Page:The Slippery Slope.djvu/150

course may be true, but the process is a slow one, and meanwhile the position may become irremediable. The increase of rates is disguised to the great majority of the electors. The working classes complain, it is true, of the increase of their rents, but they are for the most part compound householders, who do not pay their rates direct, and they ascribe the increase of their rents exclusively to "grasping landlords." Almost the only direct ratepayers in poor districts are the great firms and corporations and a percentage of the shopkeepers, but they have scarcely any voice in the matter, and are looked upon in many cases as legitimate objects of plunder. It must not be forgotten that of late years the socialist party has been gradually acquiring more and more power in these local elections. In some places they control them almost exclusively. They make it no secret that it is their object to bring about a silent revolution through municipal action, and subordinate all other considerations to that end. Not only the Poor Law, but borough councils and education committees are their field of action. So long as this is the case we may be sure that no considerations of economy will be allowed to have any weight, not at all events till it may be too late. We have seen also that the line of demarcation between those who pay the rates and those who receive them is fast disappearing, that inmates of workhouses are now proposing to select the managers of the workhouses, and that the main issue put before electors in poor districts is that of outdoor relief. Already there is strong pressure for the removal of the disfranchisement of paupers, and a forward move in that direction has been given by the Unemployed Workmen Act, which is a standing invitation to the electors in poor districts to vote for those who will make work for the unemployed outside the Poor Law. In fact,