15 APRIL 1922, Page 3

The London ratepayers last week took the trouble for once

to vote at the elections of poor-law- guardians and freed all but two of the unions from Socialist control. The Labour Party, profiting by the apathy of the electors, had gained a majority on many boards three years ago and had used its power to grant out-relief on such a scale that men found it far more profitable to remain idle than to obtain work. The Poplar Guardians merely carried to an extreme the Socialist theories which were applied in other unions. The rapid rise in the rates alarmed and angered all classes, except the small minority which had nothing to lose, and the Labour Party, save in Poplar and Shoreditch, has now lost its' hold over the poor-law.