claim will be disputed by no one who masters the Report in which the conclusions of the Commissioners are embodied. It is a document which will not only inform the mind but will search the heart and conscience of the nation.

So much may safely be affirmed of the Report as a whole, or rather of both Reports. For the Majority and Minority have elected to present two entirely separate Reports. Why they should have done so is not at first sight apparent. On the surface the two Reports have much in common. They agree to a large extent in their diagnosis of the existing situation, and they concur in a large number of detailed recommendations, but the more closely they are scrutinised the more clearly do they reveal the fact that they start from different points, that they proceed on diverging lines, and that they reach an entirely distinct conclusion. The Majority Report, signed with notes of individual dissent, by fourteen out of eighteen Commissioners, is based upon the principle that, though the Poor Law must be amended in drastic and far-reaching fashion, it must still be preserved alike in the interests of the classes which come within its operations and in those of the nation at large. The Minority would sweep it away; blot out, as far as possible, its hateful memory, and distribute the heterogeneous and discrepant functions at present ineffectively performed by it among specialised local authorities.

To the detailed points of agreement and difference between the two Reports I shall recur, but, as this article will concern itself mainly with the conclusions of the Majority, a few words may be said, in limine, as to that of the Minority.

It is no disrespect to the four dissentients to say that neither individually nor collectively can they claim the authority which attaches to their colleagues in the Majority. Not that they are by any means disposed to hide such light as they possess under a bushel. Out of the 1238 pages of this appalling volume they claim over 500; nor have they neglected other means of giving publicity to their conclusions. It cannot be denied that their case is presented with a plausibility, a lucidity of arrangement, a closeness of reasoning and a literary skill which compel admiration. Moreover their recommendations enjoy the immense argumentative advantage of being built up around one central and dominating idea. As a consequence their scheme of reform possesses a simplicity, a completeness and a logical coherence which is superficially and to some minds irresistibly attractive. But the method has the defects of its qualities. If the fundamental idea be sound, well and good; if not, the whole elaborate superstructure must necessarily collapse. Moreover, if there is one thing as to which all competent critics are agreed in regard to the problems of destitution and unemployment, it is that they are infinitely complex. Simplicity and logic are, therefore, only too likely to engender mistrust.

One fundamental point both Reports have in common. Both agree that the existing methods and machinery for dealing with destitution and unemployment have hopelessly broken down, and that reform must be drastic and thorough. From this conclusion no one who masters the Reports can dissent. Yesterday there was a suspicion that all was not well; to-day we know that much is ill.

Terribly grave and impressive is the warning issued to the nation by ripe and experienced administrators like Lord George Hamilton, Sir H. A. Robinson, Sir Samuel Provis, Mr. McDougall, Dr. Downes and Dr. C. S. Loch; by weighty economists like Dr. Smart and Mr. Phelps; by zealous but sober workers in the field of social philanthropy like Mr. Hancock Nunn, Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet and Miss Octavia Hill:

It is very unpleasant to record that, notwithstanding our assumed moral and material progress, and notwithstanding the enormous annual expenditure, amounting to nearly sixty millions a year, upon poor relief, education, and public health, we still have a vast army of persons quartered upon us unable to support themselves, and an army which in numbers has recently shown signs of increase rather than decrease. . . . 'Land of Hope and Glory' is a popular and patriotic lyric, sung each year with rapture by thousands of voices. The enthusiasm is partly evoked by the beauty of the idea itself, but more by the belief that Great Britain does above other countries merit this eulogium, and that the conditions in existence here are such that the fulfilment of hope and the achievement of glory are more open to the individual than in other and less favoured lands. To certain classes of the community, into whose moral and material condition it has been our duty to inquire, these words are a mockery and a falsehood. To many of them, possibly from their own failure and faults, there is in this life but little hope, and to many more 'glory' or its realisation is an unknown ideal. Our investigations prove the existence in our midst of a class whose condition and environment are a discredit and a peril to the whole community. Each and every section of society has a common duty to perform in combating this evil and contracting its area-a duty which can only be performed by united and untiring effort to convert useless and costly inefficients into self-sustaining and respectable members of the community. No country, however rich, can permanently hold its own in the race of international competition if hampered by an increasing load of this dead weight, or can successfully perform the rôle of sovereignty beyond the seas if a portion of its own folk at home are sinking below the civilisation and aspirations of its subject races abroad.

6

Not less emphatic and trenchant, and even more searching, is the indictment of the existing condition of affairs as drawn by the Minority.

The present position is, in our opinion, as grave as that of 1834, though in its own way. We have, on the one hand, in England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland alike, the well-established Destitution Authorities, under ineffective

5 P. 52. It may be convenient here to point out that pp. 1-670 contain the Report and Summary of recommendations of the Majority; pp. 726-1238 those of the Minority. The reference will, therefore, indicate even when it is not otherwise explained whether the view is that of the Majority or the Minority.

6 P. 644.

central control, each pursuing its own policy in its own way: sometimes rigidly restricting its relief to persons actually destitute, and giving it in the most deterrent and humiliating forms; sometimes launching out into an indiscriminate and unconditional subsidising of mere poverty; sometimes developing costly and palatial institutions for the treatment, either gratuitously or for partial payment, of practically any applicant of the wage-earning or of the lower middle class. On the other hand, we see existing, equally ubiquitous with the Destitution Authorities, the newer specialised organs of Local Government-the Local Education Authority, the Local Health Authority, the Local Lunacy Authority, the Local Unemployment Authority, the Local Pension Authority-all attempting to provide for the needs of the poor, according to the cause or character of their distress. . . Athwart the overlapping and rivalry of these half a dozen Local Authorities that may be all at work in a single district we watch the growing stream of private charity and voluntary agencies. What the nation is confronted with to-day is, as it was in 1834, an ever-growing expenditure from public and private funds, which results, on the one hand, in a minimum of prevention and cure, and on the other in far-reaching demoralisation of character and the continuance of no small amount of unrelieved destitution."

Both parties therefore agree that something is seriously wrong,' and that the case for drastic and searching reform is overwhelming. On what lines is it to proceed?

The first specific object of combined attack is the 'general mixed workhouse,' and the promiscuous herding together of paupers of all sorts and descriptions, young and old, respectable and vicious, healthy and sick, novices and habitués. At the basis of all the reforms suggested by the Commission is the proper classification of paupers,' and this can be accomplished only by the abolition of the general' workhouse as it now exists. Curiously enough the Commissioners of 1834 were on this point hardly less emphatic than their successors. For reasons, however, which it would take too long to detail the intentions of the Commissioners in regard to this matter were never carried out in anything like their entirety. Dr. Downes, indeed, suggests in his admirable memorandums that more has been effected in this direction than is commonly supposed.

Of the indoor poor-exclusive of lunatics in asylums and casuals- -more than 38 per cent. were in 1908 already provided for in specialised institutions quite apart from the ordinary workhouse, and the proportion in London was more than 50 per cent. Of all the children in receipt of poor relief not 7 per cent. are housed in a workhouse proper, and there is hardly a union which does not send this remnant out to the public elementary school to mingle with their fellows.

And he adds a not untimely reminder that it is possible to carry a sound principle too far, 'to the verge of hardship or even of tyranny.' It is not indeed denied, in the Report, that many workhouses are admirably managed. In the country particularly the workhouse is more in the nature of an almshouse for the aged and

infirm and the children.' Even the Minority do not ignore the zeal and devotion by means of which an exceptionally good master and matron, under an exceptionally enlightened committee, here and there, for a brief period, succeed in mitigating or even in counteracting the evil tendencies of a general mixed institution.' None the less the case for reform in this matter of the general mixed workhouse is shown to be overwhelming.

It is obvious that a very serious problem has arisen, which must be faced and dealt with. It is that under the present conditions in London and other large towns the workhouse has ceased to be a true test of destitution, and has become positively attractive to a certain class of able-bodied and even young people. What is more serious still is that while the Guardians undertake the responsibility of maintaining these people, they have found themselves unable to exercise any regenerative influence over them. It is, of course, quite otherwise with the children, who can be subjected to systematic education under conditions which are physically and morally healthy. But the evidence cannot be resisted that, for those past childhood, workhouse life is liable to have an actually deteriorating effect. This is especially true of those who are still quite young when brought into association with degraded characters. It is partly the great size to which some of these institutions have grown which makes it impossible to deal with all classes of inmates in a suitable way. But the difficulty mainly arises out of the attempt to deal in one institution, under one master, with people requiring such very different treatment as the infirm and the able-bodied, the old and the young, the feeble-minded, epileptic, insane, and those of bad character.10

But the institution is not only grotesquely unscientific and ineffective, but tends to become (as the Majority point out) alarmingly expensive particularly in London. The total cost per head of indoor paupers has risen in London from 277. Os. 11d. in 1873-4, to 391. 12s. 44d. in 1903-4. The corresponding figures for the rest of the country outside London is 25l. 14s. 10d."1

11

Miss Sellers, in the admirable work already referred to, shows that our system is both less efficient and more costly than any other in Europe.

No country but England could afford to spend 14,000,000l. a year on poor relief; no city but London could, even if it would, spend 14s. a week each on its workhouse inmates, and nearly 40%. a year on every poor little waif or stray it has to maintain-in Bermondsey State children cost 521. a year each, and in Poplar 501. In foreign Poor Law departments, our expenditure on poor relief is regarded as quite appalling; the officials there speak of it with bated breath, and wonder what we can possibly do with our 14,000,000l.: how we can manage to spend them in fact, and yet have so little to show for our money.

Both Reports, therefore, agree that the workhouse, as at present understood and administered, must go. Promiscuity must give place to scientific classification, and separate and appropriate treatment must be provided for seven distinct classes of paupers: the children, the aged and infirm, the sick, the able-bodied, the mothers,

the vagrants, the epileptic and feeble-minded. But to facilitate this, two further changes must be made. The area of administration must be enlarged, and the personnel of the administrators must be improved.

12

Just as in 1834 the 15,500 parochial areas were gradually grouped into the 643 unions which form independent units of administration to day,' so now it is proposed to substitute for the union the county and county borough, as the new Poor Law area. And with an enlarged area there must be a new authority and a revised machinery. The Boards of Guardians, directly elected by the ratepayers, must disappear with the workhouses which, in the main, they administer so clumsily. Nowhere, as the Report points out, save in our own country is the duty of administering public assistance' placed in the hands of a body of men directly elected for the purpose." Here again the case for reform is irresistible. The existing system is both costly and inefficient. It is lax where it ought to be deterrent ; deterrent where it ought to be encouraging; it is nowhere (save in the case of the children) curative or regenerative, and it lays intolerable burdens upon the ratepayer. For this purpose the ratepayer is largely responsible. Quite extraordinary is the apathy he shows in regard to the election of guardians, with the natural result that the elected guardians, relieved from any effective public criticism,' tend to deteriorate in character. In many unions it is true' procedure is orderly, applicants are treated with courtesy and kindness, guardians weigh carefully the needs of those who come before them, and adapt their treatment to those needs.' On the other hand, 'recent prosecutions of guardians have brought to light the fact that systematic deception, dishonest contracting, and conspiring to defraud the ratepayers, are not inconsistent with popular election.' The root of the evil is to be found

in the absence of any sufficient qualification in those who elect the Boards of Guardians, and in the guardians themselves.

Persons who are not qualified even to vote at a parliamentary or county council election may be elected as guardians on a franchise wider than either the parliamentary or county council franchise. Twelve months' residence in a parish is a sufficient qualification for a person to be elected as a guardian, and provided a man has this qualification he may have been a pauper or a mendicant, and the law will still pronounce him qualified to be elected as a guardian. Moreover, it is technically possible for such a person, who pays no rates himself, to be elected to this position of high responsibility by voters, many of whom themselves pay no rates directly, and have, therefore, no immediate interest in nor knowledge of the amount of expenditure which is placed upon the ratepayers. Or, even worse, the voters may themselves be prospective claimants for relief, and that from a Board which they know will be favourably prejudiced towards their claims: as instance the Board of Guardians who acquiesced in the following view :—

'We are sent here to give outdoor relief to our relations-our fathers and

VOL. LXV-No. 386

12 P. 603.

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