SHEILA FERGUSON and HILDE FITZGERALD. Studies in the Social Services. Pp. ix, 367. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office and Longmans, Green, and Company, 1954. (Distributed by British Information Services, New York.) $5.25
| Published date | 01 March 1956 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271625630400155 |
| Date | 01 March 1956 |
| Author | Dorothea Ramsey |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
175
&dquo;the
greatest
peacetime
Prime
Minister
since
Walpole&dquo;
(p.
91),
although
his
bibli-
ography
does
not
include
the
biography
by
G.
M.
Young
which
would
question
this
evaluation.
The
prewar
&dquo;appeasers,&dquo;
however,
do
not
come
off
well,
and
he
questions
the
honesty
of
Chamberlain’s
motives
and
statements.
The
Opposition
is
ridiculed
and
treated
with
some
partisan
inaccuracy.
It
is
not
true
to
say
that:
&dquo;the
idealists
of
the
left
would
have
been
satisfied
with
nothing
short
of
a
punitive
war
against
Italy&dquo;
(p.
52).
His
version
of
Labour’s
armaments
policy
is
likewise
in-
correct.
Labour
did
not
object
to
the
use
of
force
by
the
League
under
certain
cir-
cumstances
and,
as
many
official
state-
ments
and
the
Peace
Ballot
of
1935
showed,
would
provide
it,
but
for
a
time
it
was
unwilling
to
put
it
entirely
at
the
disposal
of
a
distrusted
Conservative
gov-
ernment.
In
retrospect
that
distinction
may
seem
to
have
been
too
fine,
but
it
seemed
intelligible
to
those
who
remem-
bered
the
moves
of
1919-20
to
aid
the
Poles
which
might
have
involved
Britain
in
a
war
against
revolutionary
Russia.
The
interpretation
of
the
election
of
1945
and
its
aftermath
is
questionable,
too;
the
voters
were
not
looking
backward
and
re-
pudiating
Churchill
because
of
Chamber-
lain’s
mistakes,
but
were
concerned
with
the future
and
thought
Labour
the
better
party
to
implement
the
Welfare
State
to
which
in
greater
or
less
degree
all
parties
were
committed.
CARL
F.
BRAND
Stanford
University
SHEILA
FERGUSON
and
HILDE
FITZGERALD.
Studies
in
the
Social
Services.
Pp.
ix,
367.
London:
Her
Majesty’s
Stationery
Office
and
Longmans,
Green,
and
Com-
pany,
1954.
(Distributed
by
British
In-
formation
Services,
New
York.)
$5.25.
As
the
Preface
says,
Studies
in
the
Social
Services
by
S.
M.
Ferguson
and
H.
Fitz-
gerald
is
a
successor
to
Problems
of
So-
cial
Policy
by
Professor
R.
M.
Titmuss.
It
examines
the
effect
of
war
upon
families
and
shows
the
efforts
made
by
public
policy
to
improvise
social
services
that
would
take
the
place
of
the
help
normally
available
within
the
family
in
peacetime.
Before
the
war
started
it
seemed
reason-
able
to
anticipate
a
reduction
of
the
social
services
for
civilians;
in
fact,
this
book
reaffirms
the
statement
made
by
Professor
Titmuss
in
the
earlier
book
that
far
from
reducing
the
social
services,
the
war
years
and
their
aftermath
brought
new
and
im-
proved
services
in
order
to
keep
up
the
national
morale
and
the
efficiency
of
in-
dustry.
For
instance,
the
mobilization
of
man
and
woman
power
was
so
complete
that
the
only
people
left
unoccupied
were
the
very
young,
the
very
old,
and
the
incapaci-
tated.
The
dispersal
of
families
and
neigh-
borhoods
due
to
the
mobilization
of
muni-
tion
workers
and
evacuation
schemes
re-
moved
many
possible
sources
of
self-help
among
families
and
friends,
and
to
quote,
&dquo;what
distinguishes
British
experience
and
what
is
of
great
importance
to
the
theme
of
this
book
is
the
unparallelled
mobiliza-
tion
of
women
and
in
particular
of
married
women.&dquo;
The
State,
therefore,
had
to
take
a
hand
in
looking
after
the
families
of
servicemen
when
they
were
in
trouble,
and,
because
of
old
prejudices
against
the
ex-
isting
system
of
public
assistance,
had
to
build
services
on
a
new
foundation.
One
notable
exception
was,
however,
the
Assistance
Board,
which
in
1940
took
over
the
administration
of
the
new
Supple-
mentary
Pensions
for
old-age
pensionees.
From
the
start,
the
Assistance
Board
con-
ducted
its
administration
in
such
a
way
that
they
provided
a
national
scheme
of
welfare
for
old
people
who
needed
finan-
cial
assistance
and
followed
the
now
famil-
iar
British
pattern
of
using
voluntary
or-
ganizations
and
local
authority
services
alike
to
help
their
pensionees.
The
authors,
however,
emphasize
that
it
would
be
a
mistake
to
deny
altruism
to
the
nation’s
social
progress
in
the
war
years,
and
it
should
be
a
source
of
national
pride
that
a
lively
public
interest
in
two
of
the
most
helpless
classes
in
the
commu-
nity-the
aged
and
the
deprived
children
began
during
the
war.
The
government
moved
thousands
of
mothers
from
cities
into
the
country,
and
therefore
had
to
pro-
vide
an
Emergency
Maternity
Service,
which
in
spite
of
its
shortcomings
proved
to
be
one
of
the
government’s
most
suc-
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