The great scheme for reforming Local Government in England and Wales was meanwhile being considered by the Committee to which it had been referred. Besides Sir Charles Dilke, who naturally acted as Chairman, the Committee consisted of Mr. Chamberlain, Lord Kimberley, Mr. Childers, Lord Carlingford, and Mr. Dodson (who were members of the Cabinet), and Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice. With them were Sir Henry Thring, the celebrated Parliamentary draughtsman, and Mr. Hugh Owen, the Permanent Secretary of the Local Government Board. The task of obtaining agreement, and even sometimes of maintaining order, in a Committee composed of persons representing such a variety of opinion, was no easy one, and it tested to the full the tact and ingenuity of the Chairman. Mr. Dodson, Sir Charles Dilke's immediate predecessor at the Local Government Board, and Lord Carlingford represented the views which had hitherto prevailed in favour of piecemeal and gradual reform. Mr. Chamberlain, Lord Kimberley, and Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice were, on the contrary, supporters of the large Bill which the Chairman had prepared; while Mr. Childers, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, was there mainly to keep a vigilant watch on the local authorities, who were suspected, and not without reason, of desiring to treat the Treasury as a sort of "milch cow," a description which Mr. Gladstone had recently made current in a debate in the House of Commons, Sir Henry Thring was no mere draughtsman. He had had an immense experience of official life, had known every man of public importance over a long period of years, and had very determined views on most subjects, which he never hesitated to express in clear-cut language and without respect of persons. Mr. Lowe, it was asserted, had once observed at a Cabinet just before Thring entered the room: 'I think before he arrives we had better carry a preliminary resolution that we are all d----d fools.' As it also happened, Local Government was a subject on which Sir Henry Thring, and not without reason, prided himself as an expert, and the Committee over which Sir Charles Dilke presided consequently had Sir Henry Thring's views conveyed to them in unmistakable terms. One of his special objects of hostility was the Poor Law Union area, which he hoped ultimately to destroy. On the other hand, Mr. Hugh Owen, like nearly all the Local Government Board officials of that time, regarded the Poor Law and everything connected with it as sacred. The controversies were frequently fierce, and on one occasion a serious crisis almost arose owing to Lord Kimberley asking to be informed if Sir Henry Thring was preparing a Bill of his own or was acting on his instructions.