearly useful; but no doubt they will be tempted167 to use their monopoly to dictate168 arbitrary prices. When, however, the workers have a majority-power, they can either slay169 the trusts or draw their teeth. On the other hand, a beneficent or labour-saving trust will not afford any advantage to the less skilful170 workers, who make up the great army of the poor, and it will reduce prices only by an unimportant fraction. The chief significance of trusts is that they tend to annihilate171 the individualist employer, who was once considered an indispensable institution, and they may thus dispose obstinate admirers of the older industrial order to welcome a radical172 change. They are more deadly to the middle-class than to the working-class.
The really vital question is whether the raising of wages and reduction of hours, accompanied by a large amount of secondary legislation to the advantage of the worker, will solve the social problem: which is not the problem of the existence of a few thousand prostitutes, but the problem of the existence of, in every country, several million people who live in privation and squalor, and cannot develop human personalities173. On this I offer two or three observations.
Does the price of commodities rise in proportion to the rise of wages? If it does, the securing of a nominally174 higher wage is clearly a delusion175. This seems, however, to be our experience. In England, during sixty or seventy years of trade-combination, wages have risen, and hours and conditions of labour have been improved, to a remarkable176 extent, in spite of open competition in an overcrowded market. But prices and rents also have risen, and it is not clear that there has been a net advantage to the worker. It is very difficult to answer the question precisely177, because other factors (such as the application of science) have increased the productiveness of labour and have cheapened certain commodities (books, clothes, pictures, tea, etc.). The workers have shared these advantages, and are in a position of far greater comfort than they were formerly178. But in seriously testing the claim and promise of the Trade unionist and the Labour politician we have to endeavour to subtract the improvement in the workers’ condition which is due to the application of science, and of better methods, to production and distribution. When we make allowance for this, it is certainly not clear that the rise of wages shows a margin179 over the increased price of commodities: that, in other words, the higher wage is a real advantage.
It is difficult to see how it could be otherwise. When wages are raised, who pays the increment180 in the cost of production? The employer or the consumer? It is a familiar experience, and an inherent necessity of our industrial order, that the consumer does; and the consumer is the worker—the middle-class or wealthy consumer generally gets the difference in other ways. It would be bold to say that our employers have paid even a fraction of the increased wage out of their own pockets. More usually they put a fifth of a penny on commodities when the worker has secured a sixth. Competition alone restrains them, and this is largely superseded181 by agreements. We have had innumerable instances of this during the war. Class after class of workers claimed a higher wage, and prices rose higher and higher “on account of the increased cost of production.” If a Labour Government were to prevent employers from increasing the cost of commodities and raising rents in exact proportion to the demand for higher wages—were, in other words, to direct the employers to pay the increase of wage out of their own profits—we should soon see the end of this industrial order. The State would be compelled to become the employer.
This seems to be true of practically all the legislation which a political power of Labour could secure. Compensation, pennons, and insurance are typical instances. The new demand on the employer’s profits is met in one of two ways: he withdraws voluntary contributions to these or similar purposes, or he raises the price of his goods. The larger consumer meets the burden by raising his rents or fees. The unreflecting worker imagines that “the country” pays for these things; he forms, in this respect, a larger proportion of the country than he thinks.
The second and more important consideration is that this power to dictate wages and pass measures in favour of the workers does not hold out a prospect182 of absorbing that surplusage of labour which is our real problem. I am assuming that even the poorer and unskilled workers will have their unions and their share of the political power. Their wage will rise, and the price of their food and clothing and rooms will rise; but it is of greater consequence to reflect that the less competent workers on the fringe of the industrial army will receive little advantage. Some benefit they will certainly have, since the curtailment183 of hours and the slowing of the pace of production will make room for more workers in each industry; though we must remember that the pay of these new workers will either be taken from the older workers, whose hours are shortened, or—which comes to the same thing—will be put on the commodities. The total production will not be increased, and the employer will not relinquish184 his profit. In any case, even this method of finding room for more workers will affect relatively185 few.
Again I may quote the experience of Australia, where the workers have very great power. In Melbourne, alone, in 1913, I found 30,000 men unemployed; and there and in other cities the tainted186 area of poverty and distress187 was increasing. All the elaborate organisation and political power of the workers could not add to the sum of available work and thus absorb the surplus of labour. I am contending that until we do this we do not solve the poverty-problem. The chief cause of this appalling social disease is the inequality of natural endowment—either of muscle or nerve—in face of an unorganised system of production. There is not work, with regular and decent wage, for all. The weaker, the lazier, the more drunken, and the slower of intellect, are crowded out of the ranks and driven to casual employment. This is the tap-root of poverty, and the benefits secured for those who are in regular employment will not affect it.
Thirdly, this labour-legislation will not touch the second chief root of poverty, the extreme inequality of the distribution of wealth. Since wealth is, in this regard, a fixed188 quantity,—we are not concerned here with the effect of fresh applications of science to production,—an accumulation of commodities at one point leads to thinness at another. I am not pleading for equality of income. Many workers have an exaggerated idea of the gain they might have by an equal distribution of wealth. The total annual income of the population of the United Kingdom is now believed to be about £2,400,000,000. If this were distributed equally amongst the heads of our ten million families and our large army of unmarried workers, the result would be barely £200 a year; and the equalisation of taxation189, the granting of substantial pensions, etc., would further reduce it. There is, however, no serious need to discuss this idea. I see no moral principle which forbids that we should reward a man according to his productiveness or inventiveness or other value to the community, although his fellows are not responsible for their lesser190 capacity; and it is idle to speculate on some imaginary phase of human development in which the more gifted and more useful will refuse to be more richly rewarded than the less useful.
But it does not follow that the community has no right to control the distribution of wealth. At one time such a proposal would have been branded “robbery.” To-day even Conservatives do not threaten to remove the death-duties and graduated income-tax by which we confiscate191 some of the wealth of the more fortunate. The only question is, to what extent we may or ought to prevent the excessive accumulation of wealth, or to disperse192 it after accumulation.
There occur at once two methods of enrichment which invite careful attention. One is the power to transmit wealth to one’s descendants in perpetuity, or until they choose to dissipate it. Most of us will admit that in a social order at all resembling our own—and I do not care to speculate about Utopian or imaginable orders—the power to win advantages for one’s children as well as for oneself is a sound incentive193 to work. But the wish to relieve one’s descendants of the need to work, to make them for ever a burden on the community, is a perverse194 ideal. It is one of those unsound primitive195 traditions which we detect in the actual stream of our ideas and sentiments, and instances are not unknown in our time of such holders196 of hereditary197 wealth revolting against the tradition. When we realise that this inherited wealth means, in plain terms, the right to have a hundred or a thousand fellow-men working for us or our descendants in perpetuity, for no merit or service on our part, and when we consider the folly198 and waste which so commonly follow large inherited fortunes, we must regard this tradition as evil and indefensible. One wonders how long the working community is going to sustain this burden, and how long refined men and women will imagine that they have a right to live like Oriental potentates199 because they had a shrewd or a gifted ancestor.
It is sometimes said in their favour that they employ labour with their wealth. I have heard bishops200 give them this foolish consolation201. As if the wealth would cease to exist, and to employ labour, if it were in the pockets of a thousand men, instead of the pockets of one Duke of Norfolk or Duke of Westminster! The only difference would be that this wealth, instead of paying a thousand servants and tradespeople to work for the comfort of one family, would pay a thousand men, who would lose nothing by the change of employment, to produce comfort for a thousand families. Meantime, the Duke is embarrassed by his wealth, or spends it on superfluous202 things, and the thousand families live in vicious misery. Their babies die for lack of good milk in the hot summer, and the rich youth or maiden—I have known this done—carelessly takes a bath of milk. Let us understand clearly this economic truth: great wealth is the accumulation in one man’s hands of the right or power of a thousand families to employ labour.
The second source of wealth which invites consideration is the unearned increment on ground-values, or any other unearned and accidental increase of value. It is now very commonly admitted that this belongs to the community, and I need not enlarge on it.
We have, as I said, admitted the community’s right to interfere203 with this scandalous clotting204 of wealth, and no doubt a Labour-majority would increase death-duties until money could not be transmitted beyond, at most, the third generation, and not in quantities sufficient to make men and women a lifelong burden on the working community. Possibly some day there will be a general scrutiny205 of titles to wealth: not merely as far back as the enclosure of the commons a hundred years ago, but back to the landing in this country of William of Normandy. Possibly a day will come when men and women will conceal148 the fact that their ancestors “came over with the Conqueror,” since it generally implies that the descendants of those lucky adventurers have not done an honest day’s work since that time. Possibly the sons of some of our “captains of industry” of a century ago will burn the family records, lest some prying206 historian should learn by what horrible exploitation of child-labour the fortune was made. Prescriptive right is a purely207 artificial right created by the community, and it may be withdrawn208 by the community.
Such measures as these a Labour Government will, no doubt, eventually take, and they will do much to relieve poverty and increase the production of commodities of general use. But they will add rather to the comfort of workers who are already above the poverty-line, and they will not prevent an excessive accumulation of wealth, though they may finally disperse it. This means the continuance of deep poverty. As long as a gifted man may amass209 a fortune in a comparatively short time, without adding to the wealth of the community, there will be squalid poverty somewhere.
In sum, if the political ideal of Labour were fully210 realised, it would not put an end to, and might not very materially lessen211, our widespread poverty. It would not enlarge the amount of available productive employment, and so the weak in body or mind or character would still form a pitiable army of slum-dwellers. It would, having no more control of industry than the present Parliament has, be unable to meet any grave disturbance99 of the industrial world, such as the release of hundreds of thousands of workers by disarmament. It would have no power to secure for the workers their full share of the advantage of any new application of science, and it would be unable to guide into new positions the men displaced by this application. We should continue to suffer the disadvantage of an imperfectly organised industrial system; each new enlistment212 of the great forces of nature or of the cunning of science in the service of man would enrich a few and impoverish213 many. In order to meet all these grave difficulties—in order to do more than secure certain advantages for the better equipped workers—a Labour Power would be forced radically214 to alter its principle and undertake the organisation of employment.
This organisation of industry seems to be the only device which will gradually restrict, and finally abolish, poverty. The opposition215 to it of middle-class workers and of so many artisans is unintelligible216. It is time that we ceased to confine the term “workers” to the poorer and less cultivated caste among those who work: time that the lawyer and actor and housewife claimed that honourable217 title no less than the carpenter or navvy. In restricting the term to manual and badly paid workers we have concealed218 from ourselves the real community of interest of all who work. All of us, except those who live on the labour of others, have an interest in the proper organisation of the work of the world and the removal from our shoulders of this intolerable burden of the irregular workers and the idlers. The middle-class has an even greater interest than what is narrowly called the working-class, because the tendency of Labour-legislation is, and will increasingly be, to put the heavier charge, not on large employers, who easily evade219 it, but on the middle-class generally. Here again the war has luminously220 illustrated221 our position. Both employers and employed (in the current industrial sense) have made great profit by it: the middle-class generally has suffered severely222. A proper organisation of work would have prevented this.
It can easily be shown that this national organisation of employment, with graded incomes according to service rendered, is the only remedy of poverty. The chief root of poverty is, as I said, the insufficiency of properly paid work, and this is entirely due to the haphazard223 and unsystematic nature of our industrial order. The private employer looks only to the actual demand of commodities, or to the actual funds for buying commodities. He has no interest in the moneyless unemployed; indeed, he finds it a convenience to have a large number from which he may select his workers. As a result, a large proportion of our people are unable to demand their normal share of commodities because they are not employed, or because they have no wage; and they are not employed because they do not demand commodities. Plainly, the community alone can alter this paradoxical state of things; and, since the community is now compelled by its more humane sentiments to carry the poor on its shoulders, it may at length be induced to see that it would be better to set them on their own feet. In a properly organised industrial system a worker will be paid by the commodities which he or she actually produces, or their exchange-value. There can be no such thing as a superfluous worker. It is only a lamentable issue of our perverse pre-scientific system that millions must lack the food and clothing and luxuries which they themselves could and would, under a more orderly system, produce.
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1
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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pacification
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| n. 讲和，绥靖，平定 | |
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organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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humane
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| adj.人道的，富有同情心的 | |
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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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retention
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| n.保留，保持，保持力，记忆力 | |
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complacently
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| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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infliction
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| n.（强加于人身的）痛苦，刑罚 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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transgressions
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| n.违反，违法，罪过( transgression的名词复数 ) | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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19
stunt
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| n.惊人表演，绝技，特技；vt.阻碍...发育，妨碍...生长 | |
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stunts
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| n.惊人的表演( stunt的名词复数 )；（广告中）引人注目的花招；愚蠢行为；危险举动v.阻碍…发育[生长]，抑制，妨碍( stunt的第三人称单数 ) | |
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embitters
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| v.使怨恨，激怒( embitter的第三人称单数 ) | |
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desolating
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| 毁坏( desolate的现在分词 )； 极大地破坏； 使沮丧； 使痛苦 | |
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beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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anarchist
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| n.无政府主义者 | |
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axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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contradictory
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| adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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32
mitigate
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| vt.（使）减轻，（使）缓和 | |
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alleviation
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| n. 减轻，缓和，解痛物 | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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dispense
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| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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40
clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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apocalyptic
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| adj.预示灾祸的，启示的 | |
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abolition
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| n.废除，取消 | |
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restriction
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| n.限制，约束 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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pauper
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| n.贫民，被救济者，穷人 | |
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46
destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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47
ignominious
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| adj.可鄙的，不光彩的，耻辱的 | |
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48
orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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49
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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50
secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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51
curtailing
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| v.截断，缩短( curtail的现在分词 ) | |
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52
rations
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| 定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量 | |
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53
subscribes
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| v.捐助( subscribe的第三人称单数 )；签署，题词；订阅；同意 | |
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54
humanitarianism
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| n.博爱主义；人道主义；基督凡人论 | |
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55
benefactor
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| n. 恩人，行善的人，捐助人 | |
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56
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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57
flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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58
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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59
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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60
enviously
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| adv.满怀嫉妒地 | |
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61
puny
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| adj.微不足道的，弱小的 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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63
premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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prematurely
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| adv.过早地，贸然地 | |
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65
dart
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| v.猛冲，投掷；n.飞镖，猛冲 | |
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scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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67
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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sodden
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| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
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69
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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70
paltry
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| adj.无价值的，微不足道的 | |
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71
jibe
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| v.嘲笑，与...一致，使转向；n.嘲笑，嘲弄 | |
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72
gratuitous
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| adj.无偿的，免费的；无缘无故的，不必要的 | |
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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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74
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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75
summarise
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| vt.概括，总结 | |
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76
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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tenements
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| n.房屋，住户，租房子( tenement的名词复数 ) | |
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filth
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| n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥 | |
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filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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80
bugs
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| adj.疯狂的，发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 )；病菌；虫子；[计算机]（制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的）错误 | |
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81
lurk
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| n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏 | |
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82
crevices
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| n.（尤指岩石的）裂缝，缺口( crevice的名词复数 ) | |
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83
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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84
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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85
citizenship
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| n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份) | |
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86
mosaic
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| n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的 | |
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87
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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88
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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89
brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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90
huddle
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| vi.挤作一团；蜷缩；vt.聚集；n.挤在一起的人 | |
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91
crouch
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| v.蹲伏，蜷缩，低头弯腰；n.蹲伏 | |
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92
ushered
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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93
edifying
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| adj.有教训意味的，教训性的，有益的v.开导，启发( edify的现在分词 ) | |
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94
chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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makers
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| n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式） | |
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96
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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97
insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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98
disturbances
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| n.骚乱( disturbance的名词复数 )；打扰；困扰；障碍 | |
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99
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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100
curbing
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| n.边石，边石的材料v.限制，克制，抑制( curb的现在分词 ) | |
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101
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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102
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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103
expended
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| v.花费( expend的过去式和过去分词 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
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104
industriously
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105
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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106
abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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107
panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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108
garish
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| adj.华丽而俗气的，华而不实的 | |
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109
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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110
exasperating
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| adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
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111
degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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112
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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113
intemperate
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| adj.无节制的，放纵的 | |
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114
improvident
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| adj.不顾将来的，不节俭的，无远见的 | |
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115
contingents
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| （志趣相投、尤指来自同一地方的）一组与会者( contingent的名词复数 )； 代表团； （军队的）分遣队； 小分队 | |
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116
shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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117
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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118
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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119
pertinence
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| n.中肯 | |
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120
distinctively
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| adv.特殊地，区别地 | |
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121
apex
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| n.顶点，最高点 | |
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122
stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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123
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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124
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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125
pastors
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| n.（基督教的）牧师( pastor的名词复数 ) | |
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126
tardy
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| adj.缓慢的，迟缓的 | |
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127
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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128
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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129
economists
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| n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 ) | |
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130
mistier
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| misty（多雾的，被雾笼罩的）的比较级形式 | |
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131
controversy
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| n.争论，辩论，争吵 | |
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132
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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133
iota
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| n.些微，一点儿 | |
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134
myriads
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| n.无数，极大数量( myriad的名词复数 ) | |
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135
unemployed
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| adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的 | |
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136
lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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137
repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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138
quaintest
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| adj.古色古香的( quaint的最高级 )；少见的，古怪的 | |
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139
ignoble
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| adj.不光彩的，卑鄙的；可耻的 | |
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140
incurable
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| adj.不能医治的，不能矫正的，无救的；n.不治的病人，无救的人 | |
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141
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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142
emigrants
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| n.（从本国移往他国的）移民( emigrant的名词复数 ) | |
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143
deportation
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| n.驱逐，放逐 | |
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144
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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145
sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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146
burlesque
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| v.嘲弄，戏仿；n.嘲弄，取笑，滑稽模仿 | |
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147
pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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148
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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149
concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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150
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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151
garrulous
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| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
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152
wasteful
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| adj.（造成）浪费的，挥霍的 | |
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153
socialists
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| 社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 ) | |
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154
expedient
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| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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155
distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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156
anarchists
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| 无政府主义者( anarchist的名词复数 ) | |
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157
restrictions
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| 约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则） | |
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158
franchise
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| n.特许，特权，专营权，特许权 | |
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159
seduced
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| 诱奸( seduce的过去式和过去分词 )； 勾引； 诱使堕落； 使入迷 | |
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160
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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161
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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162
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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163
legislate
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| vt.制定法律；n.法规，律例；立法 | |
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164
equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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165
paramount
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| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
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166
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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167
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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168
dictate
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| v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令 | |
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169
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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170
skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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171
annihilate
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| v.使无效；毁灭；取消 | |
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172
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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173
personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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174
nominally
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| 在名义上，表面地； 应名儿 | |
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175
delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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176
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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177
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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178
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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179
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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180
increment
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| n.增值，增价；提薪，增加工资 | |
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181
superseded
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| [医]被代替的，废弃的 | |
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182
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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183
curtailment
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| n.缩减，缩短 | |
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184
relinquish
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| v.放弃，撤回，让与，放手 | |
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185
relatively
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| adv.比较...地，相对地 | |
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186
tainted
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| adj.腐坏的；污染的；沾污的；感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
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187
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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188
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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189
taxation
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| n.征税，税收，税金 | |
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190
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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191
confiscate
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| v.没收(私人财产)，把…充公 | |
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192
disperse
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| vi.使分散；使消失；vt.分散；驱散 | |
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193
incentive
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| n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机 | |
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194
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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195
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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196
holders
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| 支持物( holder的名词复数 )； 持有者； （支票等）持有人； 支托（或握持）…之物 | |
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197
hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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198
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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199
potentates
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| n.君主，统治者( potentate的名词复数 )；有权势的人 | |
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200
bishops
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| （基督教某些教派管辖大教区的）主教( bishop的名词复数 )； （国际象棋的）象 | |
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201
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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202
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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203
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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204
clotting
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| v.凝固( clot的现在分词 )；烧结 | |
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205
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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206
prying
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| adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开 | |
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207
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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208
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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209
amass
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| vt.积累，积聚 | |
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210
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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211
lessen
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| vt.减少，减轻；缩小 | |
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212
enlistment
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| n.应征入伍，获得，取得 | |
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213
impoverish
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| vt.使穷困，使贫困 | |
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214
radically
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| ad.根本地，本质地 | |
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215
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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216
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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217
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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218
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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219
evade
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| vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避 | |
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220
luminously
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| 发光的； 明亮的； 清楚的； 辉赫 | |
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221
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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222
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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223
haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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