a+ 
But this was not all.” In the middle of February they sent 
a deputation to Sir Alfred Mond, the Minister of Health, 
asking for a very exhaustive inquiry into the administration 
of the Poplar Board. This Sir Alfred eagerly promised they 
should have, ‘ within the next week or so.” 
Accordingly, on March 13th, a month before the Guardians 
Elections were due, Mr. H. I. Cooper, Clerk to the Bolton 
Board of Guardians, was sent down to Poplar. He himself 
says, in his report, that one of the first things he did was to 
seek ““ two interviews with the Secretary of the Municipal 
Alliance with the object of ascertaining whether the Alliance 
had any evidence to put before me if I commenced a Public 
Inquiry.” He sought no interview with the Board, nor with 
any member of the Board. The men and women whose work 
he had been sent to overhaul were asked no questions, given no 
opportunity to explain what had been done, or to refute 
charges made against them. Mr. Cooper ignored the Board of 
Guardians, but sought inspiration from their political 
opponents. 
Rumours were spread through the Borough during the 
election campaign that startling revelations would be made as 
a result of the Inquiry, and every possible use was made of it 
bs influence the votes of the electors against the Labour 
arty. 
The day after the poll, when it was known that the Alliance, 
far from gaining the sweeping victory which they had 
anticipated would follow the assistance given by Whitehall, 
had suffered the greatest defeat in its history, when 21 Labour 
members had been returned for 24 seats, Mr. Cooper wrote tc 
the Alliance asking if they still desired the Inquiry to be in 
public, and a chastened, despondent secretary replied, “ We 
are of opinion that no real good would result from a Public 
Inquiry.” 
Political propaganda . . . that first and last . . . was 
the purpose of the Cooper Inquiry. Whatever may have been 
its result elsewhere, in Poplar itself, where the work of the 
Guardians was known, it served only to strengthen the deter- 
mination of the overwhelming majority of the people of Poplar 
to remain loyal to the Labour Guardians who had striven to 
help them in their need. 
Much the same methods were adopted later in the year at the 
November Elections for the Borough Council. The Coope: 
Report was used in an attempt to discredit Labour administra 
tion on the Council. But the good work which had been done 
in the three previous years was well known to the people, and 
the opposition could make little headway. The election 
resulted in the return of 36 Labour Members for 42 seats, and 
as the whole of the Aldermanic Bench was now Labour, the 
Party was still in the same overwhelming strength and able 
to continue its work unhindered for another three years. 
‘RED - POPLAR