Closely related to this first difficulty is the fact that Mr.Booth provides no real suggestion for a process of discrimination in the treatment of our social failures, which shall distinguish the failure due directly to deep-seated vice of character and habit, from the failure due to unhappy chance or the fault of others.

Difficult, almost impossible, as such discrimination between deserving and undeserving is, it is felt that any genuine reform of our present poor law system demands that some attempt in this direction should be made.

We must try to distinguish curable from incurable cases, and we must try to cure the former while we preserve society from the contamination of the latter.
The mere removal of a class of "very poor" will not suffice.
Since however the scheme of Mr.C.Booth does not proceed beyond the stage of a suggested outline of treatment, it is not fair or profitable to press close criticism.

It is, however, a fact of some significance that one who has brought such close study to bear upon the problem of poverty should arrive at the conclusion that "Thorough interference on the part of the State with the lives of a small fraction of the population, would tend to make it possible, ultimately, to dispense with any Socialistic interference in the lives of all the rest."[33] Sec.5.Proposed remedies for "Unemployment."-- In discussing methods of dealing with "the unemployed," who represent an "over-supply" of labour at a given time, it is often found convenient to distinguish the temporary "unemployment" due to fluctuations rising from the nature of certain trades, and the permanent unemployment or half employment of large numbers of the least efficient town workers.

The fluctuations in employment due to changes of season, as in the building trades, and many branches of dock labour, or to changes of fashion, as in the silk and "fancy" woollen trade, or to temporary changes in the field of employment caused by a transformation of industrial processes, are direct causes of a considerable quantity of temporary unemployment.