THE FIGHT FOR EQUALISATION 15 
did not become a charge upon the Common Fund. But things 
have changed. Public opinion, reflected from time to time in 
the orders of the Central Authority, has favoured Out Relief, 
in preference to the ‘‘ offer of the House,” not merely for the 
aged and the infirm but also for the able-bodied. 
Then came the war with its aftermath of unemployment. 
Nationally little was done, and Government after Government 
found it expedient to waive the regulations against granting 
Out Relief to the able-bodied. All over the country expenditure 
on this form of relief grew rapidly. Rates rose to an 
unprecedented extent and the ordinary householder began to 
want to know why. 
Unemployment in Poplar, as elsewhere, was the result of 
post-war conditions, and Poplar was no more responsible for 
them than for the war itself. Why should Poplar bear the 
burden? The war had dealt a mortal blow at the international 
trade of Europe. Exports and imports dropped; ships lay idle 
in the docks; the casual worker became permanently 
unemployed. Reparation payments forced up the foreign 
rates of exchange against us. Our manufactures became too 
dear to buy. Trade grew worse and worse, and the regular 
workers became permanently unemployed also. Had Poplar 
to bear unaided the cost of the maintenance of them all? 
The causes were national; the remedies must be national, 
too. Nay, the causes were international, and the remedy was 
to be found only in international co-operative effort. Mean- 
while, who was to maintain Poplar’s unemployed? Failing 
national support, London as a whole must face the problem. 
Responsibility for the Poor cannot be limited by drawing 
boundary lines. Poplar’s docks are London’s gateway. 
London’s markets sell Poplar’s goods. Trams, buses, trains 
carry workers to and fro to act as cogs in the industrial 
machine of the Metropolis. London is not thirty areas; it is 
one area. The boundaries that exist are merely the outcome of 
an anomalous rating system which has yet to be revised on 
modern principles. 
CHAPTER IV 
THE FIGHT FOR EQUALISATION 
WHEN the Labour Party came into power in 1919 it found that 
much of the necessary work of the Borough Council had, 
because of the war, been allowed to fall into arrears. A big 
programme of works was necessary and this at a time when 
costs were very high and still rising. During 1920 and 1921 
prices continued to rise, and a return, published by the 
Ministry of Health, said that ‘‘ the cost of a ton of granite 
for road-mending is stated to have been 17/3 in 1918-19 and 
27/2 in October, 1920. A gallon of dehydrated tar (also for 
road-mending). which cost 43d. in 1918-19 costs 1/2 in the