of it, it seemed natural and inevitable that there should be rich
and poor; and this belief was enforced on the one hand by the clergy,
and on the other by political economists, so that religion and science
agreed in upholding the competitive and capitalistic system of society
as the only rational and possible one. Hence it came to be believed that
the true sphere of governmental action did not include the abolition of
poverty. It was even declared that poverty was due to economic causes
over which governments had no power; that wages were kept down by the
"iron law" of supply and demand; and that any attempt to find a remedy
by Acts of Parliament only aggravated the disease. During the
Premiership of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman this attitude was, for the
first time, changed. On numerous occasions Sir Henry declared that he
held it to be the duty of a government to deal with problems of
unemployment and poverty.

In 1908 three great strikes, coming in rapid succession--those of the
Railway and other Transport Unions, the Miners, and the London Dock
Labourers--brought home to the middle and upper classes, and to the
Government, how completely all are dependent on the "working classes."
This and similar experiences showed us that when the organisation of
the trade unions was more complete, and the accumulated funds of several
years were devoted to this purpose, the bulk of the inhabitants of
London, and of other great cities, could be made to suffer a degree of
famine comparable with that of Paris when besieged by the German army in
1870.

Wallace's watchword throughout these social agitations was "Equality of
Opportunity for All," and the ideal method by which he hoped to achieve
this end was a system of industrial colonisation in our own country
whereby _all_ would have a fair, if not an absolutely equal, share in
the benefits arising from the production of their own labour, whether
physical or mental.[50]

With regard to the education of the people, especially as a
stepping-stone to moral and intellectual reform, Wallace believed in the
training of individual natural talent, rather than the present system of
general education thrust upon every boy or girl regardless of their
varying mental capacities. He also urged that the building-up of the
mind should be alternated with physical training in one or more useful
trades, so that there might be, not only at the outset, but also in
later life, a choice of occupation i