§ MR. KEIR HARDIEI beg to ask the Prime Minister whether grants from the central fund for the relief of distress due to unemployment will be made to localities in which no distress committees can be set up under the Act of 1905.
§ MR. ASQUITHThe Unemployed Workmen's Act provides that grants shall only be made to distress committees. I understand from my right hon. friend that applications for the formation of such committees are being sympathetically considered, and that he has recently sanctioned the creation of several new committees. The whole question of the most efficient and elastic machinery for the administration of relief to distress is one to which I am giving my best attention.
§ MR. KEIR HARDIEBut is not the real point of the question as to whether some method is not advisable to enable grants to be given in places where no distress committees can be set up?