Page:The Slippery Slope.djvu/181

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INCONSISTENCIES IN THE REPORT
161

such changes in terminology as "continuous treatment" for the "good old-fashioned term 'detention.'" Yet they themselves desire to substitute the word "home aliment" for the "good old-fashioned term" outdoor relief. Similarly, for purposes of declamation, the "cellular" casual wards in Poplar became "solitary pens" (p. 1082), and we can hardly believe it when we read that in the new receiving houses "a certain amount of cellular accommodation will be essential" (p. 12 13). When they have to defend their training establishments against the objection that they will be too deterrent, their answer is that "a man has always the alternative of earning his living outside" (p. 1206). But that is precisely the argument that has always been used with regard to the offer of the workhouse of which they will hear nothing. "Solitary pens," "mammoth workhouses," and the like are phrases typical of the wealth of rhetoric in the Report which contribute not a little to its literary effectiveness.

We may notice in passing the naive surprise of Mr Lansbury (with the others) that "a great number of able-bodied men in health are receiving outdoor relief without any task of work" (p. 1093), although in Mr Lansbury's own Union from 172 to 534 men were so relieved weekly in 1906 (p. 209).

It is interesting to find that the Minority agree that the cause of failure hitherto of labour exchanges has been that they have been associated with Distress Committees and relief works (p. 1124). They quote with approval the words of the late Sir C. Trevelyan as to the evil of "mixing labour with relief" (p. 1097). But this does not prevent them from proposing a scheme by which the labour exchanges and the "maintenance" proposals will be under the same authority working alongside of one another.