It has usually been considered impracticable to combine any powers of compulsion with a Poor Law system. The Majority Report proposes, however, to endow its new Public Assistance Authority with extensive powers of compulsory treatment; that is to say, to enable the administrators of the Poor Law to dispense with its limitation to those who are actually destitute and unable to maintain themselves, whenever such administrators choose to consider it expedient to compel particular persons, who claim not to be destitute, to become or to continue paupers, with the object of segregating them from their fellows. Such an extension of the powers of the Public Assistance Authority would be inconsistent with one of the cardinal principles of the Majority Report, namely, that the area of the operations of the Poor Law should not be extended.[858] What is more important is that it does not seem at all probable that any House of Commons would consent to give to any Destitution Authority, maintaining the stigma of pauperism, the power to make a man a pauper against his will. [858] "We do not recommend any alteration of the law which would ... bring within the operation of assistance from public funds classes not now legally within its operation" (Par. 4 of Part IX.). So far as compelling persons who are ill, and who need treatment, to come in and be treated for their own good, or for the health of the neighbourhood, this is a power which Parliament has already, in certain cases, conceded to the Local Health Authority, which has no stigma of pauperism, and which has, moreover, the machinery for searching out the cases, irrespective of their affluence. These powers could easily be extended. It would seem both futile and unnecessary, with regard to persons whose need is nursing and medical attendance, and who may not be pecuniarily destitute, to confer a similar power also on the Destitution Authority, which has no such machinery for searching out cases, and no particular responsibility for the Public Health. With regard to the second great class of those whom it is desired to segregate compulsorily against their will, namely, the feeble-minded, the whole weight of expert opinion is against conferring this power upon either the existing Board of Guardians or any Poor Law Authority, and in favour of entrusting it to the Lunacy Authority, an Authority which--in contrast with any Destitution Authority--will treat these unfortunate persons in respect of their ascertained defect, and not in respect of their destitution, or in respect of any moral defect assumed to be connected therewith. When we come to the children, the case is even clearer. If power is to be given to any Authority to separate a child from its parents, and to deprive the latter of its custody and care, public opinion emphatically demands that this power should be conferred and exercised solely for the good of the child, and with a view to its best possible nurture and training.