Social Problems And Their Peaceful Solution.

are vast stores of food both indigenous and imported , yet that through a deplorable ignorance of their qualities , coupled with some unreasoning and therefore well-nigh unconquerable prejudice against their use , many of these stores remain unutilised . Oh , for some social reformer who would

give his time , his talents , his energies , to the removal of this ignorance and the uprooting of this prejudice ! Truly would he deserve a niche in the temple of fame , worthy would he be to rank with your Howards and your Peabodys ; a lot far nobler his , the vanquisher of prejudice , than that of the conqueror of any two worlds .

If your self-constituted social reformers , instead of wasting their time and the people ' s money in making Sunday hideous with their blatant clamour of atheistical sedition , would turn their attention to some useful and feasible means of ameliorating the benighted condition of the

masses ; if instead of doubly desecrating the Lord ' s day of peace , by sowing enmity and ke ung wide open gaping chasms in our social relationships , they would endeavour to practically benefit His people ; theninstead of coming under the ban of

, all sensible and orderly persons as noisy and troublesome demagogues , they would earn for themselves an enduring renown as real reformers of crying abuses , and become world-widely popular as being truly of and for the people .

As , however , there is just about as much chance of our arriving at this desirable consummation as there is of our catching larks by the grand natural process of the sky falling , let us do our best , little though it be , towards bringing about the enli

ghtenment , so devoutly to be wished , of our people on this vital subject of our foodsupply . It has been well said that "he is a public benefactor who makes two blades of grass grow where but one grew before ; " others

may be allowed this greater honour , we shall be quite satisfied if we can at least partially ameliorate the hard lot of our brethren by teaching them how to utilise such portions of the already existing blade as have hitherto been regarded as beneath notice . In olden time when the Great Architect was temporal king as well as Heavenly

Father , He provided for His poorer children in His Heaven-made though earth-gi ven law , by commanding of the land that He gave them , " the seventh year ye shall let it rest and lie still , that the poor of thy people . may eat ; " in these days it is the

bounden duty of us who now make laws to see that we neglect not the good of that endless inheritance that He has given us the care of that " poor that we have always with us ; " and to this end the least that we can do is to help them to

free themselves from the load of this poverty ; let us , then , consider those causes of it that we have already mentioned , and see whether we cannot devise some sound scheme for their removal .

Now the first of these causes of an insufficient supply of food for the masses , can only be met by one of two courses , or by a combination of them , namely , the emigrationof our surplus population and the importation of food for those who remain , By the openings afforded to industry

and enterprise in our colonies and dependencies—we say emphatically industry and enterprise , for "the slothful" do not "hunt , " let alone the after " roasting" either at home or abroad , nor is indolence anything but a dead weight anywhere—the first of

these objects is met , but as yet the people are but imperfectly acquainted with either the advantages thus offered to them or the mode of embracing them . This obstacle to emigration , that natural process of peopling the earth ' s surface and utilising

its riches , is soon overcome by an application to one of the many reliable colonial agencies . The second object , namely , the importation of food from abroad , is already an accomplished fact , whilst the knowledge of the utility and wholesomeness of many

indigenous products is becoming more diffused , but there stands in the way of the full development of the usefulness of both these modes of mitigating want the wellnigh invincible ignorance and terribly obstinate prejudice of the masses . To the

consideration of the removal of these we will return hereafter ; meanwhile let us say a few words concerning the second cause of the semi-starvation of our peop le , namely , that widespread and dep lorable waste that we know is to be found on every hand .