134  THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  UNEMPLOYED

and  poor  law  systems.  By  removing  a  certain  number  of
industrial  weaklings  from  the  free  industrial  society  which
they  burden  and  contaminate,  and  by  ordering  their  lives
for  them  with  some  regard  to  comfort,  education,  and
self-respect,  a  grievous  stain  upon  our  civilisation  might
be  obliterated.  It  is,  however,  improbable  that  any  considerable ­
  number  of  these  weaklings  can  be  converted
into  self-dependent  members  of  society,  and  it  must  be
remembered  that  if  turned  again  upon  the  low-skilled
labour-market  with  whatever  fair  equipment  of  efficiency,
they  go  to  swell  a  glut  and  can  only  get  work  by  keeping
others  out.
The  unemployed  question  cannot  be  solved  or  its  pressure ­
  materially  abated  by  taking  the  most  inefficient
members  of  the  lowest  classes  (Mr.  Booth’s  Classes  A
and  B)  and  converting  them  into  members  of  Classes
C  or  even  D.  The  permanent  plethora  of  inefficient
and  even  of  fairly  efficient  low-skilled  labour  must
not  be  shirked.  It  forms  a  terrible  centre-piece  of  the
unemployed  problem  and  challenges  “  heroic  ”  remedies.
Mr.  Charles  Booth  perceiving  how  these  classes  are  overstocked, ­
  suggests  the  possibility  of  a  wider  system  of
labour  colonies  than  any  yet  in  operation.  His  guarded
and  tentative  proposal  is  for  a  large  social  drainage
scheme  which  might  remove  the  whole  or  the  greater  part
of  the  irregular,  inefficient,  low-paid  labour  included  under
his  Class  B  with  the  families  dependent  upon  them.
“  Put  practically,  but  shortly,  my  idea  is  that  these
people  should  be  allowed  to  live  as  families  in  industrial
groups,  planted  wherever  land  and  building  materials
were  cheap;  being  well  housed,  well  fed,  and  well  warmed;
and  taught,  trained,  and  employed  from  morning  to