they hardly obtained a hearing, and the Act was passed almost unanimously by a House of Commons which would certainly repudiate the name of "Socialist." The Labour Party were more clear-sighted. Mr Will Crooks at once raised a paean of triumph because "the principle had been recognised." And now, after two years' experience, what do we find? My knowledge is chiefly confined to London, but there the anticipations of the opponents of the Act have been realised almost to the letter. Voluntary subscriptions have disappeared and an Exchequer grant has been a matter of necessity. Investigation has proved almost a farce owing to the different standards of the Distress Committees. The benefits of the Act, if doles of work can be called benefits, have gone mainly to the casual labourer. The practical impossibility of finding work which "will not compete with the work of those already in employment" has been proved up to the hilt. Of some 29,000 registered last year, only 3500 obtained temporary work, and a large proportion of the remainder were kept hanging about the offices of Distress Committees waiting for work which it was obvious ab initio that they could never get, and meanwhile were losing their places in the ordinary labour market. Some of the work, e.g. the laying out of golf courses and the formation of artificial lakes, has been unnecessary and of doubtful economic value, but much of it has been work which must eventually have been done by the labourer in the open market, who has therefore been pro tanto the sufferer. It has been done at a heavy loss varying from 25 to 75 per cent. The London County Council have valued the work done for them at one-fifth the value of that done by the ordinary unskilled labourer. Meanwhile the expenditure on machinery and officialism has been very
