10 MAY 1930, Page 26

Public Assistance, by Geoffrey Drage (John Murray, 15s.), is composed

of letters, articles, and petitions published or presented . to ministers by the author, and the Denison House Committee. Readers of the Times will be familiar with the tenor of Mr. Drage's contributions. "He has two main objects, for which he has been contending during the last seventeen years. One, admirable enough, is the rationalization of the depart- ments administering public assistance. We are sure that many gaps and some overlapping could be eliminated by this means. Mr. Drage is less in the fashion today when we find him pleading for the retention of the principle of deterrence in public assistance. The book is unwieldy in form, since -no explanatory. matter connects the separate sections, but it possesses an immense usefulness as a study of the resistance -to state action. *. * * *