"curative and restorative" to them, why should the "deserving" cases be debarred from it? In this ingenious mapping out of the relative spheres of Voluntary Charity and the Poor Law, we see embodied, in the most plausible and the most practical form, the two-fold assumption of Professor Bosanquet, namely, that those for whom provision is made by the Poor Law are persons with a moral defect, whom it is necessary to treat in such a way as to discourage, "by expectation and example," others from applying for the public treatment. [853] "It had been suggested," explained one of the signatories of the Majority Report, "that the Majority Report was a C.O.S. report from beginning to end.... The C.O.S. might be proud to feel that they had set their mark upon that report.... The idea was that, before the Public Assistance Authority undertook the cases, they should make themselves perfectly certain that charity was incapable of dealing with them, and that charity should always have the first attempt at a remedy, that charity should act as a sieve through which the cases should pass before they came to the Public Authority" (Lecture by the Rev. L. R. Phelps at Norwich, _Eastern Daily Press_, 30th June 1909). [854] Majority Report, Part VII. par. 198, 236. [855] _Ibid._ par. 613 of Part VI. [856] _Ibid._ par. 623 of Part VI. [857] That this interpretation is not unwarranted is shown by the explanation given by one of the signatories of the Majority Report. "Charity should be properly organised to deal with these cases.... This was the position of the Majority Report.... Their motto should not be 'Help the deserving,' but 'Help the hopeful cases,' and _leave State action for that section of the community which needed the bridle, the curb, and the spurs to be disciplined_" (Lecture by the Rev. L. R. Phelps at Sheffield, Sheffield Independent, 15th December 1909). We are not ourselves surprised to find the Majority Report, which started out with an acceptance of the "Principles of 1907," thus reverting in its practical proposals to the "Principles of 1834." What was brought out by the elaborate investigations of the Royal Commission of 1905-9 was that, however successful the new principles had proved in other hands, it was neither expedient nor practicable for a Poor Law Authority, just because it was a Poor Law Authority, to administer relief on the lines of Curative Treatment, Compulsion, and Universal Provision. Thus, the two halves of the Majority Report are incompatible with each other. If there is to be, under the name of the Public Assistance Authority, a general Destitution Authority, there cannot, in fact, be any universal or whole-hearted adoption of the "Principles of 1907," even to the extent to which they receive apparent endorsement. _The Mutual Incompatibility of the Proposals of the Majority Report_