y, in his pamphlet _Recent Measures for the
Promotion of Education in England_, reduces everything to neglected
education. Upon what grounds, think you? Owing to the lack of
education, the worker fails to perceive the "natural laws of trade,"
laws which necessarily bring him to pauperism. Consequently he is up
in arms against them. This is calculated to "disturb the prosperity of
English manufactures and of English trade, destroy the mutual
confidence of business people, weaken the stability of political and
social institutions."

So great is the thoughtlessness of the English bourgeoisie and its
Press with regard to pauperism, England's national epidemic.

Let us grant then that the reproaches which our "Prussian" levels at
German society are well founded. Is the explanation to be sought in
the unpolitical condition of Germany?

But if the bourgeoisie of unpolitical Germany cannot grasp the general
significance of a partial distress, the bourgeoisie of political
England, on the other hand, has managed to miss the general
significance of a universal distress, which has been forced upon its
attention partly by periodical recurrence in time, partly by extension
in space, and partly by the failure of all efforts to remedy it.

"Prussian" further lays it to the account of the unpolitical condition
of Germany that the King of Prussia finds the cause of pauperism in
administrative defects or lack of benevolence, and consequently seeks
the remedy for pauperism in administrative and ameliorative measures.

Is this point of view peculiar to the King of Prussia? Let us take a
rapid glance at England, the only country where important political
measures have been taken against pauperism.

The present English Poor Law dates from the Forty-third Act of the
Government of Elizabeth. In what consisted the expedients of this
legislation? In the obligation laid on parishes to support their poor
workers, in the poor rate, in legal benevolence. For two hundred years
this legislation--benevolence by Act of Parliament--has lasted. What
is the attitude of Parliament in its Amendment Bill of 1834; after
long and painful experience?

First of all, the formidable increase in pauperism is explained from a
"defect in administration."

The administration of the poor rate, which consisted of officials of
the respective parishes, is therefore reformed. Unions of about twenty
parishes are formed, united in a single administration. A Board of