THE REPORTS OF THE POOR LAW COMMISSIONS OF 1834 AND 1909
The issue of the Report of the Royal Commission of 1909 marks a new stage in the three hundred years' history of the English Poor Law. That of the first two hundred years was brought to a close by the Royal Commission of 1834. The present Report brings the question up to date in the light of modern developments, both social and industrial.
For nearly eighty years all our Poor Law administration has been, in theory at least, based upon the Report of 1834. That Report has been the text-book—one may almost say the classic—of students of the Poor Law, not only in this country, but in Europe and across the Atlantic. It is, therefore, of special interest now to inquire whether that Report has been superseded by that of 1909; whether its conclusions have been tried and found wanting, and what is the general attitude of the Commissioners of 1909 towards the verdict of their predecessors. A discussion of the question in this aspect will serve, perhaps better than anything else, to illustrate the difference of principle underlying the Majority and Minority Reports of the Commissioners.
There appears to be the very general misunderstanding as to what these differences are. It is urged, for example, that because the two Reports agree upon points of detail in recommending or
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