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distinct of all is B. alternifolia, introduced by Farrer in 1914, from Kansu. The flowers are not borne in terminal spikes as in most other species, but as globose clusters, pale purple in colour, along the length of slender arching sprays.

Ericaceae-This group, inasmuch as it includes rhododendrons, far exceeds any other family in horticultural importance. Enkianthus, a very distinct genus, remarkable for its branches being arranged in whorls and tiers, is one of the bugbears of the systematist. Several new forms are in cultivation, but the limits of the species are hard to define. An excellent new Pieris is P. taiwanensis, which first flowered here in 1922. It is a native of the Morrison Range in Formosa at 2000-3000 feet and is apparently quite hardy in Great Britain. Great as the interest is in other shrubs, it completely pales before the enthusiasm shown for rhododendrons. Their importance to horticulture is sufficiently shown by the fact that special greenhouses, both at Kew and Edinburgh, are now devoted to their display (even of hardy forms), and that the cultivation of the genus is fostered by a private but very enthusiastic body, the Rhododendron Society. Interest centres mainly in the Chinese species, though hybridists are still at work on the old Himalayan arboreum and Aucklandii forms, and are in fact turning their attention also to other groups. The older species consisted mostly of large shrubs and trees, and though some of the Tibetan and Chinese forms attain these dimensions, the majority are shrubs quite suitable for small gardens, and even for the rockery. In their native haunts these dwarf species cover vast areas of mountainous country, as do the allied genera Calluna and Erica in Europe and Kalmia in America. A reference to the Index Kewensis Supplements shows that 520 new species of rhododendron have been described since 1910. It is impossible to pick out for comment the best of the novelties now in cultivation, but the two handsome folio volumes by J. G. Millais* provide not only a general account of the genus and the history of its exploration, but give some idea of its magnitude. Provided the soil is reasonably free from lime there are now species of rhododendron to suit all kinds of gardens, in every kind of form and size and in great variety of colour.

A reference to forest trees must conclude this article. A whole

*Op. cit.

series of new broad-leaved trees and Conifers are growing up in many gardens and, as in other groups the majority come from Central or Eastern Asia. America still contributes useful additions, and Chile is noteworthy in having provided us again with several of the Antarctic Beeches (Nothofagus) which, though introduced many years ago, had died out. The above brief outline gives some idea of the results which have already accrued from the botanical exploration of which we see the reflection in the pages of the Index Kewensis, but the full harvest for horticulture is yet to come.

A. D. COTTON

THE PROBLEM OF PUBLIC ASSISTANCE

1. Report of Royal Commission on the Poor Laws. (H.C. 44 of 1834.) Reprinted 1885. (H.C. 347 of 1884-85.)

2. Reports of Royal Commission on the Poor Law.

Cd. 4499. 1909.

3. Foreign and Colonial Systems of Poor Relief. Cd. 5441. 4. Ministry of Reconstruction :

1910.

Report of Committee on Transfer of

Functions. Cd. 8917. 1910.

5. Report of Inter-Departmental Committee on Public Assistance Administration. Cmd. 2011. 1924.

6. Expenditure on Social Services. (H.C. 205 of 1925.)

7. History of the Poor Law. By SIR GEORGE NICHOLLS AND THOMAS Mackay. 3 Vols. New Edition. 1898.

8. Foreign Poor Law Systems. By EDITH SELLERS. 1908.

9. Pauperism and the Endowment of Old Age (and other works). CHARLES BOOTH. 1892.

IN

By

N the history of a nation, as in the life of individuals, moments periodically recur when circumstances impose the duty of stock-taking-moral, material or intellectual. Such a moment has evidently arrived in the history of the English people.

Several reasons combine to indicate that the task, always grim and sometimes painful, should be promptly taken in hand. First: six years of trade depression culminating in a prolonged and disastrous conflict in the coal industry have produced a situation, financial and industrial, which none can contemplate without grave anxiety, if not dismay. Secondly, an outline of proposals for a drastic alteration in the administration of poor relief has lately been circulated by the Ministry of Health to various interested bodies, and it is understood that Parliament will at an early date, be invited to consider legislation designed to give effect to those or similar proposals. Finally, despite the enactment of a long series of remedial measures, the multiplication of "social services" public and private-and the outpouring of public charity on an unprecedented scale, the problem of pauperism not only remains unsolved, but appears to be more acute than at any previous period in our history, with the possible exception of the years immediately following the close of the Napoleonic Wars.

That the poor will be always with us is an aphorism resting

upon the highest authority; but social reformers were entitled to anticipate that the gift of gratuitous elementary education to all classes, supplemented by facilities for secondary and higher education, would by itself lead, if not to the elimination of pauperism, at least to a reduction of the problem to narrow and manageable dimensions. Yet the results have terribly disappointed legitimate expectations. The effects of improved facilities for education were not likely to manifest themselves immediately but two whole generations have passed since the enactment of Mr. Forster's Education Bill, and the anticipated results ought by now to be apparent. But what are the facts? In 1891 expenditure on education amounted to £10,079,000; expenditure on the relief of the poor to £8,456,017. Ten years later education expenditure had risen to £16,969,000; but poor relief, instead of diminishing, had risen also to £11,548,885. In 1911 the respective figures were £29,050,000 and £15,023,130, and in 1921 they were £75,144,420 and £31,924,954. If it be objected that the growth of population vitiates any conclusions to be derived from these figures, the per capita expenditure for a series of years may usefully be added. In 1882 the rate of poor relief was 6s. 3d. per head of population, and it rose gradually to 8s. 2d. in 1913, but the increase was due to a higher scale of relief, not to an increase in the number of paupers. The last few years tell, however, a very different tale. In 1922 the expenditure ratio of paupers per 1000 of the population leapt up to 38.2, as against 21.5 in 1913, and the expenditure per head of population to about 22s. 2d. as against 8s. 2d.

Yet even the earlier figures were enough to alarm the Royal Commissioners, who reported in 1909 :

Our

It is very unpleasant to record that, notwithstanding our assumed moral and material progress, and notwithstanding the enormous annual expenditure, amounting to nearly sixty millions a year, upon poor relief, education, and public health, we still have a vast army of persons quartered upon us unable to support themselves, and an army which in numbers has shown signs of increase rather than decrease. . . . investigations prove the existence in our midst of a class whose condition and environment are a discredit and peril to the whole community. No country, however rich, can permanently hold its own in the race of international competition if hampered by an increasing load of this dead weight. . . .

Such was the indictment preferred by Lord George Hamilton

and the majority of the Commissioners. Not less trenchant and emphatic was the warning issued by Mrs. Sidney Webb, Mr. George Lansbury and two other colleagues who signed a Minority Report :

...

The present position (they observed) is, in our opinion, as grave as that of 1834, though in its own way. What the nation is confronted with to-day is, as it was in 1834, an ever-growing expenditure from public and private funds, which results, on the one hand, in a minimum of prevention and cure, and, on the other, in far-reaching demoralisation of character and the continuance of no small amount of unrelieved destitution.

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Perturbed by an ever-growing expenditure" which, when they penned their Report, was well under £50,000,000 for all forms of public assistance, what would Mrs. Webb and her friends have said to an expenditure which (for 1924) was £291,638,266, and which, according to the expectation of Mr. Sidney Webb, “in a short time will amount to £400,000,000 (Hansard, May 27, 1925)? Not all of this expenditure is derived from taxes or rates: "Other receipts," including over £60,000,000 from the contributions of employers and workmen to Health and Unemployment Insurance, exceed £77,000,000. Moreover, it is questionable whether War Pensions, which alone account for over £62,000,000, are properly included, though much of the money finds its way, of course, to persons who, without it, would have to be relieved from other sources. But when all proper deductions have been made, and all appropriate considerations taken into account, the facts are sufficiently arresting, not to say alarming. The aggregate expenditure has increased about six-fold since Mrs. Webb and her colleagues called attention, less than twenty years ago, to the growth of expenditure on public assistance.

In the interval the legislature has been almost continuously engaged upon the elaboration of schemes which might reasonably have been expected to banish pauperism, if not to put an end to poverty. It is noticeable, however, that the expectation was not shared by a strong Inter-Departmental Committee on Public Assistance Administration, which reported so lately as December, 1923

The Poor Law system (says the Report) is the oldest of the social services of the country providing assistance from public funds, and

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