for relief will apply in the first instance,” and in cases of 
refusal the assistance authority must relieve. And, finally, 
county and local medical assistance committees are to be 
established, to deal with a monster net-work of medical 
dispensaries to be set up throughout the country. 
Ihere is some excuse if the plain man’s brain reels at this 
mad maze of councils and committees. When one considers 
that the starting-point from whence these conclusions were 
reached was a system involving the annual expenditure of 
£60,000,000, and thinks of the enormous initial capital ex- 
penditure that will be involved by the scrapping of our present 
Poor-law buildings and their replacement by new ones on 
separate sites, the huge annual expenditure entailed by their 
separate staffs of highly qualified officials, the suggested 
additions to every grade of officer high and low, the additional 
inspectors, auditors, and visitors recommended, it lies badly 
in the mouth of this “ Daniel come to judgment ” to reproach 
the present system on the score of expense. Add State 
provision of labour bureaux under the Board of Trade, aiid 
agencies for insurance against unemployment, and the 
Majority proposals are stated in outline. 
The Minority proposals are frankly socialistic in character, 
and have been labelled by one of the Minority Commissioners, 
Mr. Lansbury, “ Socialism for the Poor.” The Minority 
Report is the joint work of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb. How 
Mr. Webb, who was not a Commissioner, comes to be a joint 
author of the Report is not known, but it certainly gives 
point to the criticism that it would appear that the Fabians, 
having obtained seats on the Commission, set out to use 
their opportunity to promulgate their own special views 
on the problem of poverty and its solution. If this criticism 
be well founded, it goes far to damn the Minority recom- 
mendations. The purpose of a Commission like this is to 
weigh, sift, and test every shred of evidence before reaching 
a conclusion, and not to make the facts square with a pre- 
conceived theory. Their scheme is known as “ The break-up 
of the Poor-law,” and a national propaganda has been set 
afoot to bring their proposals into practical effect. In outline 
their suggestions are to abolish Guardians and Union areas, 
and in their place to establish no new authorities, but, taking 
the county and the county boroughs as units of administration, 
to let the present county councils and county boroughs take 
charge of the several sections of the poor — the Education 
Committee of the children of school age ; the Health Com- 
mittee of the sick and permanently incapacitated, the infants 
under school age, and the aged needing institutional care ; 
