As we have already mentioned, the merging of the Poor Law Board in the newly established Local Government Board came about for reasons unconnected with the Poor Law, and it coincided with no definite change in Poor Law Policy. But, as already indicated, the placing of the Central Authority on a permanent basis coincided with a gradual improvement in the quality of the inspectorial staff, who, in the ensuing decades, remind us more of the masterful assistant commissioners of the 1834-47 period. On the other hand, the development of the office from a mere specialised authority, concerned only with a single function, into what became practically a Ministry of the Interior, charged with the supervision of all the local government of the country (with the partial exception of police and schools), necessitated both an increase and a development of the permanent secretariat. To this secretariat, with its graded hierarchy and multiplicity of departments, boards of guardians and the administration of the Poor Law tended inevitably to take their place among municipal corporations, local boards of health, highway authorities, and the administration of other statutory powers. There is even a third element to take into account. The revival of public interest in Poor Law problems, beginning about 1867[488] in the Metropolis and some of the large towns, and spreading later to the whole country, had its effect in the House of Commons, especially after the extension of the franchise in London and the boroughs (1867), and in the counties (1884). We see this manifesting itself in Poor Law policy in various minor statutes, and, above all, in sporadic circulars and other declarations of policy by the Parliamentary President of the Local Government Board. [488] The sequence in the Metropolis seems to have been, first, the exceptional distress in the East End during 1866-7; then a strict administration on deterrent principles, agreed to by conferences of East End Guardians in 1869, under the influence of Mr. Corbett, who had become inspector for the Metropolis in 1866; Mr. Goschen's Circular of 20th November 1869, and the consequent inquiries into Poor Law practice; Mr. Corbett's powerful Report of 10th August 1871; and then the Circular of 2nd December 1871, with the conferences resulting therefrom. Mr. Longley was appointed inspector for the Metropolis in March 1872 (Mr. Longley's Report, in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, pp 196-7). Thus the student who seeks to discover what was the policy of the Central Authority between 1871 and 1907 finds two distinct influences at work on Boards of Guardians, each of which carries with it the weight of the Central Authority, but one of them is seen to be predominant between 1871 and 1885, whilst the other predominates after 1885.