Central Authority suggested that the difficulty might perhaps be met by paying him partly by fee and partly by salary, but it expressed no decided views as to either the practicability or the expediency of such a course.[824] [822] Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871. Mr. Longley repeated the suggestion (Third Annual Report, 1873-4, p. 156). [823] Letter to Chairman of the Central Poor Law Conference, 12th May 1877, in Seventh Annual Report, p. 54. [824] _Ibid._ Moreover, the Central Authority held that "the relieving officer has no power to compel any applicant to accept relief on loan. If, therefore, in a case of sudden or urgent necessity a person refuses to accept the offer of medical relief upon the condition that the cost thereof be repaid, the Board consider that the relieving officer would not be exempt from all further responsibility in the case, unless he had reason to believe that the applicant was in a position to procure the requisite medical aid without assistance from the poor rate."[825] When it was laid down in 1876 that no relief to a lunatic could be recovered unless and until declared to be on loan, it was remarked that "it will be incumbent upon the guardians ... to examine each case ... to consider all its circumstances, and not to declare the relief to be given on loan, until they are satisfied that the circumstances will justify such a declaration." Nor was it permissible to fix the value of medical relief at an arbitrary sum. "There are great practical difficulties," concludes the Central Authority in 1886, "in the way of determining the value of such relief," for the purpose of recovering it when made on loan.[826] [825] _Selections from the Correspondence of the Local Government Board_, vol. ii. 1880, pp. 70, 110. [826] _Ibid._ vol. i. 1880, p. 15; _ibid._ vol. iii. 1888, p. 271.