ABSTRACT
The distribution of wealth and poverty were examined more systematically between 1900 and the First World War than ever before. Such investigators as Rowntree, A. L. Bowley and L. Chiozza Money demonstrated that the disparity between rich and poor and the proportion of the population living in severe poverty changed little over the period. Bowley was a trained mathematician who was unusual in applying his skills to social investigation. Hilaire Belloc's The Servile State, published in 1912 in response to the Liberal social legislation, was a trenchant restatement of the more radical style of liberalism which had long appealed to working people. The foremost advocate of social reform in the Cabinet, Joseph Chamberlain, was colonial secretary and responsible for the conduct of the war and had no time to pursue so.
