aged persons who apply to them. There are 649 Unions in England and Wales for this purpose, covering every inch of the ground, able to perform all that this Bill proposes except the enfranchisement of some; yet it is proposed to set up no less than 15,000 new authorities to share in the work now performed by the 649 Unions. This multiplicity of authorities cannot but lead to many unwise actions. The small areas and small populations of the bulk of the Parish Councils must bring the administration of relief under the influences of friendship and family relationship, thus recalling some of the worst evils of the old Poor Law under which old parishes, especially in the North, were broken up into townships and hamlets, each with its own overseer for the administration of relief.

Boards of Guardians are now elected for sufficiently wide areas to ensure impartiality as regards the applicants who come before them. This safeguard is of the utmost importance, but it will be lost in many cases dealt with under this Bill.

The Bill is further open to objection on the ground that County and Parish Councillors are elected for other purposes than the relief of the poor, and I am much afraid that the question of fitness for the post of administrators of relief will be overshadowed by qualifications in other directions, and it is much more likely that square men may be put into round holes than where men are elected solely for the special business they have to undertake. The working out of Poor Law problems is of the utmost importance, and is still, I believe, worthy of Boards specially elected to deal

with them.

If anything in the direction of providing Cottage Homes outside the Workhouse grounds is undertaken, it is the almost unanimous opinion of witnesses heard before the House of Commons Committee that these Homes should be under the control of Boards of

Guardians. Even an important expert-Miss Sellers -who is not a Guardian, but has shown her interest in these questions by her articles in the Nineteenth Century and other periodicals, gave evidence to the following effect :-" Personally I should say it would be exceedingly difficult to work the Bill unless the working of it was placed in the hands of Boards of Guardians."

There is a serious blot upon the Bill by there being no provision made for any central supervision or control. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent Parish Councils, once they obtain the power to provide the Homes, from housing the whole of the aged poor the parish.

in

I question much the wisdom of the Treasury making grants of £5 per each inmate of these Homes without some Parliamentary control or inspection by officers of the body which contributes the money. Careful expenditure of money is only obtained when it is expended by the authority which has to provide or collect it.

As the Rev. Mr Fowle says, in his valuable little work on the Poor Law: "Relieving authorities will vote money freely when it is not raised from their own localities, and the supervision, knowledge, and investigation so essential to any reasonable administration of out-relief would become impossible."

As to the medical treatment of inmates of Homes under Councils, the Bill makes a great mistake when it presupposes that the medical officers of the Unions will undertake the charge of these people without a new agreement with the authorities under the Bill.

The terms of the contracts of Union medical officers cannot be stretched by the widest interpretation so as to provide that their attendance shall be given to persons not producing an order of the Guardians or relieving officer. The overseer has certainly retained his privilege from the old Poor Law of issuing an order for

relief, medical or otherwise, but it can only be exercised in cases of extreme urgency.

Again, Councils have no hospitals to which to remove those who may become sick; so that when a time of sickness arrives, which cannot be treated and nursed in the Cottage Home, the only resource will be the Union Hospital. Councils would find the difficulty of dealing with the sick a very serious one.

I wonder if the framers of this Bill considered that in finding a new authority to deal with the aged and deserving poor they were removing them from the care of those who have proved themselves most capable of dealing with just this class- I need hardly say I mean the lady members of our Boards of Guardians.

Much of the improved condition of the inmates of Workhouses is due to the exertions of noble women who have devoted themselves with all the singlemindedness of a Mrs Fry or a Florence Nightingale to the amelioration of the conditions of Workhouse life. Even the strongest supporters of this Bill will agree that to take the aged poor from under the sympathetic influence so freely given by the ladies who sit upon our Boards of Guardians would be a fatal error.

I suppose the main object the promoters of the Bill set before themselves was the removal of the stigma of pauperism. Now, in the first place, is not this idea of a stigma being attached to those who receive relief from the rates becoming a little stale and out of date? Do we not find that the same people who used to speak of the Workhouse as the "Bastile" now speak of it as the "Union"? Sick persons are now sent by their friends to the Union Hospital, and the time is quickly coming when, even in the popular mind and talk, the poor children will be sent to the Home.

After all, is it not a great wrong to try and make poor people think that dependence upon funds compulsorily levied upon others can be as honourable as self-support?

But, in the second place, how does this Bill propose to remove the stigma? It must, I think, be admitted that a person dependent upon either Council or Guardians, without services rendered, must necessarily be a pauper. The poor would never stop to reason whether the relief is granted them by the Council or the Guardians. It would never occur to them to make the distinction. A person who enters a Home will be housed and maintained by taxation compulsorily levied, and the Bill will not therefore set up a class of recipients of relief who will not be paupers.

In conclusion, how will the Bill, if it becomes law, affect Guardians? It will be a censure on the Guardians for the manner in which they have performed their duties, and not only so, it will detrimentally affect their standing. The best and wisest amongst us will not go through the trouble and annoyance of a contested election when they feel that this is but the first step to the devolution of their duties to other bodies. All that will be left for them to do will be to administer a Workhouse to which only the worthless and undeserving will be sent a kind of annex to the gaol.

On these grounds, I consider this Bill to be a well meant but unfortunate and retrograde step, which would make confusion worse confounded.

DISCUSSION.

Mr FELDMAN (Hull) said the Guardians must exercise the greatest vigilance against placing persons in positions to which they were not entitled. In Hull, thanks to private generosity, they had an institution for the aged poor, and if there was a vacancy for a pension of seven shillings a week, they had hundreds of applicants for it, very few of whom were in receipt of parish relief. This class would come on the rates if the Cottage Homes Bill were passed, and it would be an encouragement to children to shirk their filial obligations. The public would protest, too, against the increase in the rates which must inevitably attend any such scheme. The Local Government Board ought, like the Education Department, to make grants to the local bodies under its control, otherwise there would be no disposition

to launch out into extravagant schemes. was in restored health. (Hear, hear.)

He trusted Mr Kennedy

Mr BUTTREY (Beverley) expressed the hope that the Local Government Board would never have the granting of money, or the Guardians would have to be still more subject to that authority. Few Guardians would support the proposition for Cottage Homes. He did not think it was public policy to provide better homes for the aged poor than for the struggling masses outside the rates, and if they did so, it would sap the independence of the people. (Hear, hear.)

Mr BRISLEY (Pickering) said Cottage Homes would pauperise the people just as much as the Workhouse. Call it by what name they would, it could not fail to have a bad effect. None of them wished to deal harshly with the deserving poor. Adequate relief should be given, and its administration entrusted solely to the Boards of Guardians. (Hear, hear.)

Mr HANNEKIN (Knaresborough) said the fact that there were so many non-progressive Unions gave rise to the outcry for the Bill in question. It was very difficult to get Guardians to move on the lines of sound improvement. The Bradford, Sheffield, and Grimsby Boards had adopted an intelligent policy, which had obviated any necessity for such a measure in their districts.

Mr HOLLAND suggested that the matter be referred to the Association of Poor Law Guardians.

The PRESIDENT said the Association had had it under consideration. (Hear, hear.)

Mr Guy said the Association made representations to the Select Committee against the Bill.

A Lady Guardian (Keighley) advocated a proper system of classification of the recipients of relief.

A Delegate said that the Cottage Homes Bill would entail an expense which would be intolerable, especially from rural ratepayers. (Hear, hear.)

Mr KENNEDY (Local Government Board Inspector) said he was an old hand at inspecting public institutions, and he could see abundant evidence of the fact that the early designers of those buildings aimed at a rough method of classification. There was no analogy between the Local Government Board and the Education Department.

Another Delegate said it was possible to overdo classification. Guardians must take the poor as they were, whatever their past might have been. (Hear, hear.)

Mr Guy said he did not approve of any resolution being proposed at that Conference in reference to the question he had brought before them.

The PRESIDENT said that if the Conference represented the general feeling on the matter, there was not the smallest chance of the Cottage Homes Bill being passed.