by which the old Union grants within each county would be pooled and credited to the common fund in aid of the poor rate in that county.  The Viceregal Commission also complained of inequality of expenditure, and advised a reapportionment of the grants in aid of local taxation, on the basis of the recommendations of the minority of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation (1902).  That Commission was unanimous in recommending increased grants for Poor Law service in Ireland.  The distribution of such new grants would be a matter for discussion; of the necessity for them there is no doubt.  The Unionist Party must not rest content with reforming the Irish Poor Law system; it must help the reformed system to pay its own way.  No fair-minded Englishman who reads Sir George O’Farrell’s evidence as to the distribution of the Irish Church surplus (Report of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded, page 468) will dispute his country’s obligations in this matter.  The cost of Irish Poor Law Reform is one of the strongest arguments against Home Rule.  The Unionist Party’s full and generous recognition of its duty to Ireland in this respect will establish a new argument for the Union.

One vital factor in Poor Law Reform remains to be considered—­the Poor Law Medical service.  The 740 Dispensary districts of Ireland are now administered by a little more than 800 Medical Officers.  The salaries of these doctors, amounting in all to nearly L100,000 per annum, are paid as to one half by the Poor Law Guardians, and as to the other half out of the Local Taxation (Ireland) account.  Most of the doctors, in addition to their public duties as servants of the poor, engage in private practice, of which, in most of the rural areas, their official position gives them a monopoly.  A large—­perhaps, a surprisingly large—­number of the Dispensary doctors are earnest and self-sacrificing men; but the system is corrupted by one radical defect.  Owing to the security of private practice involved, there is a fierceness of competition for these appointments out of all proportion to their financial value.  The elections are made by the Guardians, and it is a fact so notorious as even to be acknowledged by Mr. Birrell that flagrant canvassing and bribery are a common feature of these elections.  Candidates have been known to distribute sums of L400 or L500 to Guardians, in order to secure appointments of L150 or L160 a year.  Another serious and extending feature of the present system is the boycotting by the Guardians of all candidates who have not graduated at the new Roman Catholic University.  The most highly qualified men from the University of Dublin have now practically abandoned competition for these Dispensary offices outside the Protestant counties of Ulster.  Moreover, throughout the whole country local candidates are consistently preferred to superior men from outside.  Both the Viceregal and Royal Commissions recognise the necessity of radical reform