We do not find that the Principle of Curative Treatment has been deliberately applied to the other classes of paupers. To the aged, curative treatment is, indeed, scarcely applicable, but it is interesting to trace, in the policy of expressly directing the grant of adequate outdoor relief to the deserving aged, combined with the statutory requirement that a friendly society allowance is not to be taken into account in such grant, a sort of Principle of Greater Eligibility. With regard to the able-bodied, there is a certain premonition of the Principle of Curative Treatment in the farm colony as well as in the "mental instructor" sanctioned for the able-bodied ward of the workhouse. Indeed, there is only one class of paupers to which the Central Authority has rigidly refused to apply this new principle. From the casual ward every trace of curative treatment has been eliminated, and the Principle of Less Eligibility rigidly adhered to.
(ii.) _The Principle of Universal Provision_
But what is most strikingly new since 1834 in the policy of the Central Authority is the Principle of Universal Provision, that is, the provision by the State of particular services for all who will accept them, irrespective of "destitution" or inability to provide the services independently. We see this principle in most municipal action, but it impinges on the work of the Poor Law authorities most directly in such services as vaccination, sanitation, and education. From the standpoint of the Poor Law critic, this principle avoids the characteristic Poor Law dilemma, and escapes alike the horn of making the condition of the patient so bad as to be injurious to him, and that of making it better than the lot of the lowest grade of independent labourer. In providing vaccination, sanitation, and education--to say nothing of parks, museums, and libraries--indiscriminately for every one who is ready to accept them,[842] the State does nothing to diminish the inequality of condition between the thrifty and the unthrifty--for it is a simple axiom that the addition of equals to unequals produces unequals--whilst it raises the standard of living of all. The most thrifty of artisans who discovers a public elementary school freely provided for his own children, does not find his advantage over his unthrifty neighbour thereby in the smallest degree diminished. It is this consideration which justifies the provision of municipal hospitals, and which, presumably, led the Central Authority of 1870 (under Mr. Goschen) to dwell upon the expediency of "free medicine to the poorer classes generally, as distinguished from actual paupers, and perfect accessibility to medical advice at all times under thorough organisation."[843] It is this principle that lies at the base of all schemes of non-contributory pensions to be given to persons on reaching a certain age. The controlling limits of the application of this Principle of Universal Provision in the mind of the Central Authority seem to have been, first, the consideration whether it is in the public interest desirable that the service in question should be as widely as possible enjoyed; and secondly, the consideration whether, as a matter of fact, such universal provision is found to diminish human productiveness or mental development.