for England.  In outlining the problems, the supreme necessity is the abolition of the present workhouse system.  The Vice-Regal Commission and the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws are in agreement as to the guiding principles of reform.  They recommend classification by institutions of all the present inmates of the workhouses; the sick in the hospital, the aged and infirm in alms-houses; the mentally defective in asylums.  They suggest the bringing together into one institution of all the inmates of one class from a number of neighbouring workhouses.  The sick should be sent to existing Poor Law or County hospitals, strengthened by the addition of cottage hospitals in certain districts, while children must be boarded out.  The able-bodied paupers, if well conducted, might be placed in labour colonies; if ill conducted, in detention colonies.  If these are established, they must be controlled by the State and not by County authorities.  Of course, the resources of the existing Unions are much too limited to undertake such sweeping reforms, and the county must be substituted for the Union as the area of charge.  The establishment of the Public Assistance authority will relieve us from the greatest scandal which now mars the administration of the Poor Law reform in Ireland—­the corrupt appointment of officers in the Poor Law medical service.  If we cannot have a State medical service, we can at all events ensure that appointments under the Poor Law shall be placed in incorruptible hands.

It is not to be assumed that this short sketch of policy is exhaustive, or that it touches even in outline upon all that the Unionist Party might fairly hope to do in Ireland.  It is designed to show only that financially and politically, every step which can be taken to relieve the poverty and oppression which has too long continued in Ireland must be taken by a Unionist Parliament and a Government pledged to secure the administration of law and order in Ireland.

I desire on behalf of the Committee under whose auspices this work has been prepared to thank Mr. S. Rosenbaum for the ability and zeal he has shown in editing the book and in preparing it for publication.  I wish also to acknowledge my personal debt to Mr. G. Locker Lampson, M.P., who, as Vice-Chairman of the Committee, has shown so much zeal and assiduity in connection with this important work.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 1:  “Commercial Relations Between England and Ireland.”  By Miss A.E.  Murray (P.S.  King & Sons).]

[Footnote 2:  Attorney General in the Irish Parliament, and later Earl of Clare.]

HISTORICAL

I

A NOTE ON HOME RULE

BY THE RIGHT HON.  A.J.  BALFOUR, M.P.