ENG-1966 — Page 43

20

REVIEW

in the West; a society without a national assistance programme, without family allowances, without much of the legislative provision of the welfare state, and without the relatively stable economic conditions on which to base such provisions.

The final paper, while very far from being a blueprint of a welfare state, provides for the drafting of plans with a positive and construc- tive basis to preserve, support and reinforce the family and help it to remain a strong natural unit, capable of caring for its children and its handicapped. It aims at helping individuals to become independent and productive quickly and economically, and assisting those resettled in new towns and resettlement estates to stabilize and acquire community characteristics and attitudes which they have previously appeared to lack, owing to the disrupting and demoralizing influences to which experience has exposed them. Special attention is focussed in the policy upon the needs of those deprived of home life, those in moral or physical danger, and those in danger of delinquency. Improved services in the relief of the destitute and rehabilitation of the disabled are also stressed.

The main lines of policy settled, planning is now in active prog- ress between official and unofficial organizations in a co-operative and positive venture auguring well for the future. Agreement has also been reached on the need for research of a practical bias, so that the validity of planning may be tested in a way that is simply not possible at present. Local funds have been allocated to finance an extensive research project launched in 1966 which, over a period of two and a half years, is to study changes in the patterns of urban family life. A knowledge of the effects of uprooting and urbanization on the traditional Chinese family and its practices are fundamental to our social planning.

Meanwhile the Gulbenkian Foundation financed a survey by Lady Williams, Emeritus Professor of Social Economics at London University. Her report, issued in 1966, recommends the establish- ment of a Research Unit, headed by a competent and practical expert who would be advised by a committee comprising members of the universities and heads of government departments. Itself in- dependent of any government department, the Research Unit would undertake the research necessary to weigh the effect of past and present action and the present pattern of social provisions. It would