Observe, in connection with this three months' audit, that not a penny was surcharged in respect to the out-relief grants. Notwithstanding all the wild charges that had been made, not a single case could be found where Crooks's policy of helping the poor could be proved to be illegal. After all the hubbub, a three months' scrutiny under the eye of a capable Government auditor proved that Poplar had simply been carrying out the law relating to the poor. The Local Government Board was badly beaten in its attempt to discredit Crooks's policy. Finally, it was argued on the Board's behalf, as though in a last grasp at a straw, that the decrease in the amount of out-relief during the year of the Inquiry was in itself a justification of the Local Government Board's action. Everybody outside the Board knows differently. The year referred to (1906) was the most prosperous this country has ever experienced. If anything, the industries of Poplar shared in that prosperity to a larger extent than other parts of the country. The primary cause of the decrease was not the Inquiry, but the lessening of want brought about by an extraordinary trade revival. "Give us," Crooks has repeatedly stated in public, "the same terrible state of things that we had in some of the previous winters, and I shall apply the same remedy again. The law is there for the sake of the poor, not for the sake of officials. My policy is not a haphazard one. It is the outcome of years of experience. It is fundamentally sound, and will one day become a national policy." Crooks had indeed played a part for the poor of the whole nation. Before the echoes of the Bumbledom agitation had died away the very Government which allowed one of its Departments to be made an instrument in that agitation was promising to carry out the very reforms for which Crooks had striven and suffered--Old Age Pensions, Amendment of the Poor Law, and Equalisation of London Rates. The Government, however, shirked a discussion of the Poplar Report in the House of Commons. The Labour Party, backed by Conservative Members, pressed the Prime Minister for an opportunity to discuss the report. Mr. Keir Hardie and Crooks pointed out that, as the report stood, an injustice was done to a popularly elected body, the effect of which would be to deter other Boards of Guardians from carrying out the Poor Law in a humane spirit. They further maintained that the country was now without guidance as to how to treat poor people out of work and in need of food.