THE POPLAR ORDER 
35 
deputation waited upon the Minister to request him to sanction 
the loan which had now become urgently necessary. Sir Alfred 
Mond made this the opportunity to endeavour to enforce 
recognition of his scale by making its acceptance a condition 
of his sanction. In this the Guardians maintained that he was 
not justified. The money was due to them from the Common 
Poor Fund and the Act of 1921 gave them power to borrow 
the money pending its repayment from that Fund. The 
Minister had no right to use the starvation of the poor as a 
weapon against the Guardians. His correct method of 
procedure was to sanction the loan and deal with the Guardians 
through the powers which the law’ placed in his hands. 
If Sir Alfred desired to take responsibility for laying down 
what amount of relief was to be paid in all cases let him be 
logical about it, and having made his scale compel all Boards 
of Guardians to put it into operation. Whilst he chose to 
allow reactionary Boards to pay less than the ‘* Mond Scale ”’ 
Poplar disputed the legality of his actions in trying to make 
them bring their relief down to a scale which he allowed others 
to ignore. 
The interview ended with the suggestion that the Guardians 
should reconsider their scale as a preliminary to sanction being 
given to the loan required. The Guardians accepted the 
suggestion and made certain changes in the scale of deductions 
on account of children’s earnings. They refused, however, 
to set the maximum limit to relief which the Mond Scale ’’ 
required, but whilst continuing their own scale agreed to report 
to the Ministry all large family cases. 
Despite this, the Minister, on June 26th, issued the famous 
“ Poplar Order,” the effect of which was to make illegal all 
outdoor relief in excess of that allowable under the Mond 
Scale.” In a covering letter which accompanied the Order, Sir 
Alfred Mond said: ‘ The Minister regrets that the Guardians 
have not met thé proposal which he made to them that they 
should modify their present policy in order to bring it into 
closer conformity with that of the large majority of Boards 
of Guardians of the country.” He went on to say that he 
regarded the modifications as to their previous practice which 
the Guardians had introduced as entirely inadequate, and as 
a consequence considered it to be his duty to issue the 
peremptory order which he had that day made. If the 
conditions of that order were strictly complied with he was 
prepared to grant the loan the Guardians had asked for. 
Two days later a deputation from the Poplar Board waited 
upon Sir Alfred to assure him that so far as they were concerned 
the Order was already a dead letter. At the very outset the 
Chairman of the Board stated definitely: “1 am to say from 
the Board that we cannot administer that Order. . . . We 
were elected on our own scale and inasmuch as excess relief 
ver your scale is paid by the very people who elected us, we 
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