spectacle of a public body administering relief from the rates and taxes adopting a semi-hostile attitude towards another body also administering relief from public money. The Local Government Board, when appealed to by the Sudbury Guardians for an opinion as to the power of recovery, give a guarded but extremely discouraging answer. It is not surprising that Poor Law relief, under these circumstances, shows no tendency to decrease. It was reported to the writer that, in another Union, old age pensioners have discovered that they can supplement their pensions by obtaining continuous outdoor medical relief in kind, and that, in fact, they frequently do so. And so the snowball of pauperism continues to roll onwards, acquiring additional momentum as it travels, and picking up all those who come in its way.
Finally, by the break up of the Poor Law, we are fast losing the power of gauging our economic position by facts and statistics. So long as the Poor Law was the sole relief authority we could ascertain, by a glance at its statistics, the exact position of the country in regard to the public relief of the poor, and could answer, with some approach to certainty, the vital question as to what proportion of the population lives by its labour, and what proportion by some form of public subsidy. But this is no longer possible. The official statistics now cover only a portion of the ground, because some four or five other bodies, whose finance and accounts are quite separate, now administer relief, whilst there is no attempt to bring either the relief that they administer or the number of people that they relieve into a common account. In former times, the greatest importance was attached to the keeping of accurate statistics under both heads, in order that the nation might at any time take stock of its economic position.
