SELECTIVE BIRTH-RATE 173 



although the Commissioners admit that they are at a 

 loss to account for the phenomena they were em- 

 powered to inquire into, by any economic, moral, or 

 political causes. We will quote their conclusion : 



" It is very unpleasant to record that, notwith- 

 standing 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. 

 To what is the retrogression due ? It cannot be 

 attributed to lack of expenditure. Is this costly and 

 elaborate machinery we have established defective, and 

 if so where does it fail to accomplish its end .'' Is the 

 material upon which this machinery operates becoming 

 less amenable to the remedies applied ? . . . The 

 statistical review of the expenditure incurred and of 

 the results attained by it prove that something in our 

 social organisation is seriously wrong, and that, what- 

 ever may be the evils, they are not of such a nature as 

 to be improved or removed by the mere signing of 

 cheques or the outpouring of public funds." 



Two other statements incorporated in the general 

 survey of the Poor Law Commission are also of 

 interest. The first suggests that general education, 

 the remedy from which so much was looked for in 

 1870, has failed in one of its objects. We read : 

 " A generation has elapsed since elementary education 

 became universal, and the benefits to be derived from 

 the system should now be accruing to the nation. 



