far as possible to prevent or arrest the operation of the causes of such destitution, and provide, in accordance with the statutes and regulations for the time being in force, whatever public assistance of persons within their area the council may deem expedient."

By this clause, a general obligation is cast upon counties and county boroughs to prevent destitution, while considerable latitude is allowed for each locality to develop its operations according to its special needs.

At the same time, a sufficient standard of classification of the four classes of the destitute and of incipient destitution is provided by a uniform statutory obligation to refer to committees, in the case of the children of school age and the aged, to the committees constituted by the Education and Old Age Pension Acts (Prevention of Destitution Bill, clauses 20 and 39), in the case of the infants, sick and the feeble-minded, to new statutory standing committees. It is a strange anomaly in local government, that while a county, which is not strictly speaking a sanitary, although it now is a supervising public health authority, is now required by the Housing and Town Planning Act of 1909, s. 71, to set up a health and housing committee, a borough which is an urban sanitary authority, while it must appoint a medical officer of health, need not (save by local Act, as at Nottingham) though doubtless it invariably does, possess a health committee.

In any case, no provision for co-option of skilled persons. on health committees exists, but this defect is remedied in the Prevention of Destitution Bill.

By clause 28, every council having public health powers under the Act must establish a health committee, and a scheme to be approved by the Local Government Board is to be prepared, allowing for co-opted women in such a way that at least two women shall find their way on to every health committee, either as elected or co-opted members.

Central control in matters of public health is provided. for, as in the existing educational system, which is left untouched, and extended to cover the poor law children, by a system of grants in aid which are to be given on a new system.

In place of the present unanimously condemned subventions, a national minimum of health expenditure is to be determined by the Local Government Board, which will amount to the least sum at which a council can carry out its duties under the measure. A national standard health rate will then be calculated, as the sum in the pound required to produce this minimum sum-and, when the Local Government Board are satisfied that a council has actually expended the minimum sum or more, a grant may be made to all councils of the difference between the standard health rate and the amount by which they have exceeded it—this is to be known as the Primary Health Grant. After this, a Secondary Health Grant may be paid to other councils not entitled to a primary health grant in proportion to their expenditure. But in no case is a grant to be paid until the Local Government Board have issued a certificate testifying their satisfaction of the manner in which the Public Health Acts have been carried out. The total sum to be expended will be fixed by Parliament. £4,000,000 in all for seven years is suggested in the Bill. The principle "of necessity and ability to pay" in these proposals is in harmony with the proposals of the minority of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation which reported in 1901, and included Lord Balfour of Burleigh, Sir Edward Hamilton, and Sir George Murray. As under the Education Acts, so under the proposed measure, the larger urban district councils of 10,000, and non-county boroughs of 10,000 inhabitants, are given certain powers.

By clause 33, such a council may enter into an agreement with the county in much the same manner as is

already done by district councils under the Local Government Acts, to have certain powers as to outdoor medical attendance and the provision of medicines entrusted to them. So also in London, where the County Council is the local authority under this Bill, certain minor medical powers are transferred from the guardians to the borough councils.

The notion that the mutual obligation of society and individual may be modified in favour of the aged deserving worker, finds expression in clause 38, which gives the pensions committee appointed under the Old Age Pensions Act 1908 power to award local pensions, in lieu of outdoor relief, in suitable cases to aged persons who are not eligible, for one reason or another, to pensions under the Old Age Pensions Act. So also, the urban district or borough of 20,000 inhabitants is made an authority for this purpose. So that a borough council of under 20,000 will have health powers devolved upon them if they desire it, but no power to award local pensions.

With regard to the fourth class of the non-able bodied, the mentally defective, the Minority Commissioners adopt the report of the Commission on the Feeble Minded, and a new committee is set up by clause 42, with a similar provision to the co-option of women as exists in the case of the health committee, to which will stand referred the powers of the council to search out and cure destitution among the feeble minded, and also their other existing powers with regard to the defective which they possess under the Lunacy Acts 1890 and 1891 and the Inebriates Act 1898.

The existing Asylums Committee is abolished, and in place of the present grant in aid of 4s. per head for each. pauper lunatic maintained for the guardians by the County Council, a new grant for the mentally defective services of £1,000,000 is to be distributed to the local authorities

under much the same conditions as to necessity and ability as the Health Grant.

Next follow provisions against the overlapping of the various powers and provisions for that very important enforcement of individual responsibility, recovery of cost.

At present the liabilities incurred by receiving public assistance are perplexing in the extreme. Under the Poor Law, the person receiving assistance, being destitute, is not liable for its cost, but his father, grandfather and son are. On the other hand, the person receiving hospital assistance from Public Health Authority is, under sect. 132 of the Public Health Act alone liable. Under the Education (Provision of Meals) Act 1904, the parents of every child receiving meals is chargeable. Under all these Acts the making of a charge and the recovery of it is optional on the Local Authority, but, curiously enough, under the Local Education Authorities (Medical Treatment) Act 1910, charge for treatment is made compulsory.

Instead of all this confusion, by the Prevention of Destitution Bill one uniform method of charge and recovery is set up.

New officers, the Registrars of Public Assistance, are to be appointed by the Council, and it is made the duty of the Council, a duty which the Registrar will undertake (clause 52 (A)), to charge the whole or part of the cost of the public assistance given by the Council in accordance with fixed scales of liability. But in order to make these charges it will be necessary, and it is also highly necessary for other purposes, thet a common register should be kept, in a prescribed manner, in which the name and description of every person receiving any public assistance whatever is inscribed, together with the nature of the assistance given. Old Age Pension Officers and the Trustees of Charity Commission Trusts are also required to register the assistance they give, and all other charities, trade unions, friendly

societies and private persons, and the new minister, the Minister for Labour, will be encouraged to register, so that one clear record of all the assistance given to any family or person will be readily available.

Having thus obtained information, the registrar can also see that there is no improper overlapping of assistance given by the various committees. For example, to-day a woman may, and often does, receive out-door relief for the maintenance of her child at the same time that the child is being fed by the Local Education Authority, under the Act of 1906. This is to cease. Councils are given powers to set up a new committee to be known as the Public Assistance (Co-ordination) Committee, composed of members of the four Committees, Education, Health, Aged and Feeble Minded, giving public Assistance. In Scotland, where the Education Authority is still a separately elected body, and where the Lunacy Authority is generaly also elected ad hoc, the constitution of such a co-ordination committee is made compulsory, and the local school and lunacy boards are given representatives on it; but in England its work may perhaps be done by the General Purposes Committee.

The important work of this committee will be to see that, when public domiciliary assistance is given out of institutions, there shall be no such overlap between one grant of assistance and another as exists to-day. "Every such proposed grant," says clause 55, "shall be reported in advance to the Co-ordination Committee, and except in cases of sudden or urgent necessity, no such assistance shall be given until a certificate has been issued under the directions of the Co-ordination Committee, declaring that the proposed grant does not improperly overlap the public assistance derived from any other source, and that it does not infringe the conditions and regulations in force."

If the certificate is not granted the Council must, of course, provide for the person in an institution, or they