CHAPTER IX.
Moral Aspects of Poverty.
Sec.1.

"Moral" View of the Causes of Poverty .-- Our diagnosis of "sweating" has regarded poverty as an industrial disease, and we have therefore concerned ourselves with the examination of industrial remedies, factory legislation, Trade Unionism, and restrictions of the supply of unskilled labour.

It may seem that in doing this we have ignored certain important moral factors in the problem, which, in the opinion of many, are all important.

Until quite recently the vast majority of those philanthropic persons who interested themselves in the miserable conditions of the poor, paid very slight attention to the economic aspect of poverty, and never dreamed of the application of economic remedies.

It is not unnatural that religions and moral teachers engaged in active detailed work among the poor should be so strongly impressed by the moral symptoms of the disease as to mistake them for the prime causes.