words whose definite meaning and logical arrangement put order into our confused emotional states, and carry the mind away from ourselves to objective existences and actions, to something corresponding to that existence outside ourselves of the composer's musical patterns; so that the notes become the speech of imaginary persons, and their combinations represent the souls, nay, almost the persons, of lovers and heroes and saints.

In this fusion, or rather this oscillation between the emotional suggestion and the aesthetic contemplation of music lies, perhaps, the moral and social function of the art. For, whether a composition affect us as a beautiful and noble æsthetic experience, faintly tinged, vividly tipped, with some human emotion; or whether it affect us as an emotional experience kept within the bounds of æsthetic order, shaped in æsthetic beauty, by the presence of musical form-whichever of the two possibilities we consider, there remains an action of the aesthetic element upon the emotional; and the emotional is probably purified by the aesthetic, as the æsthetic is unquestionably brought deeper into our life by the emotional. Music, in a manner more obvious and efficacious than the other arts, disposes of modes of movement and being; and it is gain to the individual soul, and to the aggregate souls of societies and races, if, freed every now and then from the hurry and confusion, the tentative and abortive effort, of practical life, and saved at the same time from the pursuit and the suspense of intellectual existence, our emotions, our moods, our habits of feeling, are schooled into the ways of lucidity and order, of braced and balanced intensity, of disinterested satisfaction, of contemplative happiness, which are the ways of aesthetic form, the ways of beauty. We may interpret in this sense, rather than in the original one of Hegel, the old notion, explained and renewed by Walter Pater, that 'all art tends to the condition of music.'

VERNON LEE.

Art. XI.-THE UNEMPLOYED AND THE POOR LAW. 1. Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century. By A. V. Dicey, D.C.L. London: Macmillan, 1905. 2. Report of the Central Executive Committee of the London Unemployed Fund, 1904-5. London : King and Son, 1905. 3. The Poor and the Land: a Report on the Salvation Army Colonies, etc. By H. Rider Haggard. London: Longmans, 1905.

PUBLIC opinion has assumed that there is something wrong with our Poor Law. The late Government, evidently sharing this view, has, by the Unemployed Workmen Act of last session, relieved the poor-law authorities of that part of their duty which has always been most difficult, and, shortly before going out of office, appointed a Royal Commission to enquire into the subject.

This public opinion is a strange and composite thing; and, as Prof. Dicey has shown in his recent volume, its relation to legislation is a most suggestive and interesting theme. It must often have appeared, to those who have devoted themselves closely to the study of some public question, extraordinary and inexplicable how, suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, a passionate spirit of controversy and excitement seizes on the subject to which they have been vainly for many years trying to attract attention. The question of the unemployed is not new; it has been the principal, if not the only, difficulty of poor-law administration from the time of Elizabeth to the present day. It is alleged now to be specially pressing.

At such times, it is unpopular to insist on the fact that the subject has a history; and the temptation to prophesy smooth things, which even Balaam resisted, has its attraction. It is to be hoped, however, that public opinion, which is the decisive force in all political action, will steady itself in face of the great difficulty of the subject, and will not refuse to consider the experience of the past. The purpose of this article is not controversial; its object is to analyse into its component parts the murmur of dissatisfaction with which the Poor Law is now assailed. Hitherto the 'experts' have been apologists for the English Poor Law, but at present there

seems to be some change of front. It will not be without interest to trace, as one element of the whole, the development of this particular phase of opinion.

Prof. Dicey has devoted some space to explaining the connexion between the Benthamite philosophy and the Radical policy of the beginning of last century, of which the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was a very conspicuous achievement. Lord Brougham, an ardent Benthamite, represented the extreme laisser-faire doctrine when he embarrassed his colleagues by delivering, in support of this Act, a vigorous philippic against all poor laws; but Bentham himself had never adopted this view. As a practical man, he had a shrewd eye to administrative efficiency when the force of circumstances made it necessary to admit the intervention of the State. As a lover of liberty, he accepted the independence and selfmaintenance of the poor as an ideal; but, if the State has to interfere, this ideal must be safeguarded by a carefully considered and scientific method of procedure. He made a strange proposal to be himself a contractor for the maintenance of the pauper population, in an institution which he called a Panopticon,' a building radiating from a central conning-tower, in which the director himself was to sit. He actually entered into a contract with the Government for this purpose, and was awarded a large sum as compensation when the plan failed to be carried into effect.

This idea of Bentham's, with modifications, undoubtedly supplied the principle of the institutional test of destitution which is the keystone of the new Poor Law. In contradistinction, therefore, to Brougham, though in complete accordance with the view of their common master, the late Sir Edwin Chadwick (whose discipleship with Bentham was most close and personal) always professed himself a strong opponent of 'laissezfaire in legislation,' notably in a pamphlet published in 1885, with a long but interesting title, On the Evils of Disunity in Central and Local Administration, especially with relation to the Metropolis; and also on the New Centralisation for the People, together with Improvements in Codification and in Legislative Procedure.' Chadwick was a dexterous controversialist, and his repudiation of laisser-faire was something akin to a jettison of

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unnecessary ballast. What he wanted was efficient administration—administration, that is, directed to a clearly conceived object, and carried out by the aid of machinery scientifically calculated to achieve that end. This is the core of the Benthamite contribution to the problem.

The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was designed to fulfil these two conditions. It threw on the ablebodied population the responsibility for their own maintenance, which, as Lord Brougham vehemently argued, had been improperly assumed by the local authorities. As Mr Dicey (p. 187) justly remarks, 'the New Poor Law reformed the social condition of the labourers, and placed poor relief under the supervision of the State '-in distinction, that is, from the local authorities. The object of the reformers included also the second condition insisted on by Chadwick, namely, that the supervision should be effective, and scientifically directed to develope the liberty and independence of the labourer.

The failure of the Act, in so far as it is admitted to be a failure, is due, in the opinion of those who still hold by the Benthamite tradition, to the fact that this last condition has not been observed. Admirable machinery was created to carry out the policy which inspired Chadwick and his friends; but the administration and working of that machinery was entrusted to local authorities, which only in very rare instances understood or appreciated the principles and object of the Act. The political exigencies of the time, and of the subject, made it necessary to leave very wide powers-it is hardly an exaggeration to call them even legislative powers-to the local administrative bodies; and in many places they have used this power to legislate themselves back into the old order of the unreformed Poor Law.

This policy of entrusting the execution of a scientifically conceived Act to popularly elected local authorities was contrary to the wishes of Chadwick, its principal contriver. To the end of his long life he never ceased to complain that his plan—the plan consciously or unconsciously derived from Bentham-never had a fair trial, because its working was not confided to trained, salaried, and therefore responsible officials. Nassau Senior also, who, with Chadwick, was the author of the new Poor Law, frequently expressed the opinion that,

owing to the faulty administration of the Act, the whole of the work of 1834 would have to be done over again. Those who have inherited the opinions of this earlier school have sorrowfully to admit that the forecast of these reformers was only too accurate.

While this section of what we may call instructed opinion admits the failure of the Act, there are one or two qualifications which, in its opinion, should be put on record. The Poor Law Amendment Act was, in its way, a unique piece of legislation. It was, in effect, an abdication by the national Parliament in favour of a nominated body of commissioners, for the purpose of giving local effect to certain principles of administration. It is usual and quite correct to speak of the spirit of the Act of 1834; but the spirit of the Act is not so much in the Act itself as in the recommendations of the Commissioners of Enquiry (1832-4). These recommendations had, of course, no legal validity, until, as was expected, they were embodied in orders of the new Executive Commission of Control appointed under the Act. The task of obliging the local boards to adopt a certain theoretical view of their duties, and to act upon it, was perhaps an impossible one. It certainly has never been effectually carried out. When the new policy had given relief, as it undoubtedly did, from the most pressing evils of the old law, the depauperising policy recommended by the Report became less necessary; the natural friction of resistance brought movement in the direction advocated by the Commissioners to a standstill; and, when from time to time pressure has again arisen, of a nature not dissimilar to that from which the Act of 1834 gave the country relief, a reactionary policy has been adopted.

In certain localities, owing in most cases to the need of meeting great local pressure and to the fortuitous appearance of some administrator of clear views and resolute character, the local authority has of its own accord (never by the peremptory order of the central authority) carried out to their logical conclusion the principles embodied in the Report of 1832-4. It is admitted that such cases are very few. Still, the policy of the Commissioners has been in these districts maintained without difficulty for more than a quarter of a century; and those who favour it think themselves justified in saying