both of its expenditure and of the number of people dealt with, whilst the other is guided by no such principles and its statistics are confused with those of other branches of administration.
The principal Acts by means of which this "break-up" has been effected are the Unemployed Workmen Act of 1905, the Provision of Meals Act of 1906, the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908, and the (Education) Administrative Provisions Act of 1907. An appreciable amount of relief is also administered by Borough Councils under various Acts dealing with public health. The Home Office has been making excursions in the same direction through its Reformatory and Industrial Schools, and the late Home Secretary even proposed to give to the police the duty of seeing to the clothing of ragged children in London, as is already done in several important provincial towns. One effect of this break-up of the Poor Law has been that the total public expenditure for the relief of the poor has in the last twenty-five years risen from about £8,000,000 to approximately £30,000,000. The last Annual Report of the Local Government Board shows that Poor Law expenditure was £15,000,000, whilst about £12,000,000 was spent under the Old Age Pensions Act, and £183,500 under the Unemployed Workmen Act. To this must be added an, at present, unascertained sum expended under the Provision of Meals Act, whilst a fresh movement, of which it is impossible to foresee the ultimate results, has been started for the provision of medical relief to school children under the (Education) Administrative Provision Act of 1907. No one appears to have the least idea as to what the cost of the Insurance Act is likely to be.
Meanwhile the whole tone of public opinion upon questions of poor relief appears to have changed. At one time it favoured thrift and self-reliance, and self-support was held to be more creditable than dependence upon public funds. Now all this is altered. Old age pensioners, many at least of whom might have provided for their own old age by reasonable prudence in their earlier years, are
