CHAPTER VIII

THE SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
OF GOVERNMENT

Need for Social Activities
Ministry of Labour

Industrial Relations

Employment

Special Areas
Ministry of Health

Local Government Supervision

Insurance and Pensions
Board of Education

NEED FOR SOCIAL ACTIVITIES.

Inequality of wealth and opportunity is one of the chief facts
of society in Great Britain, and indeed in most other -countries.
This inequality is a necessary part of private enterprise; the
chance of becoming one of the wealthy is the spur by which
such a system seeks to drive men to work, to save, and to invent.
Nor is there any doubt that in the nineteenth century the results
of this incentive were remarkable; no less remarkable, however,
were the evil consequences of inequality. In the early years of
the century a limited number of people attained great wealth
and power, but the masses lived in poverty, ill-fed and insanitarily
housed, and with the merest fragments of education. The talents
of children born into such conditions were necessarily stunted,
and the development of industry made it progressively harden
for a man to rise from the station in which he was born. Hence
it became difficult to argue that the great fortunes were the
rewards of service, and the -working class, assembled in towns
began to organise and to demand a better life. Fear, wisdom, ar 1
humanity together induced Governments to modify the rigour,

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