| Description | Letter acknowledging with thanks the trouble that the recipient has taken to convince Martineau that his reservations about poor law reform are groundless. Martineau refers to a circular on the issue, and argues that his correspondent does not understand his concerns, 'at this moment, if you do not propose "to establish state farms and manufactories", I am entirely at a loss to understand what the scheme does propose'.
Discussion of Martineau's views on political economy and how best to tackle the challenges of poverty follows:
'You write as if you had to encounter the class-feeling of some particular kind of "political economy". I assure you that I am free from everything of the sort: nor have I any further objection to the communistic doctrines of the Circular than springs from my conviction that they are an amiable illusion. I believe that cooperative methods will yet be found a practicable remedy for many of the ills felt at the lower end of our social state: not however as the enacted antagonists, but as the rational development, of the individual or "competitive" system.' |