THE LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL AND THE POOR LAW.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THZ " SPECTATOR:1
Si,—The County Council, in reply to a request for their opinion, has suggested to the Royal Commission the abolition of Boards of Guardians and a redistribution of the duties between the County and the Borough Councils. This, I fear, dam not meet the real difficulty. Borough Councils are com- posed of much the same class of men as the Guardians. Recent disclosures as to peculation and dishonesty ought not to blind us to the fact that it is want of knowledge and of a definite policy, and not want of moral rectitude, which has caused dissatisfaction with our Poor Law. There is pre- sumably one way of administering that very vague body of law known as the Poor Law which is better than another. It is the business of the democracy, I submit, to come to some decision on this point. It is futile to leave the details to the arbitrament of locally elected amateurs. Not even when nominally subject to the control of the Local Government Board have the local executives ever acted on any uniform or intelligible principle. The local executives being popularly elected bodies, and therefore constitutionally more power- ful, have prevailed all along the line against the Local Government Board, and it is idle to start afresh with a system which involves constant friction, and, as a rule, the victory of the most ignorant opinion. It is well known that the principal authors of the Report of 1834 favoured a much larger employment of salaried and responsible officials than the Act of 1834 permitted. As one of them was con- stantly in the habit of remarking, he wished to have the Guardians put in the position of Visiting Justices, and I submit that, until the local administration is entrusted to instructed and responsible persons charged with carrying out a definite policy, we shall have the vacillating and injurious system which all deplore. I am told by those who ought to understand the political exigencies of the situation that such a bureaucratic proposal in this democratic age is impracticable. I is ubmit that this is no infringement of democratic principle. Democracy has, like any other form of government, to find out the best way of getting certain public services carried out. Obviously some are better discharged by trained officials following definite and enlightened instructions, and there is nothing in democracy obliging it to ignore this obvious truth. No one suggests that we should have an elected Justiciary. Would it not be worth while to try for London at least the experiment of a salaried and responsible Executive for Poor Law purposes P—I am, Sir, &c., T. Meem.
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