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55
adopting them was arrived at. But although they are not insensible
to the gravity of some of the considerations pressed upon them, they
cannot concur with the Council in thinking it necessary that the
funds belonging to the City Parochial Charities should be burdened
by a further prolongation of their powers.
They have, from the commencement of their operations under
the City of London Parochial Charities Act, 1883, in the year 1884,
been engaged in examining, with the aid of able and well-qualified
assistance, in what made they could most beneficially, in the interest
of the poorer classes of the Metropolis, discharge the duties imposed
upon them by the Statute. In this examination they have been still
further aided, not only by the advice of various public organisations,
but still more by the numerous applications made to them from all
quarters of the Metropolis on behalf of aimost every form of philanthropic
activity, which brought to their notice objects that might
otherwise have escaped their attention, and compelled them to consider,
from time to time, on what grounds such applications must
either be acceded to or refused.
And if they have in the result made by their draft scheme an
appropriation of the funds which, though by no means exhaustive,
is no doubt large, this is not due to the fact that they have at any
time set themselves to make an exhaustive appropriation, but is
because the course of events and the existence (in their judgment)
of a unique opportunity for usefulness oompelled them to assist in
the promotion of projects conceived in the interests of the poorer
classes, the value of which is vouched by experience and the ultimate
success of which is not, they think, open to reasonable doubt.
The course which the Commissioners have pursued in this matter
has not been unknown to the public. Although a considerable time
elapsed before they thought themselves justified in taking any
decisive step towards the appropriation of the surplus funds, when
they commenced to do so their action very speedily became a matter
of notoriety, not only to the numerous bodies and persons who were
themselves successful or unsuccessful applicants, but, through the
public press, to the public at large.
In the report which they presented to Her Majesty at the commencement
of the year 1888, they not only recorded what had been
already done, but were able to indicate in general terms the course
of action which seemed pointed out to them by their inquiries, and
in their report of February, 1889, they not only continued the
record of events (which were themselves of a sufficiently striking
nature), but stated with great fulness and detail the objects which
they had in view, the methods by which they proposed to pursue
them, and the grounds on which their action was based.
The proposals now embodied in the draft scheme of August 31
and carried out by the subordinate schemes (and, in particular, by