ommittee. The
Royal Commission, on the other hand, votes boldly for the abolition of
the Boards of Guardians. It argues that, if we are to have a County
system of institutions maintained by a County rate, we must adopt the
logical consequence that the County Council which strikes and collects
the rate should have the direct or indirect management of the
institutions. It proposes that the Council should appoint a statutory
Committee (one-half to be taken from outside its own members), to be
called the Public Assistance Authority, and that this Authority should
manage and control all the institutions in the County. The Philanthropic
Reform Association, which has given much study to this question,
suggests a _via media_ between the two official schemes. It recommends
that all the institutions should be controlled by the County Council,
through Committees directly responsible to it, to which persons of
experience from outside should be added. Such committees need not be
elected by the Poor Law Guardians, as recommended by the Viceregal
Commission, or by the Statutory Committee of the County Council, as
recommended by the Royal Commission. The Association desires, and it has
a large volume of Irish opinion behind it in this, to minimise the
existing powers, and reduce the numbers, of the Poor Law Guardians. It
is also very earnestly impressed with the need of bringing women into
the Poor Law administration. In this it is absolutely right. The Women's
National Health Association and the United Irishwomen have demonstrated
triumphantly the value of women's services in improving the social,
economic, and sanitary conditions of rural life in Ireland. A recent Act
of Parliament qualifies women for election to the Irish County and
Borough Councils. No great reform of the Poor Law system can be
effective without their aid. The Unionist Party will only be acting
consistently with its social ideals if it encourages, by every means
within its power, an Irish feminist movement, full of hope for the
country and wholly dissociated from party politics.

Any thorough reform of the Irish Poor Law system will demand an
increased expenditure of Imperial funds. The growing severity of Irish
taxation under recent Radical budgets forbids the possibility of
addition to the ratepayer's burdens. The anomalous distribution of the
grants in aid of Irish local taxation has done much to complicate the
Poor Law question. The Royal Commission reported th