competent doctors and nurses, and bears the cost of illness, we shall
have only the loss of wages during the illness or after the death of
wage earners to consider. And here some form of universal insurance
will probably be the solution; this is preferable to state care of
dependents, as it carries no taint of charity. This solves every
problem but the delicate one, which must be entrusted to expert
diagnosticians, of determining to work is caused by physical
weakness or mere laziness.

(4) The fourth great cause of poverty, drink, can and must be abolished
in the near future, by the means already considered.

(5) There remain three personal causes which need be the only
permanently troublesome factors- -laziness, self-indulgence, and the
incontinence which results in over- large families. The laziness which
prefers chronic inactivity to work is not normal to human nature, and
will be largely banished by education, the improvement of health, and
the improvement of the conditions and hours of labor. The obstinate
cases of unwillingness to work must be cured by compulsory labor in
farm colonies or on public works; most such cases respond to
intelligent treatment and cease to be troublesome when some physical
or moral twist has been remedied. The waste of income in self-indulgence
of one form or other is more difficult to deal with; but the law can
justly forbid the wage-earner from squandering upon himself money
needed by wife and children, and direct that a due proportion of his
wages be paid directly to the wife. If neither father nor mother will
use their money for the proper welfare of the children, the State must
take the children from them though that step should only be a last
and desperate resort. Finally, there is the tendency, unfortunately
most prevalent among the lowest classes, to have more children than