§ Mr. HENRY WALKERasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress has held any sitting for twelve months; whether 1437W it has long since presented all the Reports required of it; whether it is still in occupation of offices of considerable value, thereby involving other Commissions in expense in hiring accommodation; whether about twenty out of fifty volumes of its evidence, etc., have still to be published, although these volumes have been in type for more than a year; how many clerks and other officials connected with this Commission are still being paid from public funds, and under what supervision they are now working; and whether he can state when the offices will be vacated, when the remaining volumes of evidence, etc., will be published, and when the payments on behalf of this very costly Royal Commission will be brought to an end?
§ Mr. HOBHOUSEThe last meeting of the Commission was held on 20th July, 1909. The existing staff of the Commission consists of a senior clerk and two assistant clerks, who perform their work under the supervision of the secretary and subject to the general control of the chairman. Of the eleven rooms originally occupied by the Commission at Scotland House only two and a store-room are now being used by the Commission's staff, the remaining eight rooms have been handed over to other Commissions. Since the issue of the English Report in February, 1909, the staff has issued the Commission's separate Report on Ireland, the Commission's separate Report on Scotland (November, 1909), and twenty-seven separate appendix volumes of evidence, Reports by special investigators, etc. In all during the year ended 4th March, 1910, the staff of the Commission has been responsible for editing and issuing twenty-nine separate volumes, containing over 10,300 folio pages of printed matter. There remains to be issued a consolidated index of the English Reports and evidence and twenty-three other volumes of evidence, special Reports, etc. Although a few of these volumes have been in type in an incomplete form for some time, the majority are in a very unfinished state, and require careful editing before publication. Among the volumes still to be issued are those relating to foreign poor relief systems and to the large mass of special statistics collected by the Commission. It is anticipated that the work of the Commission's staff will be completed in the autumn.