But in both of these cases the State might rightly
undertake to help those who help themselves.
Fatherhood of the new order will not be so wholly irksome and unrewarded
as might at first appear to the critic who does not reckon children as
rewards themselves. It may involve some momentary sacrifices, but it
needs very little critical study of the ordinary man's expenditure to
discover that, on the whole, these sacrifices will be more apparent than
real. It is, for instance, a very great sacrifice indeed for the smoker
to give up tobacco; but once he has done so, he is as happy as he was,
and suffers nothing at all for the gain of his pocket. Both as regards
alcohol and tobacco, the common expenditure which would so amply provide
milk and the rest for children, is necessitated by an acquired habit
which, like all acquired habits, can be discarded. The non-smoker and
non-drinker does _not_ suffer the discomfort of the smoker and drinker
who is deprived of his need. These things cease to be needs at all, soon
after they are dispensed with, or if the habit of taking them is never
begun. They are luxuries only to those who use them. To those who do not
they are nothing, and the lack of them is nothing. The sheer waste they
entail is gigantic, and the expenditure on them in such a country as
England would endow all its motherhood and provide good conditions for
all its children.
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