was any rent paid for the occupied premises. That is, the general arrangement made was that no extra expense should fall on the poor rates because of the change, but that in no case should a profit be made out of the transaction by the poor-law authorities. By March 31, 1919, 600 claims for compensation, amounting to more than £4,300,000, had been submitted by the poor-law authorities in respect of the military use of their accommodations.

SOME REASONS FOR THE DECLINE IN PAUPERISM

Some of the reasons for the decline in the pauper rates have already been indicated. Two of the most important of these were (1) the effect of enlistments in withdrawing able-bodied men from the labor market, and (2) the opportunities for semi-invalid and handicapped men and even women to engage in the labor market again.

But does the decline in pauperism indicate a general improvement in the standard of comfort of the working classes? It is hardly within the scope of this article to deal with this question, but it may be pointed out here that the pauper class is recruited from the least skilled and most poorly paid section of the working classes. A rise in wages or an improvement in conditions of employment in this class would therefore affect the pauper rates, even though the rate of wages and standard of living for the more highly paid workers were adversely affected during the same period.

The general effect of the war on wages and conditions of labor cannot be discussed here. But as regards the situation of those in the lower levels of the wage-earning classes, several points may be indicated:

1. Unemployment had disappeared, so that whether or not wages had risen in proportion to prices, it is clear that the wageearners of the lower grades who had suffered so acutely in prewar days from irregularity of employment found themselves in a greatly improved position when work continued without interruption.

2. The regulation of the liquor traffic improved conditions in thousands of homes where the wage-earning father or mother had

wasted a portion of the income on drink. This preservation of the income for family uses was a factor affecting those who had been the poorest and most degraded of the working-class group.

3. The regular receipt of a separation allowance in homes where the chief wage-earner had been a shirk, a drunkard, and a wastrel gave a regular income to many families from the absent husband and father who had been only a drain on the family resources when at home. In many cases, too, when the husband and father had deserted the family, his enlistment and consequent "allowance" meant a regular income from a source from which nothing had been coming before the war.

A London clergyman who arranged for the separation allowance in the case of a "wastrel" husband and father who had joined the forces asked a small child in the Sunday school how the family was getting on. "Oh, very nicely, thank you, sir," replied the child, "and mother is very grateful for the allowance and she hopes now as father will never come back!"

4. The increased opportunities of employment for women and the increase in women's wages. In many homes there was added to the regular separation allowance a high wage earned regularly by the mother, who before the war had earned low wages as a charwoman or had earned nothing at all.

5. Finally, in many of these families there were additional and high wages earned by the boys and girls who were old enough to go to work.

From whatever cause, the fact is not to be questioned that there was a great improvement in the condition of the families who had lived near the poverty or pauper line before the war. EDITH ABBOTT

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

THE FIRST ATTEMPT OF THE LABOR PARTY

TO GOVERN GREAT BRITAIN

In December, 1922, the Coalition ministry under Lloyd George came abruptly to an end; a year later the Conservative government which replaced it suffered defeat at the polls; then the Labor ministry took up the reins of government, only to be forced out of office last November by the same Conservatives they had helped to oust ten months before. In January, 1923, the Liberals combined with the Laborites to overthrow the Baldwin ministry; they then co-operated with the Conservatives to overcome the MacDonald government in October. In other words, Great Britain has held three elections in less than two years, for as soon as his party was defeated in the House of Commons, the Labor premier dissolved Parliament, because he felt that this was a great opportunity to crush the Liberal party and return to the House of Commons stronger than before. What had his government been able to accomplish in its nine months of power that he should have been so optimistic of the outcome?

For more than a dozen years British politics has been in a state of flux, as no single party has remained exclusively in power long enough to make its influence felt as a party. It has been preeminently an era of coalitions in a country notoriously hostile to coalitions. In 1911, the Liberal party found itself, after its fight for the Lloyd George budget and for the emasculation of the House of Lords, dependent on the Irish Nationalists and the Laborites, for whose support they paid by social legislation and a Home Rule Bill. The grinding necessity of the war produced a coalition ministry, first under Mr. Asquith and then under Mr. Lloyd George. Labor soon became dissatisfied with this arrangement and completely overhauled their party organization during the later months of the war. Mr. Asquith and his followers also withdrew, leaving the coalition very Conservative in tone. At the famous Carlton Club meeting the Conservatives deposed Mr. Lloyd George, and

brought on an election in which they won a decisive victory. The record of the new Conservative ministry, whether under Mr. Bonar Law or Mr. Baldwin, was far from impressive, and unemployment and business depression compelled the latter to seek in protection and imperial preference a remedy for the prevailing economic distress. With these as his leading issues, he brought on an election, the result of which surprised everybody. It left the Commons rather equally divided among the three parties, no one of them being possessed of a majority, with the result that the Liberals helped bring about the resignation of Mr. Baldwin and the accession to power of Labor under Mr. MacDonald, the first Socialist premier in British history.

The Labor government met Parliament early in February last. Soon after the beginning of August, Parliament adjourned for the summer. During the sessions, they had been outvoted ten times, at least once upon what might be termed a "vital issue"; and during the summer recess, the opposition predicted that the ministry would, on the reassembling of Parliament, receive a veritable baptism of fire; and some important newspapers prophesied that they would be forced to resign.

The jeremiads of staid old Tory gentlemen a year ago were almost convincing, as they pleaded with Mr. Asquith and Mr. Baldwin to forget their differences and effect some working agreement to keep out the hated socialists with their schemes for subverting cherished institutions. At the same moment, the more visionary and idealistic Laborites welcomed the MacDonald ministry as the beginning of an entirely new order of things, which would bring measurably closer a sort of twentieth-century utopia. The fears of the one and the hopes of the other have alike failed of realization. The first Labor government at Westminster did nothing revolutionary.

In the strictest sense, of course, Labor was never in power at all, since it depended at every stage on the support of either Liberals or Conservatives—a Labor ministry with a safety device. Hence it is unfair to judge Labor entirely on its record, because its hourly existence rested with its political rivals. Labor cannot deny, however, that it was allowed considerable freedom of action; for

Liberals and Conservatives alike dealt fairly, in the main, with His Majesty's government of the day. The Liberals, in particular, were long-suffering and kind, but whether this forbearance was due to benevolence or to their own disorganized condition will soon be evident. Making somewhat of allowance for their inexperience and tenuous hold upon power, what did the Laborites actually accomplish in their nine months of office?

Labor assumed control at a very trying time, when AngloFrench relations were greatly strained and industrial conditions critical in the extreme. Immediately on taking over the government, Mr. MacDonald faced a strike of serious proportions. Having settled this only after great difficulty, he found himself confronting another and another, until England seemed cursed with an epidemic of strikes. These industrial disturbances were probably consequent upon the Labor party's coming of age, and are indicative of the rapidly increasing self-consciousness of the laboring classes which has come in the train of the world-war, whether it be in Great Britain, France, or Russia, in all of which Labor has been in power. In Great Britain, at least, the strikes were occasioned by the ignorance of the worker and the rapacity of the profiteer, neither of whom was willing to forget the Golden Age during the war. The new ministry found these strikes unusually embarrassing, but they showed rare tact and praiseworthy firmness toward people of their own class, even when they ran the risk of losing the support of the left wing of their own party. Fortunately, they showed themselves more patriotic than class conscious, and won the confidence and respect of the country.

The election of 1923 repudiated protection, and the new cabinet boldly abolished the McKenna duties in the face of the bitterest opposition from the protected industries. In the light of the hard fight put up by these "vested" interests, one can only surmise what might have happened had they been given sufficient time to intrench themselves as they have in our own country.

In preparing the budget, Labor surprised all parties by its magnanimity. The Snowden budget contained nothing radical, and little that was objectionable even to the stiffest Tory. The duties upon the breakfast table were materially reduced, but it