"'Yes.'
"'How'd yer get on?'
"'Well,' he says mournful like, 'that old hen sat and sat and sat until I'm blowed if she didn't cook them pheasants' eggs at last.'
"And," added Crooks, "I have never known a Royal Commission or a Government Inquiry yet that didn't sit and sit and sit until its report was cooked by the time it had done with it."
As the distress deepened with the approach of winter, the Poplar Guardians pressed for an Autumn Session of Parliament. They wrote to the Government welcoming Mr. Long's scheme of Distress Committees, but doubting their efficacy unless power was granted to raise a halfpenny rate for providing the unemployed with work.
As Chairman of the Board, Crooks himself wrote a long letter to the Prime Minister on November 21st. He supplied official figures, showing the exceptional distress then prevailing, and pointed out that the Guardians' request for an Autumn Session was supported by fifty-six other Poor Law Unions and no fewer than eighty municipalities throughout the country.
To that letter Mr. Balfour sent the following reply:—
10, Downing Street, Whitehall, S.W.
November 28th, 1904.Dear Mr. Crooks,—
I am well aware that in many parts of the metropolis—and more particularly, I fear, in the district in which as a Guardian you are immediately concerned—much temporary distress prevails at the present moment.
How best to deal with the situation thus created has, as you know, been the subject of most anxious consideration on the part of the President of the Local Government Board; and Mr. Walter Long has established a scheme—now, I understand, in actual working—which will have the effect of organising and generalising methods which local experience has already proved to be useful, thereby greatly increasing both their economy and their efficiency.
You are, I gather, of opinion that this by itself is not sufficient, and you suggest that a special Session of Parliament is required to meet the emergency. I would venture, however, to make two remarks on this project. In the first place, I think we ought to wait and see how far the new machinery fulfils the hope of its designers; and, in the second place, I think we should abstain from basing exaggerated hopes upon anything which may be immediately accomplished by Parliamentary debates. These are invaluable for the purpose of criticising legislative proposals or executive action. They may educate the public mind. They may prepare the way for a constructive policy. They can hardly, however, frame one. And, so far as I can judge, an abstract discussion upon the general situation would not only be of little present value to those whom it is intended to benefit, but it would do them a positive injury. Organised effort would be paralysed till the decision of Parliament was known; and between the beginning of our debates and the moment when their result could be embodied in a working shape much preventable suffering would inevitably have occurred.
Yours very truly,
Arthur James Balfour.
In his reply on behalf of the Guardians, Crooks said: