70 
The Lecturer thought the Commissioners’ conclusions were 
sad, gloomy, and disquieting, and that the questions raised 
must, in the near future, engage the earnest attention of all 
thoughtful men. The remedies suggested, whether by 
majority or minority, demand nothing short of a revolution. 
The Commission reports that notwithstanding the huge 
sums spent on Poor-law Relief since 1834 (£597,000,000 has 
been spent on Poor-law alone since 1850), notwithstanding 
an annual expenditure of well-nigh £60,000,000 on poor 
relief, education, and public health, a population equal to 
that of the city of Liverpool is quartered on the rates : 
this must be ended or mended. How ? ' 
The Majority Commissioners would set about it thus : 
Abolish the Guardians, abolish Union areas, abolish work- 
houses, abolish the term “ Poor Relief,” and call it “ Public 
Assistance ” instead — an abolition programme which may 
or may not effect the abolition of poverty and pauperism, but 
which will certainly add in an incalculable degree to the 
present sixty millions of annual expenditure. In place of 
the present Unions set up two new areas— in county boroughs, 
the county borough to be the area ; outside county boroughs, 
the administrative county to be the area. Thus Nelson’ 
Colne, Padiham, Brierfield, Hapton, and all the rest of the 
Burnley Union outside the county borough would be admin- 
istered, not from a natural centre such as Burnley, as now, 
but from far-away Preston. Will this lead to economy or 
efficiency of working ? 
Instead of Guardians, a new Public Assistance Authority, 
to be a statutory committee of County and County Borough 
Councils, is to be set up ; half of the committee is to be formed 
of members of the Councils and half to be appointed by the 
committee. 
Instead of the general mixed workhouse, special institutions 
are to be established on separate sites for (1) children, (2) 
the aged and infirm, (3) the sick, (4) the able-bodied men, 
(5) the able-bodied women, (6) vagrants, and (7) the feeble- 
minded and epileptics. The new Public Assistance Authority 
is to set up Public Assistance Committees to deal with the 
applications for out-relief or assistance. Alongside these, 
voluntary aid councils, with subsidary voluntary aid com- 
mittees are to be set up ; these councils and committees arc 
to re-organise and have the handling of all the charities 
within the area for which they are formed. “ To these 
irresponsible committees of benevolent amateurs,” — the 
Lecturer quoted from the Minority Report—” all applicants 
