[491] Mr. Longley did definitely recommend that outdoor relief, even to the widows with families, the sick and the "disabled"--by which he meant the aged--should be discontinued, except in cases that might be found to fall outside a series of categories so defined, and so extensive, as practically to include the whole of these classes. Moreover, in his view it was to be "regarded as the next step in the advance towards improved administration that applicants for out-relief shall be called upon to show special cause why they should not receive indoor relief" (Mr. Longley's Report in Third Annual Report, 1873-4, p. 142). [492] _E.g._ MS. archives, Newcastle Board of Guardians (lithographed letter of Mr. Hedley, inspector, drawing attention to the comparative outdoor pauperism of his unions, and urging reduction). It was a feature of this period that the inspectors were in close personal contact with the president. Mr. Stansfeld inaugurated a system of occasional dinners at which he met all the inspectors and discussed with them their difficulties. They had also periodical conferences in London for a week at a time, at which they formulated a common policy. In these years began, too, the Poor Law conferences, where the inspectors (and occasionally also the president) came in contact with the new school of unofficial Poor Law experts, who were in favour of the "logical development" of the "principles of 1834." It was, in fact, "now argued" that, just as under the Act of 1834, the "offer of the workhouse" had "obliged the able-bodied to assume responsibility for the able-bodied period of life ... an application of the same principle to the other responsibilities of life would produce equally advantageous results."[493] The presidents of the first decade of the Local Government Board seem, indeed, sometimes to have accepted the view that all relief ought, strictly speaking, to be given in the workhouse. Mr. Longley's Report on outdoor relief in the Metropolis was sent officially to the boards of guardians and commended as laying down "sound lines of policy."[494] Mr. Dodson, in 1881, declared as president that "the whole object and system of the Poor Law as established in this country is that it should be strictly administered, with the aim simply to testing and relieving absolute destitution; and no effectual means have yet been devised of so testing the destitution except by offering the house. And just in proportion as the Poor Law is strictly administered, and in proportion as entrance into the house is insisted upon as a condition of relief, so, on the whole, is the Poor Law better administered--better administered, I do not hesitate to say, not only in the interest of the poor themselves, but in the interest of the ratepayers at large. Now, you must remember, in the case of outdoor relief it is impossible absolutely to test the cases. They cannot be closely watched, and you