Labour and the Popular Welfare

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LABOUR AND THE POPULAR WELFARE
BY W. H. MALLOCK AUTHOR OF ‘IS LIFE WORTH LIVING?’ ‘SOCIAL EQUALITY,’ ETC.
SIXTH THOUSAND
LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1895
In republishing this work at a low price, I wish to reiterate emphatically what is said of it in the opening chapter,—namely, that any clearheaded Radical, as distinct from the New Unionist, the Socialistic dreamer, and the Agitator, will find nothing in it to jar against his sympathies, or to conflict with his opinions, any more than the most strenuous Conservative will. If the word “party” is used in its usual sense, this is a volume absolutely free from any party bias.
It has, however, since its first publication, some nine months ago, been attacked continually, not by Socialistic writers only (whose attack was natural), but by Radicals also, who, apparently quite mistaking the drift of it, have done their best to detect in it flaws, fallacies, and inaccuracies. As any work like the present, whose aim is essentially practical, is worse than useless unless the reader is able to feel confidence in it, let me say a few words as to the degree of confidence which is claimed, after nine months of criticism, for the facts and arguments set forth in the following pages.
Let the reader emphasise in his mind the division between facts and arguments, for they stand on a different footing. In estimating the truth of any general arguments, the final appeal is to the common sense of the reader. The reader is himself the judge of them; and the moment he understands and assents to them, they belong to himself as much as they ever did to the writer. On the other hand, the historical facts, or statistics, by which arguments are illustrated, or on which they are based, claim acceptance on the authority, not of our internal common sense, but of external evidence. Let me speak separately, then, of the arguments of this book, and of the facts quoted in it.