Few able-bodied men lacked employment, and indeed it seemed quite possible that ...

Few able-bodied men lacked employment, and indeed it seemed

quite possible that at no distant

date England would have to import foreign labour to adjust the

balance of native emigration.

That a great part of the population was under-nourished did, it is true, go to show that the distribution of wealth was less efficient than its production. But, even here, remedies were available

within theaccepted scheme of

things: Trade Unions to keep wages in some correspondence with the earnings of industry: co-operation and profit sharing for the mechanic: free sale of land for the farmer, and small holdings for the labourer.

Fawcett' was not following a flight of fancy, but a sober speculation, when he looked forward to a society of well-fed, well-educated citizens, with skilled artisans and peasant proprietors at the base, scavenged for and waited on by negroes and Chinese. It is the Early Victorian ideal of the Respectable Family, set upon the economic basis of free, but not uncontrolled, competition, and steady, but not unaided, self-help.

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