2. Construction of Works of Public Utility—Unemployment Grants Committee—The Scheme of 1920—The Extended Scheme of 1921. 3. Expedited Road Schemes—The 1920-21 Programme—The 1921-22 Programme—The Special Metropolitan Schemes—The Provincial Schemes—Conditions Attaching to Grants. 4. Poor Law Relief—Principles Governing Administration of Relief—Ascertainment of Applicant’s Income—Assistance to Guardians to Carry out Works—Funding of Cost of Relief—Help to Poorer Metropolitan Unions—Assistance to Guardians to Raise Loans. Unemployment is to-day a burning question; it will always be in industry an outstanding difficulty. The main lines of Government policy are, therefore, important; they are of comparatively recent date. From 1890, and indeed before, Metropolitan borough councils and their predecessors, the vestries, and the principal provincial local authorities had been in the habit of providing relief works every winter for the unemployed, each on its own method and without investigating the necessitous circumstances of applicants for work. Local Labour bureaux—really Labour Exchanges—had been established in London by some vestries and metropolitan borough councils without statutory authority. Their establishment was formally authorized by the Labour Bureaux (London) Act, 1902. In 1905 Lord (then the Right Hon. Walter) Long, when President of the Local Government Board, inaugurated a voluntary scheme consisting of central and district committees in London to collect funds and provide work to deal with distress arising from unemployment. The practical operation of this scheme was deemed sufficiently successful to warrant the passing of the Unemployed Workmen’s Act, 1905, which provided for establishment, by order of the Local Government Board, of a statutory Central Unemployed Body and metropolitan Distress Committees in London, and outside London, of Distress Committees with central and local powers in each municipal borough or urban district with a population of not less than 50,000, and for the rest of a county, of Central and Local Committees. Then, as has been described, the State Labour Exchanges were authorized in 1909. Their establishment was the first attempt of Government to deal with unemployment on a considered policy. 1. STATE UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE