Families Association the expenses were extremely small. In some districts they were provided by the workers themselves, whilst paid assistance was almost unknown. But no sooner was the charge put upon the rates than this economy was thrown to the wind. Those who had insisted most loudly upon keeping their districts on a voluntary basis, and who refused paid labour when it was offered, lost no time in sending in their application for rate-aided assistance, and, having secured a paid clerk, immediately applied for further help.

The local authorities responsible for these management expenses are already standing aghast as the total mounts up, and are now urging that the Government should take over the responsibility. Such a transfer of expenditure from the rates to the taxes would be no protection against waste, for those who have dipped deep in the local treasuries will not be likely to hold their hands if they are allowed free access to the national exchequer. Moreover, all local inducements to economy will be removed. If this vast increase of expenditure meant greater efficiency in the work there might be something to place on the credit side, but bold indeed would be the person who dared to claim that the same standard of efficiency that prevailed under voluntary management is now being maintained.

Although the Act setting up this Statutory Committee was passed in December 1915, the members of the Committee. were not ready to take up their duties even in London until June 30th 1916, and at a much later date in many other places. Had not the voluntary workers been actuated by motives of pure patriotism and a desire for the continuity of the work they could have repaid the Government's ingratitude by giving notice, on the passing of the Military and Naval Pensions Bill, that in three months they would withdraw from the work and leave it to the new body. If they had done so, indescribable confusion would have followed, causing such horrible suffering as would have undoubtedly involved the fall of the Government. So impossible was it found to replace the voluntary workers that, after nearly six months of vain effort to set up the necessary machinery, the Statutory Committee was still in a hopeless position. The National Relief Fund had given notice that they would cease to finance the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association for this work after the 30th of June 1916, and the Statutory Committee had to send out an S.O.S.

message to all Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association offices asking for assistance. The voluntary workers very largely went to the rescue, and in most cases, as their work under the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association was ceasing, they went over to the Statutory Committee; but many have since fallen out owing to the irritating and needless restrictions on the one hand and the wilful waste on the other. A prominent official connected with one district, asked how they were progressing, remarked 'Oh, it is the same workers, and 'the same office; it is only the name that is changed.' In another district a gentleman who had gone on to the local committee under the new arrangements, asked if they were experiencing much internal friction, answered 'No, we are working very smoothly; the lady who was previously secretary for the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association is now our secretary, and she knows everything from A to Z, and of course we know nothing of the business, so we leave all to her.' But there are not many districts where a committee which knows nothing of the business acts so sensibly, and consequently internal friction is rife.

One of the worst effects of the change has been to introduce the unhealthy atmosphere of local politics into the relief work. Unfortunately also some of the delegates from working-class associations are too class-conscious to be a success in any judicial position. Working men, when administering their own funds, show a very careful regard for economy, but when administering public money some of them appear to think that virtue only lies in open-handed benevolence.

The Statutory Committee had not proceeded far before the Government found out, what others had foreseen, that it had set up an authority which could indulge in almost unlimited expenditure of public funds with little or no control from Parliament or elsewhere, and which, instead of unifying the administration of pensions and grants, had only added to the number of bodies engaged in this work, and consequently had increased the confusion and delays.

A Ministry of Pensions has therefore been established to take over the powers and duties previously exercised by the Admiralty, the Royal Hospital for Soldiers at Chelsea (other than in-pensions), the Army Council, and the Secretary of State for the War Department, with respect to pensions and grants

to persons who have served as officers or men, and to their widows, children, and other dependents, and persons who have been employed in the nursing service of any of His Majesty's naval or military forces, other than service pensions.

The Statutory Committee is to be subordinate to the Ministry of Pensions and will perform its duties under the control and in accordance with the instructions of the Minister of Pensions, and must render such advice and assistance as that Minister may request. This control is also to extend to the local committees which the Statutory Committee has established under the powers conferred by the Naval and Military War Pensions Act, 1915.

The claim of the municipal bodies to have the expenses of these committees transferred from the local rates to the Treasury thus receives additional weight, so that the political pressure, already being exerted in this direction, must soon become irresistible.

With the Ministry of Pensions asserting its full legal status and the Statutory Committee attempting to retain something of its former powers and authority, friction and jealousy will naturally follow, which will compel the Government to recognise that, having kicked the bottom out of voluntary service, it must accept as an inevitable consequence the establishment of a purely State paid and controlled service. The more this work is brought under State control the more difficult will become the administration of supplementary grants. However carefully rules may be drawn, there will always be hard cases, for a scale which may be even generous in nine cases will not meet the needs of the tenth. The adjustment is easy so long as there is a voluntary service administering private or semi-private funds, but when State servants are administering public money all applicants are equal, and it is not easy to show why such grants should be given to one and not to others. There will also be the danger of political pressure being used for the purpose of obtaining additional grants for political friends and supporters. There are already indications that an attempt will be made to find a solution by making the allowances higher than are necessary in the nine cases so as to meet the needs of the tenth, and this at a time when the nation will find a difficulty in meeting its expenditure.

PRUSSIA, POLAND, AND IRELAND

I. L'Esprit Public en Allemagne. Par HENRI MOYSSET. Paris.

1911.

2. La Crise Politique de l'Allemagne Contemporaine. Par WILLIAM MARTIN. Paris. 1913.

3. Das Polnische Gemeinwesen im Preussischen Staat. Von L. BERNHARD. Leipzig. 1907.

4. Preussen, Deutschland, und die Polen seit dem Untergang des Polnischen Reichs. Von HEINRICH GEFFCKEN. Berlin. 1907. 5. England und Irland. Von CARL PETERS. Hamburg. 1915. 6. Poland. By W. ALISON PHILLIPS. London, n.d.

7. Discoverie of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued. By SIR JOHN DAVIES, Knt. 1612.

8. A Short History of the Irish People. By A. G. RICHEY. Dublin and London. 1869-70.

HE Polish problem has entered upon a new phase. So

exaggerate the significance of recent events; it is possible to minimise it; but to ignore it would be something worse than affectation.

On November 5, 1916, General von Beseler, the German Governor of Warsaw, issued a proclamation which may possibly prove to be historic. Professedly, it announced to the Poles the re-establishment of Poland as an independent State, and the guarantee of a Constitution under an hereditary monarchy. The essence of the proclamation is contained in the following paragraph:

To the Inhabitants of the Government of Warsaw.-His Majesty the German Emperor and His Majesty the Austrian Emperor and Apostolic King of Hungary, sustained by their firm confidence in the final victory of their arms, and guided by the wish to lead to a happy future the Polish districts which by their brave armies were snatched with heavy sacrifices from Russian power, have agreed to form from these districts an independent State with an hereditary Monarchy and a Constitution. The more precise regulation of the frontiers of the Kingdom of Poland remains reserved.'

A proclamation in similar terms was on the same day issued at Lublin by the Austro-Hungarian Governor. Simultaneously the late Emperor Francis Joseph made a further announcement in reference to a fresh concession to his Polish subjects in Galicia. After referring in sympathetic terms to the 'many 'proofs of devotion and loyalty' which during his reign he had received from Galicia, and to the 'great and heavy sacrifices 'which this province, exposed in the present war to a fierce enemy assault,' had had to bear in the interests of the eastern 'frontiers of the Empire,' the late Emperor proceeded as follows:

'It is therefore my will, at the moment when the new State comes into existence and coincident with this development, to grant Galicia also the right to manage independently its own internal affairs in as full a measure as this can be done in accordance with its membership of the State as a whole and with the latter's prosperity, and thereby give the population of Galicia a guarantee for its racial and economic development.' *

It may be said at once that, taken by itself, there would be nothing in the proclamation of the Austrian Emperor to excite surprise or suspicion. On the whole, the record of Austria in regard to the treatment of its Polish subjects is or was much cleaner than that of the other partitioning Powers. This fact is admitted and indeed emphasised by Dr. Friedrich Naumann in his recently published Mitteleuropa. We may,' he writes, 'state frankly that however imperfect are the results of hand'ling nationalities in Austria and Hungary, there is, never'theless, much more real understanding there of this type of 'problem than with us.' † Hence, if it had not been for the sinister conjunction of the proclamation of General von Beseler at Warsaw, the words of the Emperor Francis Joseph might have brought a real ray of hope to the Galician Poles. It is not, however, with Austrian policy in Poland that this article is concerned.

The German proclamation wears, by general consent, a very different aspect. It has been assumed in this country and elsewhere that it must be interpreted as one of the many signals of distress which the Central Empires have lately put

The Times, November 6, 1916. † Central Europe, p. 79.