24  j£ypenmental  ^legislation
And  that  result  would  not  be  so  clear  as  if  the
trial  were  restricted  to  some  half-a-dozen  towns.
In  the  meantime  it  would  be  far  better  that
other  boroughs  should  be  trying  other  experiments, ­
  giving  us  many  strings  to  our  bow,  while
some  towns  would  actually  do  best  for  the  country
by  going  on  as  nearly  as  possible  in  their  present
course.  Specific  and  differentiated  experience  is
what  we  need,  before  making  any  further  important ­
  change  in  the  drink  trade.
Not  only  is  this  the  rational  method  of  procedure, ­
  but  it  is  practically  the  method  to  which
we  owe  all  the  more  successful  legislative  and
administrative  reforms  of  later  years.  Consider
the  Poor  Law  question.  During  the  eighteenth
century  Parliament  made  two  or  three  leaps  in  the
dark,  by  enacting  laws  such  as  Gilbert’s  Act,  and
very  nearly  ruined  the  kingdom  by  them.  The
great  Poor  Law  Commission  commenced  its
operations  in  the  soundest  way  by  collecting  all
available  information  about  the  treatment  of  the
poor,  whether  at  home  or  abroad.  But,  what  is
more  to  the  point,  since  the  new  Poor  Law  was
passed  in  1834,  the  partially  free  action  of  Boards
of  Guardians,  under  the  supervision  of  the  Poor
Law  Commission  and  the  Poor  Law  Board,  has
afforded  a  long  series  of  experimental  results.  The
reports  of  Mr.  Edwin  Chadwick  and  the  late  Sir
George  Shaw  Lefevre  are  probably  the  best  models
of  the  true  process  of  administrative  reform  to  be