1076 HE DEBATE ON THE PREVENTION OF DESTITUTION BILL.

THE LANCET.

LONnON: SATURBAY, APRIL 16, 1910.

The Debate on the Prevention ofDestitution Bill.

Ox the afternoon of Friday, April 8th, Sir ROBERT PRICE (

moved in the House of Commons the second reading of a Bill 1

drafted with a view to carrying into effect the reform of the (

Poor-law upon the lines laid down in the Minority Report.It can hardly have been expected by anyone in the House t

that the debate which followed would be closed by the t

fulfilment of its avowed object, and in the end the dis- i

cussion of the Bill stood adjourned soon after 5 o’cloèk (

with little prospect of immediate renewal. Nevertheless, 7

it cannot be said that nothing was achieved. The i

laying before the House of Commons of a concrete proposal 1for Poor-law reform, contained in a Bill consisting of 95 1

clauses, and with references to 80 existing Acts of Parlia- i

ment, will enable many to realise more clearly than theyhave already done that the "breaking up of the Poor-law," " c

a phrase with which they have become very familiar during I :the past few months, is not a legislative step which can be c

taken with a light heart and an easy mind in the course 4

of a session’s ordinary work. Our readers, at any rate, will i

find a great deal that is both instructive and interesting i

in the speeches which resulted in the measure in questionbeing talked out in the House in the course of an afternoon.There can have been no expectation that fundamental

differences of opinion coincident with party lines would

be expressed by the Prime Minister and the Leader

of the Opposition, but all were anxious to learn, if possible,what Mr. AsQUiTH and Mr. BALFOUR might think about the

reports of the Royal Commission, for the appointment ofwhich the latter was responsible. The result was not dis-

appointing, except perhaps to those who pictured to

themselves at least a forecasting of the speedy "break-ing up of the Poor-law" and a unanimous condemna.

tion of the much-abused boards of guardians. The

Premier, the Leader of the Opposition, and the Presi-

dent of the Board of Trade all spoke, and the

essential quality of their speeches was that of moderation.

They deprecated the setting up of the one report againstthe other, and the advocacy of the views of the Majority orof the Minority expressed in catch words and phrases, or, asMr. BALFOUR expressed it, in labels." They were carefulto point out how much the two documents have in common,but at the same time they refrained from any suggestion that

proposals for legislation founded on opinions expressed in

both would necessarily meet with their approval. Theywere in accord as to the importance of the subject,which, as they pointed out, was far beyond the

possibility even of superficial treatment in the course

of a single afternoon at the invitation of a private member,

and they treated the matter in accordance with a phrase ofMr. BALFOUR, who said early in his speech: ’’ All you can sayis that a debate of this kind has great uses in giving honour-able Members an opportunity of expressing their various

points of view, in bringing the whole subject before the

country, and in giving the Government an opportunity, I willnot say to pronounce on this great question, but to put someof the most important considerations which should be bornein mind before the House and before the great and increasingbody of public opinion outside this House which takes aninterest in this vital social question." The services done in

the administration of the existing Poor-law by the boardsof guardians, and the progress achieved in recent years

by the Local Government Board as the central authoritycame in for commendation on all sides.

Mr. JOHN BURNS made some especially significant observa-tions upon the improved treatment of the poor and uponthe results accruing from it under the existing system,for which he claimed credit not for the guardians only9or for his department, but for the community as a whole.He also acknowledged that he had taken during the lastfew months what was "good, sane, and practical in boththe Majority and Minority Reports and had tried to apply itto the great problem with which he had to deal. Mr. BURNS

also, like several of those who preceded him, including Mr.BALFOUR and Mr. ASQUITH, referred to the serious questionof the increased, and not ascertained, expenditure neces-

sarily involved in the Bill before the House, and in any drastic

change in Poor-law administration. Altogether the outcomeof the debate was the recommendation of caution and of the

improvement of detail introduced with the aid of exist-

ing machinery. There was no eagerness shown for the" scrapping" of the old machinery without waiting to esti-mate the price and efficiency of that proposed to replace it,Additional interest is lent to this possibly unexpected featurein the debate by the recent publication of a proposal in

outline for the utilisation and adaptation of existing Poor-law areas and boards of guardians, the author of which is.

Mr. CHARLES BOOTH. Mr. BOOTH, it will be remembered,retired from the Royal Commission before its proceedingswere concluded, but was specially thanked by his colleaguesin their report for a most valuable body of statistics which,

at his own expense, he compiled for their information.

An interesting feature in his present suggestion lies in thefact that he expresses himself in accord with Dr. ARTHUR

DoBVNES who, although he signed the Majority Report,stated his mistrust of the drastic changes of administration

proposed by it in a memorandum which followed it. In

that document he questioned the wisdom of the abolition of

directly elected ad hoc authorities and the substitution forthem of bodies largely independent upon public election;and he also suggested that the areas proposed for the newPublic Assistance Authorities would be in many instances

insufficient to enable them to carry into effect the classifica-

tion of the objects of their care. Dr. DowNES, in that

memorandum, expressed himself as indebted to Mr. BOOTHfor many of the figures upon which he founded his opinions.And Mr. BOOTH, in his introductory observations, refers to hisown opinions as being shared by Dr. DowNES. Mr. BOOTH’S

scheme has for its motive the retention of directly elected

1077

authorities for the relief of destitution operating in areas suffi-

ciently large to permit of classification of separate institutions.In order to obtain this he would retain the present parishareas as the units of each union, and group the existingunions under district Poor-law boards. In these boards he

would distinguish between urban and other groups of unions,for in the former case he would recommend the use of existingunion areas as electoral districts for the board, and in the

latter would have each union in the group represented onthe board by its chairman or vice-chairman, and possibly byone other member. To these popularly elected members inboth cases (urban and non-urban) he would add nominees ofthe Local Government Board in numbers proportionateto the Exchequer grant enjoyed by the district.We have here a proposal consistent with the utilisation

of existing machinery and involving no very great departurefrom established methods, but at the same time providingfacilities for improved administration controlled by directlyelected representatives of the ratepayers. It has against ittwo formidable competitors in the schemes propounded inthe Majority and Minority Reports, but there is no evidence

of the leaders of any party in Parliament having anymarked desire to put forward and support either of these oreven a combination of the two. On the question, however,of the direct election of guardians of the poor as a separateauthority we may refer our readers to the adverse opinionsto be found in the Majority Report (Part IV., Chapter II.)based upon the small amount of interest shown by theelectorate and upon the difficulty of obtaining as candidatesthe best men and women available. In the circumstances,when we consider the vastness of the interests and the com-

plexity of the questions involved, we should regard it as

satisfactory that there is no likelihood of drastic changesbeing initiated hastily and without due consideration. On

the other hand, if we have not seen any scheme pro-

pounded as yet which approximates very closely to the

new and reformed system which we may expect future

generations to enjoy, we may yet anticipate the exten-

sion of the work of the existing boards of guardians and ofother agencies in various directions with beneficial results,- credit for which will be due to the Majority and MinorityReports of the Poor-law Commission. There is no need of

drastic legislative change, for example, in order to secure

desirable reform in many matters relating to the care of thesick. The just claims of the Poor-law Medical Service demandattention and need not wait for the constitution of new

Poor-law authorities before they are considered. Moreover,these claims are not the selfish demands of individuals for

emoluments and personal advantages, but are based upon thedesire of a body of public officials of great and increasingimportance to see their good work in the past recognised andits efficiency in the future, according to modern ideals,ensured. We would point out that the improved treatmentof the sick poor inside and outside the wards of Poor-law

institutions has not been inspired by boards of guardiansor by the force of public opinion, although the latter has, nodoubt, supported the medical profession. It has been the

outcome of the zeal of those who have been engaged in thePoor-law Medical Service and of the progress of medical

science.

The Localisation of CerebralFunction: the Goulstonian

Lectures.RECENT years have seen very considerable advances in

our knowledge of cerebral function and its exact localisa-

tion, and the thought of the days when the phrenologistplaced philoprogenitiveness in the cerebellum and asso-

ciated linguistic talent with prominence of the eyeballs onlyprovokes a smile. Yet the impression left by a perusal ofthe elaborate and painstaking researches embodied in the

Goulstonian lectures of Dr. J. SHAW BOLTON of the e

Lancaster County Asylum, lectures which represent 14

years of patient labour, is not so much one of wonder at

what has been accomplished as almost of dismay at whatremains to be performed. Dr. BOLTON’S modesty leads

him to describe his work as unsatisfactory and incomplete,but these lectures, as a contribution to the study of

cerebral function, will assuredly be of permanent value, andform a notable addition to the productions of Englishneurology.The work, commenced as long ago as 1878 by BEVAN

LEWIS and HENRY CLARKE, of differentiating the cerebralcortex on histological grounds, has been very distinctlyadvanced by A. W. CAMPBELL and by BRODMANN, and nowno text-book of neurology is complete without a map of thecortex in which areas which differ in histological charactersare clearly marked off from each other. It is true that

unanimity in this task of delineation has not been reached,although the main features of the cortical map have been

established. This is partly to be attributed to personaldifferences of opinion in the matter of subdivision, and

partly to differing methods of describing the cell lamina-

tion of the cortex. Dr. BOLTON has taken as the

basis of his work the division of the cortex into

five primary laminse, as follows: (1) the outer fibre

lamina or superficial layer ; (2) the outer cell lamina or

pyramidal layer; (3) the middle cell lamina or granulelayer; (4) the inner fibre lamina, which in certain regionscontains such bodies as the Betz cells and the solitary cellsof Meynert; and (5) the inner cell lamina or polymorphiclayer. To take a single illustration of how these layers differ

relatively in various parts of the surface of the hemispheres,the third layer is almost wanting in the cortex of the

ascending frontal, pre-Rolandic, or precentral convolution,whereas in the occipital region it is of great depth and iseven duplicated. Such a distinction inevitably leads to

the suggestion that it may correspond to difference

of function, and this, baldly stated, is the problemwith which the investigator is faced. Only those

who have a first-hand acquaintance with cerebral histo-

logy can form any true idea of the immensity of the

task. Before it can be entered on at all it is essential

to have a uniform method of measuring the layers of thecortex, and it is necessary to define the exact regions of thecortex which are capable of measurement. Dr. BOLTOX

takes micrometric measurements of the cortex of any givenarea in four places-viz., on the flat surfaces of convolutions,at the apices or fissure lips, at the bottoms of fissures, and on