Page:The Slippery Slope.djvu/168

 public relief is, they consider, a matter of so much complexity, its maladministration in the past has led to such grave evils, that it is necessary that it should be administered by experts specially appointed and qualified for the purpose, otherwise no limits can be set to the spread of pauperism and dependence. The Majority would appear to have some warrant for their criticism in the experience that we have already had of the delegation of relief duties to bodies outside the Poor Law. Since the relief of the able-bodied was handed over by Mr Chamberlain's Circular, and later by the Unemployed Workmen Act, to bodies other than the Guardians, not only has overlapping increased enormously, but the number of the unemployed has also shown a constant tendency to increase. I mean, of course, by the unemployed those who apply as such to public bodies, and not the unemployed percentages of trades unions, for the proportion of trades unionists amongst such applicants is infinitesimal. Similarly with regard to the feeding of necessitous school children. The London County Council have only recently placed it upon the rates, yet within a few months the number of children fed has more than doubled itself and is still increasing. The Minority themselves point out that it has led to a large amount of overlapping, as in many cases the children are fed by the Education Authority whilst their parents receive out-relief from the Guardians. There can be no doubt—indeed the Minority do not attempt to conceal it—that if these various Committees are to administer the Act of Elizabeth upon the lines indicated and with the new duty to "search out destitution," there will be a vast increase both in expenditure and in pauperism, if, indeed, the word is still to be allowed to have any meaning.