SOCIAL REFORM AND THE NEW SOCIALISM
When I was asked to write a paper for this Conference, and to choose my own subject, my thoughts at first naturally turned to some of the many points of practical Poor Law administration which it has been the custom to discuss at these Conferences in the past. But then it occurred to me, as it has probably occurred to many others, that such discussions are losing their interest, because they are rapidly becoming out of date; that, for instance, questions such as the treatment of the aged poor, of the able-bodied, of the children, and the comparative merits of indoor and outdoor relief, are losing their significance so far as the Poor Law is concerned, because they are being withdrawn one by one from the purview of the Poor Law altogether. Indeed it appears likely that by the time the Royal Commission issues its Report there will be only the shadow of the Poor Law to report about, because the aged poor will have been transferred to a pension authority, the able-bodied to the bodies specially formed for the purpose of finding work for the unemployed, the children to the education committees, and the sick and impotent to some public health authority. Already the London County Council have had a sort of full-dress rehearsal of the dissolution of Boards of Guardians. They have already, in theory, torn us limb from limb,
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