A recapitulation of the duties that will fall upon these Committees if the Minority Report becomes law will serve to show the extent of the responsibilities that will be incurred by the community in regard to the several classes dealt with. In all cases, be it remembered, destitution is to be sought out, and there is to be no waiting for an application for relief, and every case is to receive whatever treatment the Committee dealing with it "may consider most appropriate." The children will be dealt with upon these lines by the Education Committees. Under a special heading, new to the Poor Law, "birth and infancy" will be dealt with by the Public Health Authority, and nursing mothers will receive nourishment both before and after confinement and nourishment for their babies. The sick and impotent will also be maintained by the Public Health Authority, whose duty it will be to search out "incipient" sickness. The feeble-minded will be handed over to a Lunacy Authority, whose business it will be to search out incipient feeble-mindedness—a rather alarming prospect. The aged are to be looked after by the Pension Committee; the age is to be reduced to "sixty-five or even sixty," by which provision the cost will be doubled or even quadrupled at a stroke. For those disabled under the pension age, whatever it may be, "local pensions" will be provided by the Public Health Authority. A network of new institutions, such as public day industrial schools, hospitals, and sanatoria, etc., is also suggested or will be the necessary corollary. The Minority admit the probable increase in expense, but regard it with equanimity. The cost of public assistance, they say, is not keeping pace with the wealth of the country, as if, forsooth! that were a matter for regret; perhaps the future question will be whether the wealth of the country is keeping
