I have always
been of opinion that this distress and suffering must be cumulative
to a degree which few people have ever foreseen, because your means
of meeting the difficulty will diminish just in proportion as the
difficulty will increase. Mr Farnall has told us that one-third of
the rateable property will fall out of existence, as it were, and
future rates must be levied upon two-thirds. But that will be by no
means the measure of the condition of things two or three months
hence, because every additional rate forces out of existence a large
amount of saleable property; and the more you increase your rates
the more you diminish the area over which those rates are to be
productive. This view of the case has a very important bearing,
also, upon the condition of the shop-keeping class as well as the
classes of mill-owners and manufacturers who have not a large amount
of floating capital. There is no doubt but a very large amount of
the shopkeeping class are rapidly falling into the condition of the
unemployed labourers.
When I was at Rochdale the other day, I heard a very sorrowful
example of it.
Pages:
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246