¹ This act was passed as Part II of the Unemployment Act, 1934. Part I may also be cited separately as the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1934.

² The most comprehensive analysis of the 1834 revision of the poor law is contained in Sidney and Beatrice Webb's monumental study of English poor relief. See their English Poor Law History: The Last Hundred Years, Vol. I (New York, 1929)Google Scholar. The reader should, however, guard against the obvious bias of the authors. The 1929 enactment, as amended by the Poor Law Act, 1930, with explanatory notes and Ministry of Health memoranda and regulations, may be found in Eve, A. M. and Martineau, F. A., The Local Government Act, 1929 (London, 1930)Google Scholar. For brief summaries of more recent social legislation, I have found Clarke's, J. J. compendious volume, Social Administration, Including the Poor Laws (London, 1935)Google Scholar, especially useful.

³ The strength of this movement was also a factor in the failure of the various post-war ministries before 1931 to confine unemployment insurance to the workers who had bona fide claims to benefits.

⁴ Two members of the Commission issued a minority report recommending that no changes be made in the insurance system until the final report was presented.

⁵ Cmd. 392.

⁶ The Commission gives no specific rules for dividing the expense of the service. It did suggest, however, that the local share might be derived from a uniform local rate of 4d. in the pound, with the national Exchequer furnishing whatever additional funds were necessary. The Minority Report of the Commission, signed by W. Asbury and Mrs. C. D. Rackham, argued for the retention of the unemployment insurance system for dealing with all able-bodied workers and the abolition of means test requirements for all forms of unemployment benefit.

⁷ The Labor party, of course, continued to condemn the principle of the means test “lock, stock and, barrel.”

⁸ Actually, there was an even greater diversity, since in the large counties and county boroughs the central public assistance committees of the county councils had delegated for administrative convenience the function of determining need to sub-committees whose determinations were frequently far from uniform.

⁹ These conditions are recited in the First Report of the Unemployment Assistance Board for the Period Ended, December 31, 1935 (Cmd. 5177), pp. 13–14.

¹⁰ The Board is nominally within the Ministry of Labor and acts in close coöperation with the head of that department. The Baldwin government appointed the full quota of six members on July 2, 1934, naming Lord Rushcliffe as chairman.

¹¹ See especially Clarke, op. cit., pp. 216 ff., for an analysis of the Act's coverage.

¹² Such persons are ineligible for unemployment assistance for the period of their disqualification.

¹³ Medical services for those receiving unemployment assistance is also a local charge. This provision was made so as to avoid duplicating the existing facilities of the local authorities for medical care of the destitute.

¹⁴ In addition, the local governments must contribute an amount equal to the difference between the local administrative costs incurred during 1932–33 and the costs which would have been incurred had the 1934 act then been in effect.

¹⁵ First Report of the Unemployment Assistance Board, op. cit., p. 7.

¹⁶ Unemployment Assistance (Appeal Tribunals) Provisional Rules, 1934. The Unemployment Assistance (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1935, provided that appeals against the determination of supplementary allowance should lie directly to the full tribunal. The Board has established 138 appeal tribunals. The number of appeals thus far has been somewhat less than was anticipated by the framers of the 1934 act and the Board itself.

¹⁷ P. 17.

¹⁸ The Board has described the manner in which its organization and administrative staff were established. The staff was recruited largely from the ranks of the national and local civil servants. Questions of selection and compensation were determined in consultation with a special inter-departmental committee of civil servants, the Minister of Labor, and the Treasury.

¹⁹ These statutory provisions may be found also in the Unemployment Assistance (Determination of Need and Assessment of Needs) Regulations, 1934, dated December 21, 1934.

²⁰ The postponement of the second appointed day necessitated the passage of the Unemployment Assistance (Temporary Provisions) No. 2 Act, 1935, under which special arrangements were made for reimbursing the local authorities out of Exchequer funds for the additional local expenditure incurred by the postponement. By a special resolution agreed to on December 8, 1936, the period of reimbursement was extended to March 31, 1937, the date finally set for the second appointed day under the 1936 relief regulations of the Board. See The Municipal Review, Vol. 8. (1937), p. 22Google Scholar.

²¹ First Report of the Unemployment Assistance Board, op. cit., p. 15.

²² Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, Vol. 315, No. 128, column 325. Although carried on in a spirit of bitter partisanship, the debate was not lacking in amusing incidents. One of these occurred in connection with the suspension of three Laborite members, two for calling Sir John Simon “a liar” and one for shouting that the dignified Home Secretary was a “damn liar.” The full record of the debate may be found in Vol. 315, Nos. 128–131 (July 21–24, 1936).

²³ For an analysis of the 1936 regulations, consult the Memorandum by the Minister of Labor (Cmd. 5228) and the Explanatory Memorandum by the Unemployment Assistance Board (Cmd. 5229).

²⁴ Special consideration is given also members of households. Regulation IV provides that they shall receive not less than the amount they would have received for unemployment benefit, except for reductions in the Board's allowances on account of rent or other special circumstances.

²⁵ At the present time, the Board is making relief payments through the offices of the employment exchanges and is utilizing the training centers maintained by the Ministry of Labor. It also has facilitated industrial transference, a function of the Ministry of Labor, by making special allowances for that purpose to some of its own applicants.

²⁶ The local advisory committees are to be used especially for this purpose.

²⁷ The origin and development of the practice of disregarding specific portions of income are, in fact, to be found in the poor law system. The Outdoor Relief Acts of 1894 and 1904 provided for the disregarding of friendly sick pay in granting outdoor relief, and the National Health Insurance Act, 1924, extended the practice to health insurance benefits. In the Poor Law Act, 1934, it was further extended to cover trade union sick pay and wounds or disability pensions. As the London poor relief authorities have indicated, the cumulative effect of these provisions is to render eligible for relief persons who prima facie are not destitute. In some cases, the income which must be ignored is as high as 32s. 6d. a week. See Annual Report of the London County Council on Public Assistance, 1934, Vol. I, Part 2, pp. 12–13Google Scholar.