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The advantages that centralisation of the London Poor Law administration under a permanent body would produce are enormous, and I have for many years past laid stress on them. They include:

1. Simplification and equalisation of the poor rate.

2. Greater facilities for the classification of the indoor poor, thereby freeing vacant places for public purposes in lieu of new buildings.

3. Uniform basis for granting outdoor relief on wellconsidered principles throughout the area, with the object that the position of the recipient should not, as now in some districts, be better than that of the independent labourer.

4. Enormous improvements and economies in contracting and procuring supplies.

5. Uniform scales of salaries and wages and other conditions of employment throughout the area. An indirect benefit would be to bring an end to the nepotism by which members and supporters of members of the local authority receive highly paid jobs and other advantages.

6. More organised and uniform co-operation with voluntary and philanthropic agencies throughout the area. This would include (i) a registry for discretionary as opposed to statutory relief which experience shows could be established at a small cost, to prevent the wellknown overlapping and fraud, and (ii) the possibility of utilising empty beds in Poor Law infirmaries for overflow patients from public hospitals. To the above advantages I may add :

(a) The raising of the status of the existing Poor Law services (medical, educational, and relief) by a unified Poor Law service with added opportunities for promotion within the service. (b) The removal and disqualification of administrators who have defied or are defying existing Poor Law regulations. (c) The elimination of the pauper vote in matters connected

books. In certain industrial unions in the provinces similar results, obtained by sensible administration, are recorded in the Reports of the Ministry of Health for 1922–3, 1923-4, and 1925-6. Further as to loans in place of borrowing 700,000l. with a deficit of 29,000l., the West Ham Commissioners report a cessation of borrowing, the extinction of the deficit, and a reduction of the call on the ratepayers by over 26,000l. (cmd. 2786, p. 16).

with relief. (d) A proper control of the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund (which was originally instituted to assist the poorer districts of London to meet expenditure on institutional relief, and which is now being used for the purpose of encouraging outdoor relief), including the representation in its administration of the contributing districts and provision that improvident districts should not shift their burdens on to the provident.*

For many of these objects there is little hope of attainment as long as they are subject to departments controlled by politicians or any persons depending on a popular vote. But there is one last and supreme object which can only be attained by a firm hand with continuity of administrative power over a term of years, and that is the abolition of the Tammany system now prevailing at the East End. There not only is the offer of outdoor relief on a lavish scale made to all and sundry, neighbours, lodgers, friends, and relatives, but rewards are given to active and zealous agents in the way of appointments. Promises, moreover, are made to give exceptional wages and conditions to persons employed by the Guardians, while the incomes of provision dealers are trebled through relief tickets. Hence, while workers are pouring in from outside to Poplar to work, one person out of five in Poplar is in receipt of relief. Moreover, none but a central authority able to draw its administrators from outside the local area can hope to obviate the very real intimidation now exercised on relieving officers, guardians, social workers, and local shop-keepers, who do not fall in with the popular view as to outdoor relief. In a word, the administration of the Poor Law, and especially that of outdoor relief, is one which requires a judicial mind and technical knowledge and independence which cannot be expected from the Poor Law Guardians at the East End just now.

Further, no firmness, no uniformity, no continuity of policy, can be expected from the control of party politicians, often transient and embarrassed phantoms, who in these days of constant elections, flit across the stage, anxious to do nothing unpopular. Still less can it be expected from Parliament. Minister after Minister

* For the year ending March 31, 1926, Poplar drew 252,7421. from the Common Poor Fund and Fulham 39387.

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it has, after stating that if we continue spending at our ed: present rate it will lead us straight to national bankit ruptcy,' assured us that we must not rely upon ParliaIt ment to check expenditure where what is called social treform is concerned. Committees on public expenditure come and go, but their recommendations receive little or no support, while Parliament passes skeleton Acts of Parliament increasing not only the powers (to the exclusion of the jurisdiction of the Courts), but also the numbers of the officials of the permanent departments. No less than 490 new officials have this year been added to the Ministry of Public Health, though there may be resignations and consequent reductions before March 31, 1927' (Hansard, Dec. 8, 1926).

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Reform in this country is a plant of slow growth. It is often the work of the amateur or unpaid official which gradually is forced on the politician, who eventubally adopts it, if he is sure it has become popular enough to bring him credit.

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In this case, unless all deductions from history are wrong, we are at the parting of the ways. The choice of Hercules has to be made. In 1834 at the moment of a great extension of the franchise a free people enforced restrictions on its own liberties. Outdoor relief was fenced by proper precautions and economic freedom was gained. Mr Gladstone stated that the Poor Law Reform rescued the English peasantry from the total loss of their independence.' Now the independence of the industrial labourer is at stake.

Athens and Rome went down because their people were corrupted by doles. In this country the people must save itself. The nation successfully enforced certain restrictions on liberty in the War and in the General Strike; the War was won and the General Strike was defeated, not by the Government, but by the nation. The question is, can the nation rise to the same resolution now and insist in an independent Commission being appointed to deal with the Poor Law for a term of years? We have not only to reckon with Parliament and the army of officials interested in the maintenance of the present system, but also to face the competition of politicians desirous of purchasing votes by public money and the thirst for public assistance

which that competition is awakening in the working classes. A prolonged effort is required from the ordinary citizen; he must go and stand himself again in the ranks, and if he will undertake it, he will find unexpected. allies among the working classes themselves.

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Wage-earning people take no pleasure in maintaining idle neighbours out of public funds, part of which they have to find. They detest it, but in their endeavour to act fairly by their honest neighbours who are in misfortune, they have discovered to their great chagrin that they are led into providing for the support of others of a different kind. The resulting state of affairs causes them great anxiety. We lie awake,' said the wife of a labour Guardian, 'thinking of it [the thirst for public relief] and we are ashamed of our own class.' Again, wage-earners who desire to take part in public life do not think public money ought to be spent in the maintenance of idle and vicious persons who can neglect their homes and can ill bear the reproach of having spent it in that manner. But under pressure of Party rivalry they cannot forgo the most effective of all methods of securing votes, namely, a promise of maintenance out of public funds. Wage-earners only buy votes out of public money, because the temptation is directly thrown in their way, as it has been since the Act of 1918. They do not approve of it, and they do not enjoy the obvious forms of pressure which are exacted to get it from them. Still less do they approve of or desire to associate with the beneficiaries. Do yer think I would queue up with them sweepings?' said a Poplar labourer when advised to apply to the Guardians for an allowance of tea.

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Peace hath her triumphs no less renowned than war, and there can be none greater than that of a free and powerful self-governing nation, submitting itself to discipline of an undignified and unpleasant kind to safeguard the solvency of its Government and the morals of its weaker members. But it is a case of the Sibylline books. The problem will not depart. The verdict of history has to be faced. Meanwhile the hand is writing on the wall. In other words:

'Apparent diræ facies inimicaque Trojæ
Numina magna deûm.'

GEOFFREY DRAGE.

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[In the last number of the Quarterly' (p. 433) is a review of Life

'

and Man,' by the late T. A. Bowhay, in which doubts are expressed as to whether the book was the work of a fictitious author or not. We now learn that these doubts were mistaken, and that the expressions used have caused annoyance to Mrs Bowhay, the author's widow. We therefore take this opportunity of voluntarily expressing to Mrs Bowhay our regret and apologies for having inadvertently caused her pain or vexation.

< EDITOR, Quarterly Review.']

SOME RECENT BOOKS.
'Pam' and Scipio-Blake, Spenser, and Fanny Burney—
Phineas Fletcher-' Her Majesty'-The Black Death-
Ancient Fishing--Books on the Bible-From a Pillow'
-San Bernardino and Tagore-Essays on Literature
and Music-Irish Satire and Some Nonsense.

IT is a curious circumstance that Palmerston should have
been so little studied since the two formal biographies
of him appeared in the 'seventies; and possibly the
neglect is due to the cause suggested by Mr Philip
Guedella in his 'Palmerston' (Benn)-the magni-
tudinous diversities of his career. Almost without
intermission-from his twenty-fifth birthday, when,
having actually already declined the Chancellorship of
the Exchequer, he became Secretary-at-War and ad-
ministered supply to the army fighting against Napoleon
in the Peninsula, until his death as Prime Minister,
triumphant and already a legendary figure-he was
immersed in national business. Europe as it was before
the Great War had been greatly influenced by his
activities; he was one of the signatories of the 'Scrap
of Paper.' His interest in affairs was world-wide and
yet particular; his industry was amazing and untiring;
his spirit was irrepressible, as very exalted persons were
amply to discover; he had a brilliant common sense, an
absolute and impudent courage, with a way of slipping
out of the difficulties he often had wilfully made which
proved inexpressibly annoying to such serious persons
as Gladstone and Bright. Beyond those qualities which
earned for him and justified his long career as a minister
of the Crown, he had a personality which endeared him
to the bulk of the people, so that 'Pam' or 'Cupid' with

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