WORKS BY SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB
ENGLISH POOR LAW POLICY
Demy 8vo, pp. xiii and 379 (1910). Price 7s. 6d. net.
In this volume, the authors of Industrial Democracy and English Local Government present what is practically a history of the English Poor Law, so far as the policy of the central authority is concerned, from the Report of the Royal Commission of 1832-4 down to that of the Royal Commission of 1905-9. For this work they have analysed, not only the statutes, but also the bewildering array of General and Special Orders, Circulars, Minutes, Inspectors' exhortations, and unpublished letters, by means of which the Poor Law Commissioners, the Poor Law Board, and the Local Government Board have sought to direct the policy of the Boards of Guardians. No such history has before been attempted. For the first time the gradual development of policy can be traced, with regard to children, to the sick, to the aged and infirm, to vagrants, to the able-bodied, etc. The reader is enabled to watch the gradual and almost unconscious evolution, from out of the "principles of 1834," of what may be called the "principles of 1907"; being the lines of policy to which the experience of three-quarters of a century had brought the administrator, when the recent Royal Commission overhauled the subject. Two concluding chapters summarise and analyse the proposals of the Majority and Minority Reports.
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
WORKS BY SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB
Demy 8vo, pp. xxvi and 664 (1907). Price 16s. net.