The action of the story covers a period of only a little over twelve
months, but in order that the picture might be complete it was
necessary to describe how the workers are circumstanced at all periods
of their lives, from the cradle to the grave. Therefore the
characters include women and children, a young boy - the apprentice -
some improvers, journeymen in the prime of life, and worn-out old men.

I designed to show the conditions relating from poverty and
unemployment: to expose the futility of the measures taken to deal
with them and to indicate what I believe to be the only real remedy,
namely - Socialism. I intended to explain what Socialists understand
by the word `poverty': to define the Socialist theory of the causes of
poverty, and to explain how Socialists propose to abolish poverty.

It may be objected that, considering the number of books dealing with
these subjects already existing, such a work as this was uncalled for.
The answer is that not only are the majority of people opposed to
Socialism, but a very brief conversation with an average
anti-socialist is sufficient to show that he does not know what
Socialism means. The same is true of all the anti-socialist writers
and the `great statesmen' who make anti-socialist speeches: unless we
believe that they are deliberate liars and imposters, who to serve
their own interests labour to mislead other people, we must conclude
that they do not understand Socialism. There is no other possible
explanation of the extraordinary things they write and say. The thing
they cry out against is not Socialism but a phantom of their own
imagining.

Another answer is that `The Philanthropists' is not a treatise or