SOCIALISTS AND THE POOR LAW.
[To THE EDITOZ OF THE " SPECTATOR.”] Sra,—I hope you will allow me, as an oldPoor Law Guardian, to thank you for your timely and able article of Saturday last. I have followed with some care the correspondence in the Observer to which you refer, and there can, I think, be no doubt that a deliberate attempt is being made to secure the support of Unionist M.P.'s for the Bill which embodies the recommendations of the Minority Report. Mr. Sidney Webb is exceedingly anxious that no taint of Socialism should be apparent, and when Mr. Bailward and Sir Arthur Clay pointed out that the Minority Report was Socialistic, he became indignant and accused them of using an "abusive epithet." Why an avowed Socialist should object to his scheme for the revolution of the Poor Law being called Socialistic I am at a loss to imagine, unless, indeed, he has incautiously broken the Eleventh Commandment. I have before me the first and second editions of the "Charter of the Poor." The cover of the first edition is adorned with eight portraits, four being the signatories of the Minority Report; the others are Sir John Grorst, Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. Sidney Webb, and Mr. H. G. Wells, the well-known Socialist. Within is a handsome testimonial from Mr. Wells to the Minority Report which contains these words : "The Minority Report boldly planned and magnifi- cently done, expresses just that deliberately constructive Socialism which I have always advocated." The second edition has Mrs. Sidney Webb's portrait alone on the cover, and Mr. H. G. Wells's testimonial has been discreetly eliminated. I imagine that your readers may arrive at the same conclusion that I did,—namely, that Mr. Sidney Webb wishes to make the British public in general, and Unionist M.P.'s in particular, swallow his Socialistic pill in blissful ignorance of the ingredients of which it is composed.—I am,
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