THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 " 
 
 THE SLIPPERY SLOPE 
 
 AND OTHER PAPERS 
 ON SOCIAL SUBJECTS
 
 London Stereoscopic Co., 106 Regent Kt 
 WILLIAM AMIAS BAILWARD. 
 
 f Front is/iit
 
 THE 
 
 SLIPPERY SLOPE 
 
 AND OTHER PAPERS 
 ON SOCIAL SUBJECTS 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 WILLIAM AMIAS BAILWARD, M.A. 
 
 " I am not at all disturbed at the prospect 
 of the slippery slope." 
 
 The Rt. Hon. H. H. ASQUITH. 
 Hansard. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W 
 
 1920
 
 All rights restrvid
 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THESE papers were selected for publication by 
 Mr Bail ward shortly before the War ; therefore 
 in giving them to the public his friends feel that 
 they are fulfilling his wishes. It may seem to 
 some readers that as the Parliamentary Bills which 
 are the subject of his keen criticism have most of 
 them become Acts, it is of no use to cry over 
 spilt milk. It must, however, be remembered that 
 because an ill-advised measure becomes law it 
 is not thereby endued with wisdom ; and if, as 
 has happened in the case of many of these Acts, 
 criticism has unfortunately been proved by experi- 
 ence to be well-founded, it may act as a warning. 
 It may not only prevent further mischief, but 
 show the path of amendment. 
 
 Two things, at least, stand out prominently in 
 these papers. The first is the remarkable lucidity 
 of the writer's style. Mr Bailward was a master 
 of English, and he was therefore able to say 
 what he wished with ease and humour. Hence, 
 though he deals with subjects which are too often 
 considered uninteresting by the general public, 
 they are handled with such lightness and even 
 brilliancy of touch that there is hardly a dull line 
 in the book. 
 
 The author is careful to point out that his 
 writings are not intended to convert Socialists 
 who have made up their minds and who have a 
 settled policy ; but to warn those who may still
 
 vi INTRODUCTION 
 
 be hesitating on the edge of the "slippery slope." 
 There must be many men and women who have 
 neither time, inclination, nor opportunity for study- 
 ing the difficult problems of Social Science ; but 
 who listen readily to those who recommend the 
 downhill path, partly because it appears to be 
 the easier and follows the line of least resistance, 
 but partly also because they do not want to 
 be thought retrograde or out-of-date : they do 
 not care to be treated with the pitying contempt 
 of which the reformer who professes to disbelieve 
 in the Laws of Political Economy has so large a 
 stock-in-trade. To these such a paper as the 
 one entitled " Social Study on Large Maps " 
 would show clearly that the problems of to-day 
 were those of hundreds and even thousands of 
 years ago ; that the remedies applied to social ills 
 in ancient Greece and Rome failed, as they will 
 do to-day, if the weakness and strength of human 
 nature are alike disregarded by those who desire 
 them. 
 
 Another characteristic of the author is his 
 extreme fairness to his opponents. He invariably 
 states the communistic view in the strongest 
 possible way and presents the arguments against 
 his own position with scrupulous care. He seems 
 at times indeed to be forgetful or unconscious of the 
 fact that he has already demolished them by in- 
 vincible commonsense and the pitiless logic of facts. 
 
 The conclusions at which Mr Bailward arrives 
 are based on a profound study of human nature, 
 and a firm belief in the teaching of history and 
 especially in the History of the Poor Law. It is 
 a fashion of the present day to relegate the teach- 
 ing and experience of the past, when they happen 
 to be inconvenient, to a kind of "dump," regard- 
 less of the fact that the lessons were learnt at 
 painful cost by our forefathers and that they burnt
 
 INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 their fingers severely in the process. " Dumps," 
 as recent experience shows, have a disagreeable 
 habit of exploding with sad results to individuals 
 the explosion of this social "dump" would mean 
 disaster to the nation. 
 
 Mr Bailward was something of a prophet in the 
 true meaning of the word, but not one who 
 prophesied the smooth things to which the un- 
 instructed public so readily listens. Such a paper 
 as the "Psychology of Pauperism" is a short but 
 careful study of what the consequences may be of 
 pandering to the weaker side of human nature. 
 There is an easy-going temper abroad which coolly 
 takes it for granted that although certain results 
 undoubtedly followed certain foolish deeds in past 
 times, they are not likely to follow similar acts 
 of folly now. If the question is asked, "why 
 not ? " the answer usually amounts to this : human 
 nature has materially changed for the better. For 
 this pleasant and comfortable assumption there is 
 absolutely no warrant ; on the contrary, the history 
 of the past six years gives ample proof that un- 
 disciplined human nature in every class of life can 
 be as idle, self-indulgent and cruel as it ever was. 
 
 The History of the English Poor Law may be 
 dull, though there may be two opinions as to that. 
 Modern Schools of Economics may relegate it to 
 the rubbish heap Professors may bury their 
 learned heads in the sand and encourage their 
 pupils to study the principles of Bolshevism, as 
 the only things worth studying at the moment. 
 But in spite of the contempt of the Schools, Poor 
 Law History will repeat itself unless its lessons are 
 heeded ; and the warnings of unpopular but fear- 
 less prophets are even now being fulfilled. Must 
 the procession of disastrous failures in Social 
 experiment stretch out to the crack of doom ? 
 
 All this does not mean that no reforms are
 
 viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 needed. Mr Bailward was a reformer in the best 
 sense. But reforms, if they are to be vital and 
 beneficent and not engines of destruction, must 
 be based on principles which have stood the 
 test of practical application and have been the 
 foundations and bulwarks of national greatness 
 and prosperity in the past. 
 
 As a nation we have already travelled far 
 down the "slippery slope," and it sometimes seems 
 to anxious watchers as if nothing could stop a 
 fatal plunge into a gloomy abyss of national bank- 
 ruptcy both of character and purse. Some among 
 us, however, may hope to live long enough to see 
 the inevitable reaction, the proverbial swing of the 
 pendulum, the painful climb up. They may even 
 experience the sinister satisfaction of unheeded 
 prophets who can say : " We told you so." 
 
 SOPHIA LONSDALE.
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 IT is not proposed to write a lengthy biographical 
 notice of the Author of the following pages, but it 
 is perhaps desirable to give a sufficient sketch of 
 his career to indicate the authority and experience 
 which lie behind his words. 
 
 William Amias Bailward was born in the 
 Somersetshire village of Horsington in June 1852, 
 and was educated at Rugby School and Balliol 
 College, Oxford. He underwent a full legal training, 
 which was of much value to him in after-life, but 
 after being called to the Bar and having gone once 
 or twice on circuit, he decided to abandon the Law 
 as a profession and spent some years in foreign 
 travel, visiting Australia, New Zealand, India, and 
 other British colonies and possessions. 
 
 On his return finally to England he settled down 
 to live in London with a sister who became at that 
 time the guiding influence in his life. 
 
 Soon afterwards (in 1887) he first became inter- 
 ested in the work of the Charity Organisation 
 Society and their Honorary Secretary in Bethnal 
 Green, the district which remained the principal 
 field of his labours until his death in March 1918. 
 
 He was for the greater part of that time a 
 Guardian, and for some years Chairman of the 
 Board of Guardians of that Union, and consider- 
 ing the great differences which must have existed 
 between his views and those of many of his col- 
 leagues and of the electorate it is a remarkable 
 tribute to his personality and moderation that he 
 should have been constantly elected. It was 
 greatly due, no doubt, to his influence that Poor
 
 x BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 Law administration in Bethnal Green has formed 
 an effective contrast with that of other East End 
 Unions. 
 
 To the casual acquaintance he was known 
 generally as a witty and agreeable companion and 
 a good sportsman, in the best sense of the word, 
 and only a few intimate friends were really cognisant 
 of the great amount of time, labour, and research 
 which he devoted to Poor Law and Charity 
 Organisation work. 
 
 His chief interest, even in sport, always con- 
 sisted in giving entertainment to his many friends 
 and the younger members of his own family. 
 
 It is an indication of the confidence which was 
 reposed in his judgment by all those with whom he 
 was brought into contact, that at the time of his 
 death he was a member of thirty-five Committees of 
 various kinds, and had it not been for his extreme 
 dislike of any kind of notoriety he might well have 
 taken a leading part in political and civic life. 
 
 Amongst his papers was found a slip written 
 shortly before his death, with the following quotation 
 from Montaigne : 
 
 " Je veux . . . que la mort me trouve plantant 
 mes choux, mais nonchalant d'elle, et encore plus de 
 mon jardin imparfait ; " 
 
 and these essays are a small part of the fruit of that 
 unfinished garden. 
 
 His last illness was probably due to his assiduous 
 attendance at the Bethnal Green Appeal Tribunal 
 during the winter of 1916-17 for long hours and in 
 all weathers. 
 
 A. C. B. 
 
 i PRINCES MANSIONS, 
 VICTORIA STREET, S.W. i.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE accompanying volume contains the substance 
 of various articles and papers covering a period of 
 twenty-five years, during which the author has been 
 engaged in poor law and charitable administration 
 in London. Two or three of these have already 
 appeared in pamphlet form. They have been written 
 at various times and upon various occasions, and 
 have no special connection, except that they deal 
 with different aspects of the same subject. They 
 therefore contain some repetitions and some refer- 
 ences that have been rendered obsolete by sub- 
 sequent legislation. But the author ventures to 
 republish them much as they were written, in 
 the hope that the fact that they are based upon 
 the experience of twenty-five years of practical 
 work in a poor district may commend them to 
 the consideration of students of the most diffi- 
 cult problem of local government. They are not 
 addressed to socialists, who at least have a definite 
 social theory, but to those who appear to be halting 
 between two opinions. The author is indebted 
 to the Editor of the "Times" for permission to 
 republish the criticism of the Minority Report. 
 
 W. A. B.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 fAOB 
 
 INTRODUCTION ....... v 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ...... ix 
 
 PREFACE ........ xi 
 
 SOCIAL STUDY ON LARGE MAPS . . . . i 
 
 SOME EARLY HISTORY OF POOR RELIEF IN ENGLAND . 18 
 SOME EARLY HISTORY OF POOR RELIEF IN PARIS . . 38 
 POOR RELIEF IN A WEST COUNTRY VILLAGE, 1786-1906 . 49 
 NOTES FROM A WORKHOUSE EXAMINATION COMMITTEE . 55 
 POOR LAW AND CHARITY . . . . .71 
 
 SOCIAL REFORM AND THE NEW SOCIALISM . . .100 
 DEMOCRACY AND LOCAL ELECTIONS . . . 117 
 
 THE REPORTS OF THE COMMISSIONS OF 1834 AND 1909 . 132 
 
 THE MINORITY REPORT : A CRITICISM (which has received 
 
 no answer) . ...... 138 
 
 "THE SLIPPERY SLOPE" . . . . .172 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PAUPERISM . . . .184 
 
 APPENDICES : 
 
 The Relation of Legal Relief to Private Charity . . 193 
 
 Some Recent Developments of Poor Relief . .210 
 
 xiii
 
 SOCIAL STUDY ON LARGE MAPS 
 
 THE late Lord Salisbury once advised those who 
 wish to study foreign politics to do so upon large 
 maps. The same advice may be given to those 
 who wish to study social problems, and especially 
 the problem of poverty ; for there is, perhaps, no 
 department of social economy in which the field of 
 observation is so wide and the phenomena are so 
 persistent, and in which the sequence of cause and 
 effect appears to be so inexorable. We are often 
 warned against the danger of historical comparisons, 
 and of course such a danger exists. There must 
 always be controversy as to the interpretation of 
 history, especially of that which is more remote. 
 It is not suggested, therefore, that the comparisons 
 should be pressed too closely ; but at least there is 
 sufficient evidence to show that, even in the remoter 
 periods of history, much the same things were being 
 said and done in regard to the problem of poverty 
 as are being said and done at the present time, 
 and that certain principles and tendencies have 
 established themselves beyond the reach of con- 
 troversy. 
 
 The writer does not pretend to do more than 
 to give the barest outlines of some of the best 
 known phenomena in the social history of the past 
 which appear to illustrate three of these principles 
 and tendencies. Readers must form their own 
 conclusions as to whether or no they are relevant 
 to the social questions of the day. His purpose
 
 2 SOCIAL STUDY ON LARGE MAPS 
 
 will have been accomplished if he induces any one 
 to examine the question more closely for himself. 
 
 The first point to be noted is that great 
 measures of unrestricted State relief have had, 
 from the earliest times, a monotonously disastrous 
 effect upon the character of those who have received 
 it. The Theoric Fund in Athens provided for an 
 allowance of two oboli a day at first, and later three 
 oboli to citizens attending public festivals and 
 assemblies. Mr Grote defends this in principle "as 
 the natural corollary of the religious idea associated 
 with the festival" (cap. Ixxv.) ; but he adds that "it 
 was pushed to an abusive and mischievous excess 
 in later times," and undoubtedly it ultimately 
 degenerated into a great system of State relief to 
 the poorer citizens. A writer of the times says that 
 " Pericles by his Theoric Fund made his fellow- 
 citizens babblers, idle and greedy, prodigal and 
 dissolute." Aristotle points out its impotence to 
 relieve poverty, " the demagogues distributed the 
 surplus revenues to the poor, who received them all 
 at the same time, and then they were in want 
 again. It was only like pouring money through a 
 sieve . . . the problem was to contrive how plenty 
 and not poverty should become permanent" (Loch, 
 " Charity and Social Life," p. 33, Ar. Pol. 13200). 
 The Annona Civica in Rome was equally disastrous 
 to character, and equally futile as a measure for the 
 relief of poverty. Initiated by Gracchus, B.C. 121, 
 it at first ordained that corn should be sold to 
 citizens at a cheap price. Later, Clodius, as a 
 political move, made the distribution free. The 
 distribution was originally quarterly, then it became 
 monthly, and finally it was daily. It was estimated 
 that at first only one-eighth of the citizens 
 participated, and that in the time of Julius Caesar 
 the proportion was three-quarters. Csesar reduced 
 the numbers, but they eventually rose again; "in
 
 RELIEF OF POVERTY IN ROME 3 
 
 the age which preceded the fall of the republic it 
 was estimated that only two thousand citizens were 
 possessed of an independent substance " (Gibbon, 
 cap. xxxi.). Cicero, speaking prophetically at the 
 time when the distributions were first made free, 
 says that the measure was " welcomed by the 
 people to whom it assured an ample food-supply 
 without obligation to work ; but it was looked 
 askance at by thoughtful people, who saw that its 
 result could only be to empty the Treasury, and to 
 make the people live in idleness " (Cic. pro Sext. 
 c. 43), and his prophecy was fulfilled to the letter. 
 The Annona which was levied upon conquered 
 nations came to an end when Rome was fighting 
 for her life against foreign nations ; but it had 
 continued over many centuries, and we may quote 
 Gibbon's description of the social conditions existing 
 under the successors of Constantine : "For the 
 convenience of the lazy plebeians, the monthly 
 distributions of corn were converted into a daily 
 allowance of bread. A great number of ovens were 
 constructed and maintained at the public expense ; 
 and at the appointed hour each citizen who was 
 furnished with a ticket ascended the flight of steps 
 which had been assigned to his peculiar quarter or 
 division, and received, either as a gift or at a very 
 low price, a loaf of bread of the weight of three 
 pounds for the use of his family," and what was the 
 result ? " From those stately palaces (the baths of 
 Caracalla and Diocletian) issued a swarm of dirty 
 and ragged plebeians, who loitered away whole days 
 in the street or forum to hear news and hold 
 disputes, who dissipated in extravagant gaming 
 the miserable pittance of their wives and children, 
 and spent the hours of the night in obscure 
 taverns and brothels in the indulgence of gross and 
 vulgar sensuality." With regard to their amuse- 
 ments, " The Roman people still considered the 
 
 c
 
 4 SOCIAL STUDY ON LARGE MAPS 
 
 circus as their home, their temple, and the seat of 
 the Republic. The impatient people rushed at the 
 dawn of day to secure their places, and there were 
 many who passed a sleepless and anxious night in 
 the adjoining porticoes. From morning to evening, 
 careless of sun or rain, the spectators, who some- 
 times numbered four hundred thousand, remained 
 in eager attention, their eyes fixed on the horses 
 and charioteers, their minds agitated with hope 
 and fear for the colours they espoused, and the 
 happiness of Rome appeared to hang on the event 
 of a race." The theatres were monopolised by 
 "licentious farce, effeminate music, and splendid 
 pageantry." When, in time of scarcity, all strangers 
 were banished from the city, "singers and dancers 
 were exempted from a law which was strictly 
 enforced against the professors of the liberal arts." 
 Such was the effect of public benevolences in Greece 
 and Rome, and we have had much analogous 
 experience in later times. It is hardly necessary 
 to labour the point. Recent writers, such as Mr 
 and Mrs Sidney Webb, are quite as emphatic in 
 their condemnation of the evil of a " hypertrophied 
 Poor Law," as were Cicero and other writers in 
 their condemnation of similar largesse 2000 years 
 ago. 
 
 Another point that is suggested by a study of 
 the "large map" is that unrestricted public relief 
 invariably falls eventually by its own weight, and that 
 there is no ultimate refuge for the poor man in dis- 
 tress except in the unconstrained love and charity 
 of his fellow-men. The "principle of acceleration," 
 which, as Dr Chalmers tells us, is inherent in all 
 poor laws, and of which more will be said hereafter, 
 invariably causes the demand to outrun the supply 
 with the result of an empty treasury as well as an 
 emasculated people. In Athens the Theoric Fund 
 " was carried to abusive and mischievous excess
 
 PRINCIPLE OF ACCELERATION 5 
 
 in later times." In Rome the Annona grew from 
 cheap corn to free corn, from free corn only to 
 free corn, bacon, and oil, and was extended from 
 a section of the population to practically all the 
 poorer classes. And then the crash came. When 
 Athens fell upon evil days the Theoric Fund had 
 to be diverted to military purposes. When the 
 same happened to Rome, and Sicily and Carthage 
 were lost to the Empire, the treasury was ex- 
 hausted, and the unhappy citizens, destitute of all 
 power of self-maintenance, were thrown back upon 
 voluntary charity and the Church. During the 
 siege by Alaric, "the daily allowance of bread was 
 reduced to one half, to one third, to nothing, and 
 the price of corn continued to rise. The poorer 
 citizens solicited the precarious charity of the rich, 
 and for a while the public misery was alleviated by 
 the humanity of the Empress Laeta, who consecrated 
 her princely revenue to the use of the indigent " 
 (Gibbon, cap. xxxi.). The distributions of corn 
 were finally discontinued after Theodoric, and the 
 suffering of the people, enervated by centuries of 
 pauperism, is a matter of history. 
 
 From this point of view we stand perhaps in 
 a worse position even than Rome itself. The 
 Roman benevolences were levied upon conquered 
 nations ; our own are levied upon the industry of 
 the people themselves, and it is hardly possible to 
 doubt that if our expenditure continues to increase 
 at its present rate we shall some day find ourselves 
 face to face with an empty treasury and a ruined 
 industry. Lord Morley, speaking at Newcastle 
 some years ago, put it thus : " Depend upon it," 
 he said, " that the burden of taxation, however 
 spread, however disguised, falls in the long run 
 most heavily upon the shoulders of the working 
 man," and a hard-headed, north-country audience 
 greeted the remark with cheers. At the present
 
 6 SOCIAL STUDY ON LARGE MAPS 
 
 time there is a sense of uneasiness which is quite 
 unprecedented amongst quiet and law-abiding people 
 who busy themselves little with politics, but who 
 subscribe most of the capital required for industrial 
 enterprise. Consols are at a lower level than for 
 many generations, and home securities are heavily 
 depreciated all round. The investor stands aloof 
 from enterprises in which British workmen are 
 employed, because he may at any time lose his 
 money owing to the conditions of the labour market 
 and the growth of taxation, 1 and prefers to invest 
 his savings in foreign enterprises which certainly 
 give no direct employment to the British workman, 
 and so home industries by which our people live 
 are in danger of being gradually atrophied. We 
 may recall Montesquieu's definition of socialism, 
 " aujourd'hui le pillage demain la famine." 
 
 Another feature of unrestricted public benevol- 
 ence which has at all times been equally persistent and 
 equally baneful is to be found in its use for political 
 purposes. The Theoric Fund was used largely for 
 the purpose of obtaining the popular suffrages. 
 The throne, and sometimes the lives, of the Roman 
 Emperors depended upon the munificence of their 
 largesse. We find that even voluntary chanty was 
 similarly tainted in quite early times, that of the 
 Roman patron towards his client being often a 
 political expedient devoid of any sense of moral 
 obligation. "The people," says Cicero, "have 
 only one way of doing us a good turn and recog- 
 nising our services to them, and that is to follow 
 us in a crowd when we go to demand place and 
 
 1 The annual meetings of the great Railway Companies have 
 lately been held. In almost all cases there have been large 
 reductions of dividend, and the chairman ascribe this mainly to 
 two causes, namely, strikes and additional taxation due to the 
 Insurance Act, which in the case of one railway alone amounts to 
 ^64,000 a year. The " Times " estimates that the Act will cost the 
 railways a quarter of a million.
 
 SOCIAL REFORM AND PARTY PURPOSES 7 
 
 honour. It is fair that they whose hopes are 
 centred in us, should do something for us. The 
 least they can do is to give us their votes " 
 (Cic. Pro Murem., c. 34). Political chanty is not 
 unknown in these days, but its effect must always 
 be insignificant in comparison with that of public 
 relief which draws upon the public exchequer, and 
 which calls for no personal sacrifice from those who 
 administer it, but which, on the contrary, paves the 
 way to "place and honour." Similarly, in modern 
 times, the path to political eminence and to the 
 gratification of personal ambitions by public bene- 
 volence lies, as a rule, over the backs of the poor. 
 We have seen the disastrous process at work in 
 many countries and we see it in our own, for, 
 unhappily, the leaders of both political parties 
 make use of "social reform," in the sense of great 
 measures of public relief, for party purposes without 
 any disguise. A leading statesman on one side 
 advocates a particular measure on the ground that 
 it offers "ninepence for fourpence." Just as this 
 is written, a speech by a leader on the other side is 
 reported in the " Times," in which, under the heading 
 " How to win the next Election," social reform is 
 put forward as a principal means of securing the 
 votes of the electorate ("Times," 29th July 1912). 
 The leaders have, in fact, to submit to the dictation 
 of party agents throughout the country, who send 
 urgent messages that this or that measure of 
 "social reform" is essential for immediate party 
 purposes, with a cynical disregard of ulterior 
 consequences. 
 
 There are several other questions of poor relief 
 which it is interesting to study " on a large map," 
 because we see that many practical problems which 
 are now before the public were equally pressing two 
 thousand years ago. For instance, we are now 
 much concerned with the question of feeding of
 
 8 SOCIAL STUDY ON LARGE MAPS 
 
 school children, and we are alarmed at a falling birth- 
 rate. Augustus, " in order to increase the free 
 population," initiated a system of subsidy to poor 
 families in proportion to the number of their children, 
 and the system was continued and extended until 
 the exhaustion of the treasury in the later Empire. 
 We may in this connection recall Pitt's abortive 
 poor law which had the same object. Again, we 
 have recently adopted the principle of a minimum 
 wage. Diocletian endeavoured to arrive at the 
 same result by fixing a maximum price for food. 
 One result of this was that at the least appearance 
 of scarcity all strangers and even Italians were 
 expelled from Rome. The experiment was an 
 unqualified failure. 
 
 Again, we now hear on every side denunciations 
 of the selfish luxury of the idle rich, but they are 
 as nothing to similar denunciations by the fathers 
 of the Church. " You sit down to a sumptuous 
 feast," says St Chrysostom, "when Christ has not 
 the barest necessaries ! You drink the wine of 
 Thasos when He has not a glass of water to quench 
 His thirst." "What will you say to your Judge?" 
 says St Basil, "who clothe your walls with 
 splendour and leave your fellow-men naked, who 
 let your corn rot in your barns and give none of 
 it to the poor. If an unhappy man begs of you, 
 you say that you have nought to give him. But 
 the very hand with which you repulse him glitters 
 with a priceless jewel and gives the lie to your 
 words. How many poor debtors might be set free, 
 how many houses rebuilt with that ring ? Your 
 wardrobe would suffice to clothe a whole people and 
 you send the poor naked away " (Chastel, " Etudes 
 Historiques sur 1'influence de la Charite," p. 195-6 : 
 Chrys., Horn. 48 ; Basil, Horn, in Div., c. 4). St 
 Jerome says, " All riches are the result of iniquity. 
 Every rich man is unjust or the heir of an unjust
 
 EARLY CHURCH AND RELIEF 9 
 
 man." Truly there is nothing new under the 
 sun. 
 
 Or if we regard the matter from another point 
 of view we find that one side of human nature 
 has changed but little. "Socrates the historian 
 mentions a Jew who, pretending to embrace 
 Christianity, went in succession to the various 
 communities both heretical and orthodox to ask to 
 be baptised, and received from all valuable presents 
 until Paul, Bishop of the Novatians, discovered the 
 fraud, it is said, by a miracle" (Soc. Hist. Eccl., 
 Bk. vii. c. 17). We hear, too, in the Early Church 
 of "spiteful and slanderous widows who instead of 
 calling down the blessing of God on their Bishop 
 made it their business to find out what others had 
 received and then complained of the injustice of the 
 distribution of alms" (Apost. Const, iii. 12-14). We 
 even find that an organisation of charity was 
 initiated by the Church, doubtless as the result of 
 those and similar abuses. Each Bishop was 
 directed to attach to himself a steward for the 
 administration of the funds of his diocese. The 
 deacons and subdeacons who were called " the hand, 
 the mouth, and the soul of the Bishops " were his 
 agents for the distribution of alms. They kept a 
 register of the families that they had to relieve 
 regularly. The deacons' duties were "to write 
 down the names on a special register, to which the 
 name of ' case paper ' l was given later, and to enter 
 the name, the sex, the profession, and position of 
 each applicant and to obtain the most circumstantial 
 and exact information" (Chastel, p. 99; Cyprian, 
 Ep. 37 and Ep. 38 ; Acts vi. 3-11). 
 
 Looking then at the "large map" we find that 
 we have advanced surprisingly little in regard to 
 these matters since the beginning of the Christian 
 
 1 A free translation of matricula. Chastel, p. 99 ; Epitom de 
 Eccl. Petr., c. 151.
 
 10 SOCIAL STUDY ON LARGE MAPS 
 
 era. It is, however, rather remarkable that a 
 considerable section of the Anglican Church at the 
 present time appears inclined to look to bureaucracy 
 and compulsion as a solution of the problem of 
 poverty. We may judge from the words of St 
 Chrysostom, how great a departure this is from the 
 tenets of the Early Church. " You cannot," he 
 says, "like St Peter, cure the cripple : give at least 
 your gold. I do not force you to do it if you do 
 not wish to. I use no compulsion but I conjure 
 you to give at least a part to the poor. God might 
 have constrained us to almsgiving : He has pre- 
 ferred to obtain it from our free will so that there 
 may be room for reward" (Chrys., Horn. 90). St 
 Irenffius, comparing the almsgiving of the Jews with 
 that of the Christian Church, says that the "one is 
 the offering of slaves, the other that of free men." 
 (Iren., de Hares, iv. 34). 
 
 We have also the records over many centuries 
 of attempts repeated again and again, to make work 
 for the unemployed. In ancient times they 
 degenerated into a system of slavery (Chastel 314, 
 Wallon Hist., t. iv., p. 3, c. 4 and 5). In more 
 recent times we have had some 230 years' experience 
 of the old poor law which was intended to "set the 
 poor on work," and we have had the experience of 
 the national workshops in Paris in 1793 and 1848. 
 Finally we have had seven years' experience of the 
 Unemployed Workmen Act, which was passed as 
 a measure of social reform in the teeth of the 
 warnings of those who had studied these questions 
 most closely. And what is the result? The Act 
 has recently been condemned in the most unqualified 
 terms by the Reports of the Commission, which are 
 unanimous at least in this. Yet, in spite of this 
 condemnation, already some three years old, it still 
 goes on. So difficult is it in these matters to 
 retrace a false step.
 
 INCREASE IN PUBLIC RELIEF 11 
 
 It has already been said that readers must 
 judge for themselves as to the relevance of this 
 past history to the history of the present day. But 
 there are many ominous coincidences which must 
 at least awaken grave anxiety in the minds of those 
 who love their country. The public charge for 
 relief has about quadrupled itself in the last twenty- 
 five years, yet there is no sign that it is improving 
 the condition of the people or satisfying their 
 demands. On the contrary, a fierce appetite for 
 relief appears to have sprung up amongst them 
 similar to that which prevailed in Rome under the 
 Empire. Labour unrest, strike succeeding strike 
 with constant scenes of violence, the repeated 
 repudiation of contracts solemnly entered into, 
 recalls the turbulence of the pauperised Romans. 
 We have even in these days citizens who "loiter 
 away whole days in the town to hear news and 
 hold disputes." We have citizens who "dissipate 
 in extravagant gaming the miserable pittances of 
 their wives and children." We have leaders of 
 democracy who, like Clodius, clamour more and 
 more for doles and free maintenance for all ; 
 theatrical display and pageantry of all kinds 
 multiply daily ; games and amusements monopo- 
 lise the public mind ; huge crowds look on in eager 
 attention at athletic contests, " their minds agitated 
 with hope and fear for the colours they espouse." 
 "The happiness of the country often appears to 
 hang upon the issue of a single match." 
 
 The increase in the dependent population and 
 the indifference with which this is regarded by 
 government is perhaps an even more alarming sign 
 of the times. Till lately the test of the well-being 
 of a country was held to be found in a maximum of 
 independence and a minimum of dependence. So, 
 too, of old Plato would have no beggars in his 
 Republic. But the modern statesman cares nothing 
 
 D
 
 12 SOCIAL STUDY ON LARGE MAPS 
 
 about these things, and yet if history has anything 
 to tell us it is that they are the most important of 
 all. It is the same with pauperism ; the word is 
 hardly mentioned in these days, yet no social reform 
 can succeed which ignores it. In another chapter 
 we have tried to indicate the subtlety of the problem ; 
 social reformers must face it or fail. 
 
 " Social Reform " is, of course, a vague term 
 capable of many interpretations. It may mean, as 
 many believe, that the whole fabric of society as it 
 has evolved itself throughout the ages requires a 
 drastic reconstruction. But we may fairly ask 
 whether, if that is the case, it would not be far 
 better for the country that this reconstruction 
 should be effected by a short and decisive process 
 rather than by a slow process of progressive 
 eleemosynaryism. For social reform so far has been 
 interpreted almost exclusively in that sense. One 
 great measure of State relief has succeeded another 
 and "we are only at the beginning." Is social 
 reform of this kind likely to effect the purpose at 
 which it aims ? Until quite lately the contrary 
 opinion was held both by statesmen and socio- 
 logists. The experience of the "large map" was 
 accepted without question, and it was held that 
 great measures of State relief tend to aggravate the 
 intensity of the problems of poverty. But suddenly 
 an entirely opposite policy has been adopted. It 
 is true that certain qualifications of this policy are 
 dimly foreshadowed in the future, but we have to 
 deal with the facts as they are, and it is clear that 
 our social policy up to the time of the Insurance 
 Act has been a kind of lopsided socialism. The 
 benefits have been kept well to the fore, and the 
 discipline, which is the necessary corollary, as far as 
 possible out of sight. The Insurance Act has been 
 the first foretaste of discipline, and its reception 
 seems to show that the working man is not inclined
 
 LIBERTY AND STATE SOCIALISM 13 
 
 to barter his personal liberty for fruits however 
 "rare and refreshing." But a much more severe 
 discipline than this will be required if the State is 
 to accept all the responsibilities proposed for it. 
 The nature of this discipline is to some extent fore- 
 shadowed in the Minority Report with its training 
 and disciplinary colonies, its organisation of the 
 labour market and exclusion of large sections of 
 the population from economic work. But much 
 more than this will be necessary. If, as is suggested, 
 the maintenance of all children is to be undertaken 
 by the State, conditions will have to be imposed 
 upon the production of children. Already there is 
 much talk of " segregation," and the policy of the 
 stud farm is beginning to shape itself. It remains 
 to be seen whether the working man will submit 
 to it. 
 
 The special danger of the moment appears to 
 be lest we should fall between the stools of individual 
 liberty and State socialism. Each of them, taken 
 separately, is a clear social policy capable of being 
 translated into action as a homogeneous whole. 
 But now we have a kind of hybrid system which is 
 neither the one nor the other, a machine made up 
 of "spare parts" by different makers which are 
 neither adjusted nor adjustable. All socialists 
 recognise that socialist benefits involve socialist 
 discipline. But political action (except in the case 
 of the Insurance Act) has heretofore followed the 
 line of least resistance. Where discipline has been 
 politically easy, there it has been introduced ; where 
 it has been politically difficult, there it has been 
 carefully eschewed. The compulsory discipline of 
 masses of men who are also voters is a thorny 
 subject for any government, and no statesman has 
 yet shown much sign of a desire to handle it. But 
 if legislation is to continue on its present lines 
 discipline is the necessary corollary. At present
 
 14 SOCIAL STUDY ON LARGE MAPS 
 
 we have most of the evils of a certain policy without 
 any of the safeguards. 
 
 The need of the moment, then, is toclear the issues 
 and to make up our minds between the alternative 
 policies. When we have so made up our minds we 
 must carry out the one or the other in its integrity. 
 There is much confusion at present, because every 
 one recognises that State action is necessary in 
 certain public services, such as national defence, 
 police, sanitation, education, and the relief of desti- 
 tution. The fact that the State has done these 
 things, with a varying amount of success, is used 
 as an argument that it should do everything, and 
 the ordinary citizen finds some difficulty in making 
 up his mind as to where the line should be drawn. 
 But the issues now appear to be gradually clearing 
 themselves. In the last few years the State has 
 entered upon a course of action which appears to be 
 closely distinguishable from the functions enumer- 
 ated above because it clearly affects the private life 
 and conduct of individual citizens high and low. It 
 is, for example, now trying to impose compulsory 
 charity upon the well-to-do, compulsory thrift upon 
 the poor, and compulsory virtue upon all classes of 
 the population. It has abandoned the old "desti- 
 tution" principle in public relief, and proposes to 
 bring about universal material welfare through the 
 poor law or its equivalent. All this, of course, 
 differs fundamentally from the State action which 
 has hitherto commended itself to the good sense of 
 the community. The authors of this new departure 
 are actuated by the best intentions, but we cannot 
 on that account allow their policy to pass without 
 criticism. The first thing that is plain is that it is 
 a policy of despair of despair, on the one hand, of 
 human nature, of despair, on the other, that the 
 industrial classes can ever live by their labour. 
 There are many who believe that this despair is
 
 RELIEF AND LOW WAGES 15 
 
 not justified in either case, and who believe even 
 more strongly that if we accept things as inevitable 
 we make them inevitable. We may ask, moreover, 
 why if human nature is so poor a thing we should 
 entrust our destinies blindfold to human beings who 
 come to the front in the vicissitudes of party politics 
 and who may perhaps be no better than ourselves. 
 The ethics of party politics are not encouraging. 
 Or if we turn to the prospects of creating universal 
 prosperity by Act of Parliament, we may ask^hat 
 assurance we have that this is an ideal capable of 
 attainment. All that we know so far is that the 
 legislation of the last twenty-five years which has been 
 directed to this end has brought us no nearer our 
 goal. One measure of relief has succeeded another, 
 yet the cry of poverty is louder than ever, and there 
 is constant asseveration that the "rich are growing 
 richer and the poor growing poorer." Prominent 
 Socialists are beginning to give voice to their doubts. 
 The social question, they say, can never be settled 
 by doles ; " nothing is of the slightest economic value 
 to the working man that does not increase his 
 wages" every other endowment is "charity, covert 
 or overt" (" New Age," 1911). Yet if history has 
 anything to teach us it is that doles of relief act 
 in supplementation of wages and keep them low, 
 and in that manner prevent the very solution of 
 the problem of poverty which everyone most 
 earnestly desires. 
 
 Yes ! we are told all this may have been true in 
 the past, but with the advance of science nothing is 
 impossible. Failures in the past do not constitute 
 a valid reason why we should not try again. And 
 it is loose reasoning of this kind which has impelled 
 us again and again to repeat old failures under the 
 name of experiments, which is surely a fatuous pro- 
 ceeding. Let us experiment by all means, but let 
 us be sure either that the experiments are new ones
 
 16 SOCIAL STUDY ON LARGE MAPS 
 
 or that the conditions have changed sufficiently to 
 justify a renewal of the old ones. It is quite true 
 that science has won great victories in the physical 
 world : it has taught us to annihilate time and space 
 and to conquer (with limitations) the sea and the air. 
 It has made discoveries of enormous value in surgery 
 and medicine. One thing it has failed to do, and 
 that is to conquer human nature, and nothing but 
 human nature itself can do that. This is why 
 attempts to impose morality and conduct by Act 
 of Parliament and to legislate in defiance of economic 
 tendencies which are based upon human nature, are 
 foredoomed to failure. Over and over again such 
 attempts have been made ; the legislation of the 
 Commonwealth was the forerunner of the profligacy 
 of the times of Charles II. We have had repeated 
 sumptuary laws : we have had laws fixing prices, and 
 laws fixing wages, but they have all failed in turn 
 and all been abandoned. It has been left to the 
 twentieth century to endeavour to resuscitate them. 
 The times are full of strange philosophies, the 
 general upshot of whose teaching seems to be that 
 we should act upon the impulse of the moment and 
 distrust the evidence of our senses. "Futurists" 
 would ignore everything that happened even 
 yesterday. Socialist poets denounce " the foul 
 hag experience" as the enemy of progress, and 
 there is a wealth of literature of the same descrip- 
 tion. We are told to believe that instinct is a 
 surer guide than reason. There is nothing new 
 about this. The Pyrrhonists, more than 2000 years 
 ago, held " that both the senses and consciousness 
 are absolutely untrustworthy, and that just as much 
 can be said against any opinion as in favour of it " 
 (Funk and Wagnall's "Diet.," Pyrrhonism). So 
 that these philosophers have advanced little beyond 
 their predecessors. To them, of course, history 
 and precedent either have no meaning or are
 
 SOCIAL PROGRESS BY EVOLUTION 17 
 
 actually obnoxious. Theorists of this sort always 
 gain a certain following from amongst those who 
 despair of good by evolution. But they are only 
 a phase in the world's history. The bulk of 
 humanity believes, and will continue to believe, that 
 they must make the best use that they can of their 
 reason, even if it be fallible. They may be swayed 
 to and fro by gusts of feeling that blow this way 
 and that, but they are not in the least likely to 
 surrender their ultimate right of judgment. They 
 will probably continue to believe that no progress 
 can be real and lasting which does not, like 
 freedom, " broaden down from precedent to pre- 
 cedent." If this is the case the study of the 
 "large map" becomes obligatory upon all those 
 who sincerely and with singleness of purpose set 
 their faces towards social progress.
 
 SOME EARLY HISTORY OF POOR 
 RELIEF IN ENGLAND 
 
 MOST modern treatises upon the poor law confine 
 themselves to the period about and subsequent to 
 the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, and com- 
 paratively little attention has been paid of late to 
 the earlier history of the subject. The later period 
 is, undoubtedly, the most striking phase of our 
 poor law history, and no one would wish to 
 minimise its importance. Yet the Elizabethan 
 poor law had been in operation for some 230 years 
 previous to that time, and the record of those years 
 is quite as instructive to students as that of the 
 years which succeed them. It is true that few 
 early figures or statistics have been preserved, but 
 there is abundant contemporary evidence to show 
 that the main problem was the same in the earlier 
 stages as in the later. 
 
 In England it dates from the decay of feudalism 
 and the emancipation of the serf, when, as Professor 
 Henderson of Chicago says, " the liberated labourer 
 became free to be a pauper" ("Modern Methods 
 of Charity," p. x.). In the Middle Ages undoubtedly 
 pauperism was largely fostered by the abbeys, 
 "dispensing," says Fuller, "mistaken charity, pro- 
 miscuously entertaining some who did not need it 
 and many who did not desire it : yea ! these abbeys 
 did but support the poor whom they themselves 
 
 18
 
 ELIZABETHAN POOR LAW 19 
 
 had made." At the dissolution of the abbeys these 
 poor people were thrown again upon the world, and 
 not only they but a large number of monks and 
 lay brothers and servitors employed in and about 
 the abbeys. Soon after came the Elizabethan 
 Poor Law of 1601, under which for the first 
 time a compulsory assessment was made for 
 the relief of the poor and which is the basis 
 of our present Poor Law. It is with the 
 period succeeding 1601 and up to the reform 
 of the Poor Law in 1834 that this chapter will 
 deal. It is impossible to give more than a very 
 imperfect sketch of it within the compass of an 
 article. 
 
 The compulsory assessment or "fund set aside 
 for the relief of the poor" in 1601 was to be 
 applied to two main purposes, viz., " the relief of 
 the impotent and the setting of the able-bodied 
 to work." Doubtless the authors of the measure 
 believed that they had solved the problem, and it 
 may be conceded that the Act does appear to 
 cover the whole ground. Looking back on it 
 now by the light of 300 years' experience, we 
 may say that its first object has been largely 
 realised but that its second is as far off as ever. 
 The suggestion of the time was that the able- 
 bodied poor should be set to work by means of 
 "parish stocks," or as they would now be called, 
 "municipal workshops." Stores of hemp, flax, 
 and wool, and other materials were to be collected 
 in every parish to be spun and woven and 
 worked up by the poor, and for the next 200 
 years that was the method adopted in many 
 places. 
 
 The Act of Elizabeth had not been long in 
 operation when the difficulties began to show 
 themselves, and from that time forwards hardly 
 a year passed without the issue of some pamphlet 
 
 E
 
 20 POOR RELIEF IN ENGLAND 
 
 or scheme for better methods of helping the poor. 
 The writers are all agreed upon the facts as to the 
 "growing misery and numbers of the poor," the 
 growth of the poor rates, the need of better means 
 for setting the poor to work, the "nuisance of 
 beggars," and so forth. Sir Frederick Eden, in 
 his " State of the Poor," gives a list of some 300 
 publications of the sort, and their chief interest 
 lies, first, in their numbers ; secondly, in their 
 unanimity as to the facts and the failure of existing 
 methods ; thirdly, in the evidence they afford of the 
 solicitude for better social conditions even in these 
 early days. A strong vein of humanity runs 
 through them all, and many of the best men of 
 the day, whose names are even now household 
 words, applied their minds to the subject. To us 
 at the present time it is especially curious to notice 
 that almost all the arguments used nowadays on 
 the one side or the other, were used again and 
 again in these pamphlets, that most of the remedies 
 proposed nowadays were proposed in substance one 
 and even two hundred years ago. The causes 
 alleged for the increase of pauperism were almost 
 identical with those which we hear nowadays from 
 every platform, and which we read of in every 
 publication upon the subject on the one side the 
 "engrossing of farms," or, in other words, the 
 consolidation of landed property, the cruelty of the 
 rich, the substitution of machinery for hand labour, 
 and even foreign competition ; on the other, drink, 
 imprudence, idleness, and the relaxation of discipline. 
 What strikes one chiefly about it all, and that with 
 a feeling of despair, is the want of finality, the 
 constant fluctuation of opinion, and the never- 
 ending action and reaction. 
 
 It is clear that the second object of the 
 Elizabethan Poor Law, namely, the " setting of the 
 poor to work," was, probably owing to its inherent
 
 CREATION OF WORK FOR THE UNEMPLOYED 21 
 
 difficulty, allowed gradually to lapse early in the 
 day over a great part of the country, and the easier 
 method of relieving the poor by allowances of 
 money without labour, adopted in its place. This, 
 as will presently appear, was rather the fault of the 
 system than of the administration, though it is 
 constantly alleged as a ground of complaint by 
 a succession of writers. The experience of 300 
 years has shown the impossibility of creating work 
 for the unemployed outside of that which is required 
 by the economic demands of the community. 
 Towards the end of the eighteenth century, parish 
 authorities were reduced to such expedients as 
 making men stand in the parish pound for so many 
 hours, or of making them dig holes and fill them 
 up again, as a condition of relief. The Central 
 Unemployed Body is at the present time confronted 
 with similar difficulties. Generally speaking, the 
 system became one of outdoor relief either entirely 
 without labour or coupled with labour which was 
 purely nominal and absolutely useless. 
 
 It is not proposed to do more than to glance at 
 a few of the pamphlets in question, which have 
 special interest either from the eminence of the 
 writers, or intrinsically. It may be interesting to 
 note that, even before the Elizabethan Poor Law, 
 as early as 1552, there was complaint of the 
 " intolerable hurts to the nation from tippling 
 houses," and "tippling in alehouses" was made an 
 offence by a statute of James I. A pamphlet 
 published in 1614, entitled " England's Way to Win 
 Wealth," contains a project for the establish- 
 ment of herring fishing as a means of employing 
 the poor, and concludes, "wherefore, seeing that 
 we can excel all other nations wastefully to 
 spend money, let us in one thing learn from other 
 nations to get thousands out of His Majesty's 
 seas."
 
 22 POOR RELIEF IN ENGLAND 
 
 In 1622 a pamphlet called "Grievous Grones 
 of the Poore by a Well-wisher who wisheth that 
 the Poor of England might be so provided for that 
 none need go a-begging," complains that the 
 statutes were not enforced. " Though the number 
 of these poore do daily increase . . . many of these 
 parishes turneth forth their poore, yea, and their 
 lustie beggars that will not worke ... to begge, 
 filche, and steale for their maintenance, so that the 
 country is pitifully pestered." 
 
 In 1646 there was published "Stanleyes Remedy, 
 or How to Reform Wandering Beggars, etc. ; 
 wherein is showed that Sodomes Sin of Idleness 
 is the Poverty and Misery of this Kingdom." 
 This pamphlet is entitled " The Cantation and 
 Conversion of Mr Stanley, formerly an Innes of 
 Court gentleman ; he afterwards by lewd company 
 became a highway robber. Having his life pardoned, 
 he loaths his wicked course of life, and writes to 
 King James shewing a meanes and remedy by 
 which the poore of this Kingdom may be greatly 
 relieved by means of workhouses in all cities and 
 parishes ; and how by this means wandering, 
 beggary, idleness, and a certainly shameful end, will 
 be prevented amongst manie." 
 
 In 1669 Sir Joseph Child published his "Dis- 
 course on Trade." He conceives that the " sad and 
 wretched condition of the poor " is owing to a radical 
 defect in the laws, and proposes to set up " Fathers 
 of the poor after the manner of the Familiars of the 
 Inquisition in Spain." A pamphlet of 1673 entitled 
 "The Grand Concern of England Explained" 
 estimates the poor rate at ,840,000. This it says 
 " is employed only to maintain idle persons. Doth 
 great hurt rather than good. Makes a world of 
 poor more than there would otherwise have been 
 . . . men and women growing so proud and idle 
 that they will not work but lie upon the parish
 
 FIRMIN'S WORKHOUSE 23 
 
 where they dwell for maintenance." It proposed 
 that instead of giving parish allowances both old 
 and young should be set to work upon spinning, 
 weaving, lacework, etc. It further ascribes the 
 increase of the poor to the introduction of stage- 
 coaches and consequent decrease of employment 
 in connection with saddle-horses, an argument 
 which foreshadows numerous arguments as to 
 the effects of the introduction of machinery in 
 later times. 
 
 In 1677 one Andrew Garranton proposes a 
 heavy duty upon foreign commodities as a means of 
 giving employment to the poor. The title of his 
 work is " England's improvement by land and sea. 
 How to outdo the Dutch without righting, to pay 
 debts without money, to set at work all the poor 
 in England with the growth of our own lands." 
 Andrew Garranton was the first of the Tariff 
 Reformers. 
 
 Thomas Firmin, a philanthropic merchant of 
 London, published in 1678 a letter to Archbishop 
 Tillotson on "proposals for employing the poor." 
 He had established a house of industry in Alders- 
 gate in which he laid up "hemp and flax" for 
 spinning and weaving, which he commends for 
 imitation. He answers various hypothetical ob- 
 jections to his scheme, but there is one which he 
 confesses himself unable to answer, viz., how to 
 dispose of the manufactured goods. Sir F. Eden 
 tells us that Firmin's workhouse had not a prolonged 
 existence. Four years later Firmin confesses that 
 it had "not been able to bear its own charges," and 
 had been largely supported by charitable people. 
 One feature of his scheme was that the work should 
 be done in people's own homes. It would be 
 "altogether unreasonable and unprofitable to bring 
 people to a public workhouse," an early anticipation 
 of the aversion to indoor relief. Firmin would
 
 24 
 
 " badge " all parish poor, " by virtue of which badge 
 they are permitted to go into the parish at such an 
 hour of the day and receive such broken bread and 
 meat as their neighbours have to give . . . neither 
 should these poor people go under such a dishonour- 
 able name as beggars but be called invited guests." 
 A similar objection is now often raised against the 
 use of the name "pauper." 
 
 About the same time Sir Matthew Hale 
 published " A Discourse touching Provision for 
 the Poor." Of the Act of Elizabeth he makes the 
 pithy remark, " The plaster is not so large as 
 the sore." 
 
 In 1685 Dr Davenant, in co-operation with 
 Gregory King, the statistician of the day, pub- 
 lished his political essays. He points out that 
 "one limb of the body politic is drawing away 
 the nourishment from the other," and that " the 
 poor laws seem only to encourage vice and sloth in 
 the nation." He proposes the formation of a 
 corporation with a capital of ^"300,000 for employ- 
 ing the poor. 
 
 John Locke, the author of the " Essay upon the 
 Human Understanding," was asked to draw up a 
 report upon the subject for the Board of Trade in 
 1697. The "multiplying of the poor and the 
 increase of the poor rate," he says, "has proceeded 
 neither from scarcity of provisions nor from want of 
 employment since God has blessed these times with 
 plenty ... it can be nothing else but the relaxation 
 of discipline and the corruption of manners." The 
 chief remedy proposed by him are "working schools " 
 for the children of the poor, with maintenance for 
 children between three and fourteen years of age. 
 Of his proposals Eden says a hundred years later 
 " that they will at least afford this consolation to the 
 many patriotic, though unsuccessful, philanthropists 
 who since his time have attempted the arduous work
 
 DUNNING'S "BREAD FOR THE POOR" 25 
 
 of repairing this portion of the legislative fabric, 
 that even so great a man as Mr Locke attempted it 
 to but little purpose." 
 
 Richard Dunning, a Devonshire gentleman, 
 published at Exeter in 1696 a pamphlet " Bread for 
 the Poor." He points out that in some Devonshire 
 parishes the poor rate " had in a few years advanced 
 from 405. to ^40 and was likely to double in a short 
 time." The cause of this, he says, is (i) profuseness 
 of diet, paupers drinking nothing but strong beer, 
 and bread of the finest wheat flour; (2) idleness. 
 " Persons receiving parish pay presently become idle 
 alledging that the parish is bound to maintain them, 
 and that in case they should work it would only 
 favour the parish, from whom they say they shall 
 have no thanks." His pamphlet is of special 
 interest because it is one of the first which definitely 
 advocates the adoption of the workhouse test 
 "Careless surly sorts," he says, "now (that is to 
 say when offered admission) find themselves at a 
 loss : they must either humour and comply with the 
 tradesmen who have stocks and serve them, or 
 work in the workhouses and submit to that 
 government. Being reduced to that dilemma 
 they will choose the first and rather comply 
 with a master of their own choosing than of the 
 Mayor's." 
 
 A Mr Gary of Bristol about two years later 
 published an " Essay on Employing the Poor" very 
 much upon the same lines. He, like Dunning, 
 ascribes the increase in the poor rates to idleness, 
 to alehouses and idle tippling, and " to games and 
 sports which draw men away from labour." He 
 proposes the establishment of workhouses as a 
 restraint upon idleness, and that rates be made with 
 more equality in cities and great towns, as under 
 existing conditions "their chief dependence must 
 be upon these but one step above their own
 
 26 POOR RELIEF IN ENGLAND 
 
 conditions." He is probably the earliest advocate 
 of equalisation of poor rates and the first to point 
 out that the burden of maintaining the paupers 
 falls chiefly upon the poor. Gary's description of 
 his own experience in Bristol where he took the 
 leading part in poor law reform, and of his diffi- 
 culties with the mayor and others has a curiously 
 modern flavour ; similar difficulties are now met 
 with every day by poor law reformers. His efforts 
 resulted in "a great abatement" of the number of 
 the poor, but the workhouse was not financially 
 successful, and in three years made a loss of 
 .600. 
 
 Towards the end of the seventeenth century 
 and at the beginning of the eighteenth there was a 
 reaction in the direction of indoor relief which was 
 probably chiefly due to the examples at Exeter and 
 Bristol. Up to this time the word workhouse was 
 ambiguous. It might either be a place from which 
 work was given out to be done in the home as was 
 the case with that of Thomas Firmin, or it might 
 be a place in which the poor received their board 
 in return for work done or by way of maintenance. 
 From this time forward the word began gradually 
 to be accepted in the latter sense. Shortly after- 
 wards many other places followed suit with work- 
 houses upon the Bristol lines. In 1725 "an 
 account of several workhouses " was published by 
 Mr Matthew Marryett of Olney in Bucks, who 
 was the chief mover in the matter. The effect of 
 these workhouses in reducing rates was immediate 
 and striking, and showed itself in all cases within 
 two or three years. 
 
 In St Andrews, Holborn, the rates fell from ,1000 to ,750 
 St Paul's, Bedford . 300 177 
 
 West Ham the rates were reduced by one half 
 St Albans the rates fell from . . 566 200 
 
 Kernel Hempstead the rates fell from . 730 388 
 
 Chatham . 845 574
 
 DEFOE'S "GIVING ALMS NO CHARITY 11 27 
 
 In Maidstone the rates fell from . . .1062 to 530 
 
 Tunbridge . . 570 , 380 
 
 Market Harborough the rates fell from 170 , 100 
 
 St Martins, Leicester 200 , loo 
 
 Bradford-on-Avon 700 , 400 
 
 Chertsey 595 , 395 
 Bristol they paid off debts and saved ^3000 
 
 Of these workhouses Eden says that "they 
 spurred on many to labour for a livelihood who 
 would not work as long as they were permitted to 
 receive a weekly allowance from the parish." In 
 Beverly, Yorkshire, of 116 receiving parish pay 
 only eight came in when the out-relief was stopped. 
 In Oxford the rates were reduced one-half, and a 
 contemporary writer says "some who received alms 
 of the parish appear to have money of their own 
 and strive to work to keep themselves out of 
 these (as they call them) confinements." By an j 
 Act of George I. the overseers were authorised I 
 to refuse other relief to those who declined the 
 workhouse. 
 
 In 1704 Daniel Defoe presented a petition to 
 Parliament entitled " Giving Alms no Charity and 
 employing the Poor a Grievance to the Nation." 
 Recent legislation, he urges, has been mischievous 
 to the nation, tending to the "destruction of our 
 trade and to increase the number and misery of the 
 poor." He contends that the object of all states- 
 manship should be to enable men to live by their 
 labour and to raise the poor out of their poverty. 
 He points out that good husbandry is "no English 
 virtue." The English are "the most 'lazy diligent' 
 people in the world. . . . The English get estates, 
 the Dutch save them, an Englishman earns 2Os. 
 a week and just lives, a Dutchman grows rich and 
 leaves his children in a good position. An English- 
 man works till he has his pockets full of money and 
 will then go and be idle, or perhaps drunk, till it is 
 all gone. . . . From hence comes poverty, parish 
 
 F
 
 28 POOR RELIEF IN ENGLAND 
 
 charges, and beggary." The real cure is to make 
 drunkards take care of wife and children ; spend- 
 thrifts lay up for a wet day ; idle, lazy fellows 
 diligent ; and thoughtless, sottish men provident." 
 If this were done there would be no need to 
 " transpose our manufactures and confound our 
 trade. . . . For every skein of worsted spun in a 
 workhouse there must be a skein the less spun by 
 some poor person or family that spun it before . . . 
 to set poor people to work in the same thing that 
 other poor people are employed upon before is 
 giving to one what you take away from another, 
 putting a vagabond in the honest man's employ- 
 ment." Defoe was the first to lay his finger upon 
 the central difficulty of manufactured employment, 
 which is even now very imperfectly understood by 
 the public in general. It is a difficulty which has 
 been very obvious to all those who are engaged in 
 the administration of the Unemployed Workmen's 
 Act. 
 
 The next writer of note who dealt with the 
 question was Mandeville, who in 1733 published 
 "The Fable of the Bees," in which he attacks 
 Charity Schools, which were the favourite panacea 
 of his day. He anticipates the present reaction 
 against purely intellectual education. Education, 
 he says, should fit a man for his position in life, and 
 his language is vigorous. " Going to school is, in 
 comparison with working, idleness, and the longer 
 boys continue in this easy sort of life the more 
 unfit they will be when grown up for downright 
 labour both as to strength and inclination." More- 
 over, "the poor have nothing to stir them up to 
 labour but their wants, which it is wisdom to relieve 
 but folly to cure." 
 
 Henry Fielding, police magistrate and novelist, 
 wrote in 1754 his " Enquiry into the Causes of the 
 late Increase of Robbers," with a chapter upon the
 
 FIELDING ON THE 43RD ELIZABETH 29 
 
 Poor Laws. He says, "It must be a matter of 
 astonishment that in a country where the poor are 
 beyond all comparison more liberally provided for 
 than in any other part of the habitable globe there 
 should be found more beggars, more distress and 
 miserable objects than are to be seen throughout 
 all the states of Europe." He quotes, though not 
 to agree with him, the opinion of a Mr Shaw a 
 forerunner of Mr Bernard Shaw? which is to this 
 effect: "There are few, if any, nations where the 
 poor are more neglected or in a more scandalous 
 nasty condition than in England, whether this is 
 owing to that natural inbred cruelty for which 
 Englishmen are so much noted amongst foreigners 
 or to that medley of religions which are so plentifully 
 sown and so carefully cherished, amongst us, who 
 think it enough to take care of themselves and take 
 a secret pride and pleasure in the poverty and 
 distresses of those of another persuasion." Fielding, 
 like Defoe, is of opinion that the cause of the evil 
 is to be found in the "improper regulating" of the 
 poor. He says that the second object of the 43rd 
 Elizabeth, namely the employment of those able to 
 work, has never been carried out. "To say the 
 truth, as this law hath been perverted in execution 
 it were perhaps to be wished that it had never been 
 made." Unlike Defoe he believes that it is possible 
 to find work for the poor, though he admits its great 
 difficulty. In a subsequent pamphlet he produced 
 a scheme for the construction of huge workhouses 
 which does not appear to have received any atten- 
 tion from the legislature. Of the existing poor 
 rate he says that it is a question whether the rich 
 or poor are more dissatisfied since "the plunder 
 of the one sends so little to the real advantage of 
 the other, for while a million yearly is raised from 
 the former many of the latter are starved, many more 
 languish on in want and misery." In another
 
 30 POOR RELIEF IN ENGLAND 
 
 chapter he speaks of a "new kind of drunkenness 
 unknown to our ancestors which is lately sprung 
 up amongst us and which if not put a stop to will 
 infallibly destroy a great part of the inferior people 
 that, namely, which is acquired by the strongest 
 intoxicating liquors and particularly of that poison 
 called gin." 
 
 In 1761 we come across another aspect of the 
 question. In that year an Act was passed for the 
 registration of children under four years of age 
 received into workhouses. The Act was passed 
 largely owing to the exertions of a Mr Hanway, 
 the mortality amongst parish children at that time 
 being enormous. Mr Hanway gives instances in 
 which every child received into workhouses under 
 a twelvemonth old had died within the year. Child 
 desertion reached an appalling figure owing to the 
 facilities provided by the Poor Law and by the 
 Foundling Hospital. Of the latter we are told 
 that the admissions increased from 100 in 1756 to 
 4000 in 1760. "Infants were sent to them from 
 villages 50, 100, or even 200 miles distant." The 
 conditions were the same in Paris, where they had 
 their Hospices des Enfants Trouves. Of 18,000 
 children baptised in Paris in 1768, 6000 were 
 received in the Foundling Hospital. Arthur 
 Young tells us that of 100,000 received in this 
 manner in sixteen years, only 15,000 survived. 
 Speaking of Foundling Hospitals, he says that 
 they "encourage that vicious procreation which from 
 its misery will not deserve the name of population 
 . . . an encouragement of vice and inhumanity, and 
 a public premium given to the banishment of the 
 best feelings of human nature." Child desertion is 
 still a very burning question, as everyone who has 
 administered the Poor Law will know, but at least 
 we can say that we have nothing approaching such 
 conditions in these days. Infantile mortality is
 
 VARIOUS PAMPHLETS ON THE POOR LAW 31 
 
 also a serious question, which is now engaging a 
 large part of the public attention, but here again 
 we can say that the present conditions are as 
 dust in the balance compared with those of 150 
 years ago. 
 
 In 1764 Dr Burn published his "History of 
 the Poor Laws " : his proposals contain little that 
 is new except that it should be made a penal 
 offence to give money to beggars. 
 
 In 1772 Baron Maseres published a " Proposal 
 for establishing Life Annuities in Parishes for the 
 Comfort of the Poor," upon a contributary basis, 
 and his scheme is very similar to that put forward 
 by Mr Chamberlain some years ago, so we see 
 that there is nothing new even about Old Age 
 Pensions. 
 
 Lord Kames, the Scottish judge, published his 
 "Sketches of the History of Man" in 1774, and in 
 them deals with the Poor Law question. " If," 
 he says, "it should be reported of some foreign 
 nation that the burden of maintaining the idle and 
 profligate is laid upon the frugal and industrious 
 who work hard for a maintenance for themselves, 
 what would we think of such a nation ? Yet this 
 is literally the case in England." 
 
 Only one more pamphlet remains to be noted, 
 and that because it takes a different view of the 
 causes of the increase of the poor from all the 
 other writers cited. It is entitled "An Investiga- 
 tion of Mr Pitt's Speech," and was written by a 
 Mr Hewlett and published about 1796. Mr Hewlett 
 denies that the Poor Laws have had the effect 
 attributed to them. He quotes the old song : 
 
 " Hang sorrow, cast away care, 
 The parish is bound to maintain us," 
 
 in order to contend that no one but "a sot in his 
 cups " would be influenced by such motives. The
 
 32 POOR RELIEF IN ENGLAND 
 
 increase of the poor he attributes partly to the 
 increase in the price of provisions and partly to 
 the growth of Methodism. Sir F. Eden's comment 
 upon Mr Hewlett's views is as follows: "The 
 real case, however, is that in every part of England, 
 I had almost said in every parish, instances may 
 be found of persons preferring a pension from the 
 parish and a life of idleness to hard work and 
 good wages." 
 
 Towards the end of the eighteenth century 
 the value of Friendly Societies began first to be 
 appreciated. In 1784 Mr Acland published a 
 scheme for partly compulsory insurance through 
 Friendly Societies, or " Box Clubs " as they were 
 then called. Sir F. Eden devotes a special chapter 
 to this subject of Friendly Societies, whose object 
 he defines to be " that by an association of the 
 many the few may be assisted, and to promote the 
 most laudable of charities that of securing to the 
 industrious, from the surplus or part of the surplus 
 of their savings, an equivalent reserve during their 
 incapacity to labour." Sir F. Eden's approval of 
 Friendly Societies has found abundant justification 
 in the history of the nineteenth century. All 
 
 \experience shows that it is comparatively rare for 
 members of a Friendly Society to apply for relief 
 to the parish. He says, "Whether Friendly 
 Societies will eventually contribute to reduce the 
 poor rate the limited extent of my enquiries does 
 not allow me peremptorily to decide. That, 
 however, these institutions increase the comfort 
 of the labouring classes who belong to them will 
 be evident by comparing the condition of those 
 who are members of them and those in the same 
 parish who are contented to rely upon the parish 
 for relief. The former are in general cleanly, 
 orderly, and sober, and consequently good and 
 happy members of society, while the latter live
 
 GILBERT'S ACT 1782 33 
 
 in filth and wretchedness, and are often by 
 the pressure of casual sickness or accident, which 
 incapacitates them from working, tempted to the 
 commission of improper acts, not to say crimes, 
 against which the sure resource of a Benefit Club 
 would have been the best preservation." These 
 words are as literally true to-day as when they 
 were written. Any visitor amongst the poor can 
 judge of this for himself. The member of a 
 permanent Friendly Society though not, perhaps, 
 of a sharing-out club is altogether on a higher 
 plane, and has taken the first step upwards out 
 of the crowd. 
 
 In 1782 a measure was passed which had 
 momentous consequences and contributed more 
 than anything else to bring matters to a head. 
 It has already been pointed out that in various 
 parts of England and at various times, but 
 especially towards the end of the seventeenth 
 century, the utility of what is now known as the 
 workhouse test as a restraint upon pauperism had 
 been proved by experience. In the early years of 
 George I. an Act was passed sanctioning the 
 unconditional offer of admission to the poorhouse 
 for as yet workhouses, as they are now under- 
 stood, were few and far between. By 1782 the 
 pendulum had swung in the opposite direction, and 
 the Act passed in that year, usually known as 
 Gilbert's Act, provided that no one should be sent 
 to a workhouse who was physically capable of 
 labour. That Act may be looked upon as the 
 removal of the last barrier against the onrush of 
 pauperism. From that time forwards the pace 
 became fast and furious. The rates, which in 
 1785 were ,1,912,000 per annum rose in 1817 
 to .7,870,891. Statistics of pauperism there were 
 none except such as can be extracted from old 
 parish books which were often ill-kept, but there
 
 34 POOR RELIEF IN ENGLAND 
 
 can be no doubt that at least in the south and 
 west of England nearly the whole agricultural 
 population was on the rates. Land was fast 
 going out of cultivation because it no longer paid 
 to work it. The misery of the poor became more 
 and more intense, as anyone who reads the history 
 of the time, such as the writings of Arthur Young, 
 William Cobbett, or Harriet Martineau, can see 
 for themselves. At last, in 1832, the Royal Com- 
 mission was appointed whose Report was the basis 
 of the new Poor Law. The Commissioners, at 
 least, were quite clear in their views as to the 
 causes of the evil. The poor rate, they say, had 
 up to that time "been applied to purposes opposed 
 to the letter and still more to the spirit of the 
 Elizabethan Poor Law and destructive to the 
 morals of the most numerous class and the welfare 
 of all." All incentives to industry and self-reliance 
 had been removed by the fact that the working 
 classes could claim as a right to be supported at 
 their homes out of the rates. "The aim of the 
 old Poor Law had been to attempt to repeal pro 
 tanto that law of nature by which the effects of a 
 man's improvidence or misconduct are borne by 
 himself and his family. The result of that attempt 
 had been to repeal pro tanto the law by which 
 each man and his family enjoy the benefit of his 
 prudence and exertion. In abolishing punishment 
 we abolish reward." The principles laid down by 
 the Commissioners as essential to a proper admini- 
 stration of public relief are : 
 
 (a] That the position of the pauper should be 
 less eligible than that of the lowest class of 
 independent labourer who has to bear the 
 charges. 
 
 (?) That the functions of State relief should be 
 limited to the relief of destitution, such destitution
 
 POOR LAW LITERATURE 1602 TO 1834 35 
 
 to be tested by the willingness to enter a workhouse 
 or institution. 
 
 (c) That remedial relief, as opposed to the 
 relief of destitution, should be left to voluntary 
 charity. 
 
 The above is a rough sketch of some of the 
 literature dealing with Poor Law questions between 
 1602 and 1834. Much has been omitted, and 
 especially that which deals with the period 
 immediately preceding the Act of 1834. For the 
 conditions of that time, we must refer to the 
 Report of the Commissioners itself, concerning 
 which it is of the utmost importance that every one 
 should inform himself. The literature of the earlier 
 period is not so well known or so easily attainable. 
 Nevertheless, it is of great importance to any one 
 who will follow the evolution of the subject, and 
 will apply it as a test to many questions which are 
 now before the public. Scrappy and disjointed as 
 it is, there is yet a thread running through it, 
 which, if rightly followed, will give the clue to the 
 way out of many difficulties. There are several 
 points which especially call for attention. The 
 first and most important is that of the effect of 
 relief upon character, an effect which is as potent 
 to-day as it was a hundred years ago, as it has been 
 through all history. Next, we must observe the 
 gradually growing conviction that in all public relief 
 there must be an element of deterrence, and some 
 check or test as an alternative to a general 
 pauperism. It was long before even this much 
 was understood ; it was longer before reformers hit 
 upon the solution of what is now known as the 
 " workhouse test," of which Mr Gary at Bristol was 
 the first important exponent. The principle was 
 decisively adopted by legislation of George I., and 
 as decisively rejected by legislation of George III.
 
 36 POOR RELIEF IN ENGLAND 
 
 It was finally adopted by the Commission of 1834, 
 and remains the underlying principle of the English 
 Poor Law. The principle more fully stated is 
 as follows, viz., that, whereas nature ordains that 
 a man must either support himself or starve, no 
 civilised community can, for its own sake and 
 credit, allow such an extremity of hardship. On 
 the contrary, all will agree that the necessaries of 
 life must be provided for every one who is in 
 need of them ; but that they must, so far as the 
 State is concerned, be given upon terms, and the 
 terms hitherto accepted as the basis of our Poor 
 Law have been the conditions laid down by the 
 Commission of 1834. There must be devised 
 somehow an element of deterrence in public relief, 
 and the Poor Law must be, as the Commissioners 
 put it, " centrifugal, not centripetal." We had 200 
 years of a centripetal Poor Law, with results which 
 may be summed up in a sentence, " ruin to the 
 poor, ruin to the country." Another point of some 
 importance which stands out from a study of these 
 pamphlets is that, for almost 200 years, every writer 
 except Daniel Defoe, and perhaps Sir F. Eden, 
 seems to have believed, in spite of constant failure, 
 i in the possibility of making artificial work. The 
 belief in its possibility is apparently as strong as 
 ever at the present moment. All the best wits 
 of nearly three centuries have applied their minds 
 to the problem, but no one hitherto has been able 
 to supply a solution. The authors of the Unemployed 
 Workmen's Act are in no better plight. All the 
 old difficulties are recurring ; all the old fallacies are 
 being put forward as new ideas ; many of the old 
 failures are being renewed under the guise of 
 "experiments," and all the old arguments on either 
 side repeated almost ad nauseam. After the lapse 
 of yet another century, we may once more recall 
 the words of Sir F. Eden, "that it will at least
 
 JOHN LOCKE'S FAILURE 37 
 
 afford satisfaction to the many patriotic but 
 unsuccessful philanthropists who have attempted 
 to repair this portion of the legislative fabric, that 
 even so great a man as John Locke attempted it 
 with but little success."
 
 SOME EARLY HISTORY OF POOR 
 RELIEF IN PARIS. 1 
 
 A BOOK has just appeared containing an account of 
 the evolution of poor relief in Paris, which is of 
 great interest to students. It is only brought up 
 to 1850. " Later events are still too near to us to 
 be judged impartially." 
 
 The history of poor relief in a city which has in 
 a hundred years passed through four revolutions 
 and has thrice been occupied by a foreign army, is 
 necessarily somewhat abnormal. Still we can trace 
 in it many features which are common to the 
 question in almost all countries at all ages. We 
 see economic laws, set at defiance, again asserting 
 themselves and then again gradually losing their 
 force. We see a constant struggle between antagon- 
 istic theories of poor relief and repeated attempts to 
 carry out the creed of the droits de Fkomme. We see 
 these attempts as often defeated by the logic of 
 circumstances and a return to the principle of 
 voluntarism, which has in fact remained the under- 
 lying principle of French poor relief. The difficulties 
 of the position have been intensified again and 
 again by the misery caused by revolutions, sieges, 
 and occupations, and consequent paralysis of trade 
 and commerce. The study of the question has 
 
 1 " Simples notes sur 1'organisation des secours publics k Paris," 
 par Albert Mauger, ancien archiviste de 1'assistance publique. Paris : 
 H. Didier.
 
 EARLY CHURCH AND RELIEF 39 
 
 been complicated by gaps in the records caused by 
 internal disorders such as the pillage of the Arch- 
 evche in 1830, and the burning of State papers 
 during the Commune of 1871. 
 
 The history divides itself roughly into two 
 periods that prior to the great revolution and that 
 subsequent to it. Both are of the greatest interest 
 to modern students. 
 
 In France, as in England, in early days the relief 
 of the poor was in the hands of the Church. The 
 earliest foundation was that of the Hotel Dieu, 
 whose duty it was " ouvrir ses bras comme ceux de 
 la Providence a quiconque frappait a sa porte." 
 But soon the struggle began between clergy and 
 laity ; as far back as 1559 there were loud complaints 
 of the " mauvais traitements que font les religieuses, 
 prieures et sous-prieures, aux pauvres malades y 
 affluant tellement qu'a raison de ce (sic) plusieurs 
 malades ne veulent pas aller au dit Hotel Dieu, ce 
 qui est un grand scandale," and a petition to the 
 King and Parliament prayed for a reduction of the 
 " great and excessive expense of the institution," and 
 complained of the " presence in the halls of pretended 
 convalescents, irregular officials who are a useless 
 expense to the house, and for whom are reserved 
 the wines and delicacies which ought to go to those 
 who are most grievously ill." Moreover, the duties 
 of the hospital nun do not consist in "endless 
 services and reunions of the community," but 
 should be "at the pillow of the sick poor and not 
 in the chapel and refectory." The constant feasting 
 of those charged with these duties became a byword, 
 and earned for them the name of the " Confrerie des 
 goulous " of so early a date is the association of 
 poor relief with feasting ! In one direction at least 
 the community appear to have been successful 
 though they received all without distinction of faith, 
 " no Jew or heretic ever died there without abjuring
 
 40 POOR RELIEF IN PARIS 
 
 his errors. Thus visibly does Heaven bless so holy 
 a house." 
 
 In 1566 the Grand Bureau des Pauvres was 
 formed at the Council of Paris. Under it the infirm 
 poor were placed at the charge of their parish, and 
 in 1616 we find the indigents of the Grand Bureau 
 wearing a red and yellow cross on their shoulder, 
 as later in England in the reign of William III. 
 The Grand Bureau distributed "pain d'aumdne" 
 on Sunday after mass. In 1640, however, we hear 
 of "prodigious disorders," and some "private 
 individuals of great virtue were touched at the 
 deplorable state of the souls of these poor unhappy 
 Christians : as for their bodies, however afflicted 
 they appeared, they were not real objects of com- 
 passion, as they found in the alms of the people 
 more than was sufficient for their wants and even 
 for their debauches ; but their souls, plunged in 
 total ignorance of religion and in extreme corruption 
 of morals, gave the utmost grief to persons animated 
 with zeal for their salvation." These conditions led 
 to the foundation of the Hdpital General by Louis 
 XIV., composed of the Pitie\ Bicetre, Scipion, 
 the Salpetriere, and others. The edict under which 
 it was founded, after reciting the " libertinage " of 
 the beggars of the city, forbids begging under the 
 severest penalties, and orders the " renfermement " 
 of the poor unable to support themselves. It was 
 announced from the pulpit, in all the parishes, that 
 the Hopital Ge"ne"ral would be open on 7th May 
 1657, for the poor who wished to enter it of their 
 own will, and the magistrates, by public crier, 
 forbade people to ask for alms in Paris. On the 
 1 4th " I'enfermement des pauvres fut accompli sans 
 aucune emotion." As the result "all Paris on that 
 day changed its face : the greater part of the beggars 
 withdrew to the provinces, the wiser began to think 
 of earning their living without begging, and the
 
 ENFANTS TROUVES 41 
 
 more infirm entered the institutions of their own 
 accord," a result which recalls the effects of the 
 workhouse test under the new Poor Law. 
 
 From quite early times there were various 
 institutions for children, but the orphanages were 
 small and in the main reserved for legitimate 
 children. It fell to St Vincent de Paul, Curd of 
 Clichy de Varenne, to establish the work of the 
 enfants trouvds through the churches. The scallop 
 shells still to be seen at the doors of many churches, 
 now used as holy water holders, were originally 
 intended for the reception of children abandoned by 
 their parents. No questions were asked " enquetes 
 prealables qui poussaient a 1'infanticide." There was 
 only one requirement "la misere et 1'abandon." 
 In 1641 there were 220 of these deserted children, 
 in 1772 there were 7680. Then came a temporary 
 reaction. At that time, " 1'hospice vit arriver a sa 
 porte dans les coches d'eau et dans les coches de 
 terre un grand nombre d'enfants de la banlieue 
 et de la province qui denus d'allaitement souvent 
 depuis plus d'une journde mouraient sans reprendre 
 de forces." Accordingly, there were repeated decrees 
 forbidding coachmen and wagoners from bringing 
 new-born children into the town. The well-known 
 "tour" or turning-box, from 1826 to 1859, was a 
 later development of the work of the enfants trouvds. 
 The maximum number received by it was 3200 
 in 1838. Since then, the system of admission "a 
 bureau ouvert," under which the mother reveals her 
 identity and " secours pour prevenir 1'abandon " is 
 granted, has been the ordinary method of dealing 
 with the question. The number of deserted children 
 in Paris is still enormous. The usual method of 
 dealing with them has been, from quite early times, 
 to board them out in the country. Here, again, it 
 is interesting to see that many of the difficulties 
 which beset boarding out in this country have
 
 42 POOR RELIEF IN PARIS 
 
 manifested themselves abroad. The character of 
 those who took these children were often more than 
 doubtful " many of the children died, and those 
 who survived went out to beg with their foster- 
 parents as soon as they could walk." The problem 
 of restoring to the country a town-bred population 
 has, says M. Mauger, met with a "succes tres 
 relatif."' 
 
 Some of the children were maintained in 
 orphanages inside Paris, and of them we read that 
 they were frequently "hired out to attend funerals." 
 
 The organisation of the hospitals in the pre- 
 revolutionary period, and even later, was extremely 
 defective. In the old Hotel Dieu, as many as 
 sixteen patients slept in a bed, the bed itself being 
 an enormous wooden structure, frequently a " two- 
 decker." All sorts of diseases were mixed together : 
 sanitation was a minus quantity. Even in these 
 days, however, there were some which showed signs 
 of better things. The Hopital de Charite, for 
 instance, was infinitely better than the Hotel Dieu. 
 But, generally speaking, the conditions were 
 indescribably bad. Treatment was in some cases 
 disciplinary. Those whose diseases were due to 
 their own misconduct were subjected to treatment 
 of which "le premier soin tait le supplice humiliant 
 de flagellation." Our infirmaries and public 
 hospitals at the present time are full of patients 
 whose diseases are due to drink and other forms of 
 vice, and perhaps disciplinary treatment of some 
 kind might be desirable in such cases, though 
 possibly not in the form of ''flagellation." The 
 grievance of the ratepayers is a serious one. 
 
 We now come to the second period the period 
 of the Revolution and after. The Convention 
 formed a Comite de Mendicite which had but a 
 brief existence. "Its ideas, its reports, were 
 directed to a project for the organisation of national
 
 THE REVOLUTION AND RELIEF 43 
 
 relief prescribed by the ' Rights of Man,' one 
 which was never realised ... its extravagant aims 
 were in the past, and still remain, the greatest 
 obstacle to practical solutions." 
 
 At the time of the Revolution there were forty- 
 eight hospitals and hospices in Paris. The 
 National Assembly declared them all public 
 property in 1793 and took over their administra- 
 tion. An Administrative Commission of seven 
 members was formed in the same year. In the 
 following three years the personnel was changed 
 twenty-two times. The rapid succession of events 
 rendered their work barren. Depression of paper 
 money, stoppage of trade, deprivation of property, 
 and loss of confidence, the consequence of com- 
 pulsory alienation, rendered direct administration 
 impossible, and finally the work was handed over 
 to "greedy contractors." 
 
 The first administrators under the Revolution 
 directed their attention to the centralisation and 
 consolidation of the various foundations. M. 
 Mauger emphatically approves this part of their 
 work. The only grave fault, he says, that we can 
 ascribe to them is the "revival of the 'ateliers de 
 charite ' which, created in the reigns of Francis I. 
 and Henry II., had produced detestable results." 
 After a few months, public beneficence had to 
 support "43,000 individuals always discontented 
 with their lot, always ready to disturb the public 
 peace. After having made them carry out all the 
 work possible in Paris the demolition of the 
 Bastille, repair of the roads, cleaning of the Seine 
 and its banks, digging of the St Martin Canal, 
 etc. they were obliged to look out for other work 
 for them. . . . They thought of the digging of 
 canals, the cultivation of certain barren cantons of 
 the centre and the west, but the workmen left the 
 yards and the terror in Paris only increased." The 
 
 H
 
 44 POOR RELIEF IN PARIS 
 
 experience gained at that time, however, did not 
 prevent the formation of the "ateliers nationaux" 
 in 1848. And we in England are passing through 
 a similar crisis. At the end of the great Revolu- 
 tion, the only remaining public forms of "assistance 
 par travail" were the "filature des indigents" for 
 women and the Maison de Scipion for the making 
 of bread both upon a very small scale and of 
 doubtful efficiency. 
 
 The Convention proclaimed the abolition of 
 private charity and individual almsgiving, but 
 having done so they had nothing to give in its 
 place. " Solidarite humaine" proved a sorry 
 substitute. The Government itself was almost 
 bankrupt owing to the destruction of public 
 confidence. 
 
 Meanwhile "the benevolent were robbed of the 
 dream of their life," that, namely, of helping their 
 fellow-creatures. "The poor lost their resource in 
 time of trouble, and men of sensibility the means 
 of satisfying their moral consciousness." 
 
 The creation of the Central Commission of 
 " Bienfaisance " was the one work of these early 
 administrators destined to last, and was the founda- 
 tion of the present system of outdoor relief in Paris. 
 The struggle between the theory of State v. 
 voluntary charity reappears in the word "bien- 
 faisance," which was substituted for the older 
 "charite," a word odious to the disciples of 
 Rousseau. The swing of the pendulum came in 
 1816 when the " bureaux de bienfaisance " became 
 once more "bureaux de charite" for a brief period. 
 In 1801 the Conseil-General des Hospices was 
 founded at the instance of the then Prefet of the 
 Seine ; its first members were men of great distinc- 
 tion, and the reorganisation of the various institu- 
 tions was for the first time placed upon a firm basis. 
 
 M. Duquesnoy, a member of the Conseil,
 
 DUQUESNOY ON "SECOURS A DOMICILE" 45 
 
 furnishes a valuable report upon " secours k 
 domicile." The needs of the indigent class, he 
 says, are, "first and foremost, education, primary, 
 moral, religious, and technical ; secondly, work ; 
 thirdly, relief . . . but mendicity must be repressed, 
 and even if that is not the duty of 'bienfaisance,' it 
 has a corresponding duty not to encourage the evil 
 by refusing relief; but to multiply relief without 
 discrimination is to increase the class of the poor. 
 Almsgiving is rarely beneficial, for whoever has 
 two arms and does not work, does not give back 
 to society that which he receives from her, and is 
 guilty if he has not put forth all his efforts to avoid 
 the necessity for begging. One must force the 
 professional beggar to work and help others to get 
 situations ; one must encourage those who earn 
 more than their needs to lay by for old age, and he 
 pleads with all earnestness for the creation of a 
 ' Caisse d'Epargne et de Prevoyance." We find 
 that at that time there were already trades unions 
 in Paris with sick benefit, the germ of the modern 
 French friendly societies. The pauperism of Paris, 
 however, appears to have been enormous. Statistics 
 taken at the time of the report of Duquesnoy (1793) 
 show a mean number of 116,000 paupers in a 
 population of 547,000. The means of diminishing 
 the excessive number of the indigent population 
 would be, he considered, to turn the Mont de 
 Piete into a savings bank. To show under one 
 direction the advantages of saving and the heavy 
 charges which overwhelm those who have not 
 known how to economise would be for the working 
 class a means of moral education of certain effect. 
 
 M. Pastoret's report of a little later date, cited 
 by M. Mauger, deals seriatim with the public 
 institutions of Paris, showing the enormous reforms 
 that were made immediately after the Revolution. 
 He ends his report upon the Salpetriere, the
 
 46 POOR RELIEF IN PARIS 
 
 principal lunatic asylum, with a curious though 
 irrelevant observation. " The great majority of the 
 cases of madness are due to neurotic causes, and 
 the violent cerebral excitement which followed the 
 Revolution has had opposite effects in the different 
 sexes. While the men were haunted with aristo- 
 cratic ideas, the women showed exaggerated aspira- 
 tions towards democracy and absolute equality." 
 There was, according to the same report, a remark- 
 able decline in the income of charitable foundations 
 between 1807 and 1813. "At that time the 
 recollection was still bitter of the measures by which 
 the Revolution, making no distinction between the 
 foundations, had applied them to purposes different 
 from those strictly laid down by the founders. . . . 
 The law of 3rd May 1803, submitting all donations 
 to the approbation of the Government, had not 
 calmed this uneasiness, and the decree of November 
 1813 had confirmed charitable donors in their 
 mistrust." 
 
 The next report cited is that of M. Camet de la 
 Bonnardiere, who deals with the period following 
 the retreat from Moscow and the occupation of 
 Paris. He draws a hideous picture of the sufferings 
 of the troops during the retreat on the capital, and 
 of the unpreparedness of the military administration. 
 Once again, private charity came to the rescue, 
 whilst the Government remained powerless. " Les 
 caisses 6taient vides et I'administration ne jouissait 
 d'aucun credit." The voluntary generosity of private 
 citizens provided 6000 hospital beds shared alike by 
 French soldiers and wounded prisoners of the 
 enemy. Then followed the invasion and occupa- 
 tion of Paris and the requisitions of the allies. 
 The population of the extemporised hospitals was 
 31,000. The administration entirely broke down, 
 and " les besoins qui se manifestaient chaque jour 
 n'auraient pas e"te satisfaits sans 1'inepuisable bien-
 
 ABOLITION OF PRIVATE CHARITY 47 
 
 faisance des habitants." Next came the " Hundred 
 Days" and the second invasion. " Blucher, carried 
 away by blind hatred, pursued without mercy the 
 wreck of the Grande Arme'e, forgetting that an 
 act of energy by a body of 60,000 men collected at 
 Laon might have turned his victory into disaster, 
 whilst Wellington, prudent and methodical, advanced 
 by short marches and invested Paris ten days after 
 the defeat of Waterloo." 
 
 After that we hear of the requisitions for the 
 troops sternly enforced by the English commander- 
 in-chief in spite of the protests of the Municipal 
 Council. " The Duke of Wellington, cold and 
 authoritative by nature, admitted no obstacle, per- 
 mitted no objection. The long resistance that he 
 had met with at Torres Vedras and the wonderful 
 retreat of the army of Spain, far from inspiring him 
 with sentiments of respect and pity for an unhappy 
 adversary, had developed in him, on the contrary, a 
 spirit of narrow nationality which takes pleasure in 
 crushing a defenceless foe." 
 
 M. Mauger writes with admirable precision and 
 clearness, and his researches must have involved 
 enormous labour. The book is professedly historical, 
 and M. Mauger disclaims repeatedly the intention 
 of discussing opposing theories. Still, in places, he 
 indicates very clearly his own opinions of the 
 revolutionary theory which would abolish private 
 charity he says : " Nous n'en avons pas a discuter, 
 nous n'avons que 1'exposer." Nationalisation of 
 charitable enterprises "leur enleve leur dernier 
 espoir." He evidently has a leaning towards 
 " assistance par travail." He points out the failure 
 of all endeavours in that direction in Paris, but 
 attributes the failure to "trop grande extension." 
 He holds up for imitation what has been done in 
 England and Germany "under colder skies by 
 more methodical wits." But M. Mauger can hardly
 
 48 POOR RELIEF IN PARIS 
 
 have informed himself sufficiently of the real con- 
 ditions in either of these countries. 
 
 The foregoing is only a meagre sketch of the 
 contents of a volume of some 400 pages. Those 
 who wish to go further into the matter are recom- 
 mended to read it themselves. It is full of lessons 
 which are as cogent to-day as they ever were.
 
 POOR RELIEF IN A WEST COUNTRY 
 VILLAGE, 1786-1906 
 
 A STUDY AND A CONTRAST 
 
 THE Poor Law is in the melting-pot. Experts, of 
 widely divergent views, are struggling for the handle 
 of the ladle, and no one can guess what will come 
 out. Meanwhile the volume of articles, pamphlets, 
 and disquisitions of all sorts upon social subjects is 
 growing at a prodigious rate, and there is some 
 danger lest, in the clash of opinions, we should lose 
 sight of plain facts. The ordinary man, with whom 
 the decision must ultimately rest, is inclined to be 
 weary of the conflict of authorities, and to say : 
 "Who will show us any good?" The need of the 
 moment would appear to be to escape from the 
 tangle of conflicting sociology and economics by 
 which the whole matter is overlaid, and to return to 
 the simpler aspects of the question, which must be 
 intelligible even to the "man in the street." 
 
 A study of the question in a single village, where 
 the issues are simple and direct, and the facts con- 
 crete and clear, would appear to meet this need to 
 some extent. And it is with that object that the 
 following short sketch has been traced and put 
 together. 
 
 The village in question is situated in a purely 
 rural district in the West Country, and contained a 
 population of about 800 at the end of the eighteenth 
 century. The earliest poor-book still extant dates 
 
 49
 
 50 POOR RELIEF IN A WEST COUNTRY VILLAGE 
 
 from 1786, four years after the passing of Gilbert's 
 Act, under which outdoor relief was made obligatory. 
 The parish year seems to have begun variously 
 perhaps at the discretion of the overseers in April, 
 May, or June, and the "first month" is always one 
 of those three months. The accounts of poor relief 
 are kept monthly, under the headings "monthly 
 payments" and "extraordinaries." The former are 
 regular allowances of outdoor relief, continued over 
 long periods, in some cases apparently indefinitely. 
 The latter are what we should now know as casual 
 relief, and take the shape of various articles of 
 clothing, coals, blankets, attendance in sickness, etc. 
 
 The "first month's pay" for (May) 1786, shows 
 thirty- three monthly allowances ranging from i6s. 
 to 43., total ;io, 153. The first month's "extra- 
 ordinaries " number twenty-seven, and amount to 
 ^4 or thereabouts. The maximum total monthly 
 expenditure under these two heads during that year 
 was 22, and the minimum ^15. The total " dis- 
 bursted " (sic] in poor relief for the year was about 
 200. Amongst the monthly allowances we find 
 five evidently in respect of bastardy cases. Forty 
 rates were made at .-5, os. 6d. per rate. 
 
 Nine years later that is to say, in the "first 
 month" of 1805 the monthly payments had risen 
 to eighty-six, and the " extraordinaries " to fifty- 
 eight, and the total amount paid for the relief of 
 the poor was ^48, i6s. 8d. By this time the 
 practice of giving "shirts," "shifts," and other 
 articles of clothing, which hardly appear at all in 
 the earlier record, had grown to enormous dimen- 
 sions. That of paying people to attend upon their 
 relations in sickness*and old age had also assumed 
 formidable proportions, and there is scarcely a 
 month in which it does not appear in some form. 
 There are some six allowances in respect of bastard 
 children. We shall see later that there was a
 
 POOR BOOKS UP TO 1815 51 
 
 further increase in this respect. In this year there 
 is a separate account in respect of eighteen allow- 
 ances "paid to Volunteers' wives and familys " (sic). 
 The annual expenditure by this time amounted to 
 about ^600. 
 
 By 1815 the "first month's" expenditure had 
 risen to about ^65. There is a curious entry here, 
 " Cash to R. H.'s family previous to their departure 
 to New South Wales," the father having probably 
 been transported. 
 
 In 1832 the poor- books come to an end. The 
 total monthly expenditure for the first month, 
 1831-32, is ^90 in respect of seventy "allowances" 
 and fifty-seven "extraordinaries," and the total 
 expenditure for the year ^996. Forty-two rates 
 were made at ^23, 135. 3^-d. as against forty rates 
 at ^5, os. 6d. in 1786. 
 
 There are a few other items scattered about in 
 the old books which have some interest for various 
 reasons. In 1805 the parish had to pay a fine of 
 ;io, i8s. 6d. "for not providing a man for the 
 army of reserve " a severe penalty, indicating the 
 tension of the times. Bastardy was increasing fast, 
 and reached a maximum of nine allowances in a 
 single month in 1829, and throughout there is a 
 constant record of attempts to enforce maintenance 
 upon putative fathers by attendance at sessions and 
 elsewhere. Upon one occasion, ^13 is paid "for 
 a journey to Yorkshire to apprehend Francis Cotton 
 on account of bastardy." We may doubt whether 
 the journey repaid its expenses. Quaint expressions, 
 the meaning of which is obscure to the writer, 
 occur from time to time. Thus, very frequently, 
 A. B. or C. D. " towards a turn." Perhaps some 
 reader may be able to explain this. Some of the 
 names appear upon the books almost from the 
 cradle to the grave. Thus, one " Phebe Hains " 
 appears about 1787, as "in distress, i shilling" ; six 
 
 I
 
 52 POOR RELIEF IN A WEST COUNTRY VILLAGE 
 
 years later comes the significant entry, " Phebe 
 Hains and child " ; after that the name appears 
 continuously upon the books till 1832, when we 
 take leave of poor Phebe Hains, still in the receipt 
 of a monthly payment of IDS. " Melliar Helliar" 
 is on the books in 1786, and still in 1815, and there 
 are many cases of the sort. The same names go 
 on from month to month, and from year to year, 
 till we come to the last phase : " A. B. paid for 
 coffin and shroud, digging grave and bell." Of 
 the "unemployed" we read again and again: 
 "A. B. work upon the roads "; " C. D., no work, 
 2s. ; ditto a sheet." Of tramps, memoranda such 
 as "poor woman in distress with four children," 
 "seamen in distress," "poor man with a pass"; 
 and 6d. is the usual maximum of relief given. 
 
 There were two poorhouses in the parish, and 
 numerous entries in respect to them for "thatching," 
 mending windows (possibly broken by discontented 
 inmates). 19, IDS. 6d. is paid to the principal 
 landlord half-yearly "as usual" for cottages occupied 
 by paupers, and a considerable amount to other 
 owners for the same purpose. 
 
 To sum up, then, the expenditure upon poor 
 relief had risen in forty-five years from ^200 a year 
 to ^995, and was still rising. The monthly list of 
 allowances and extraordinaries had grown from 
 60 to 127. Such were the conditions up to the 
 passing of the new Poor Law. Relief was given 
 for babies and children and for the sick ; work and 
 relief were given to the able-bodied ; a system of 
 practically universal pensions was in force for 
 the aged. 
 
 And now we may compare these conditions with 
 those of the present day. There has been little 
 alteration in the external conditions of the village, 
 except that the population has, like that of most 
 rural villages, declined by about 25 per cent. The
 
 CONTRAST BETWEEN 1831 AND 1905 53 
 
 same families own the land. The same family, till 
 recently, held the incumbency. The same names 
 appear, almost without exception, amongst the 
 farmers and labourers. There are still a few living 
 who were born under the old Poor Law. There 
 are many more who can remember well some of the 
 old people whose names appear upon the parish 
 books. The chief change in the external conditions 
 is that the land, which was then largely agricultural, 
 is now everywhere sown down to grass, and that 
 the economic conditions in that respect would 
 appear to be less favourable to the labourer than 
 one hundred years ago. 
 
 What, then, are the present conditions in respect 
 to poor relief? They may be stated in a sentence. 
 The report of the Union for 1905-6 shows that 
 during that time there were nine indoor and nine 
 outdoor paupers for the whole year belonging to 
 the village in question. If we estimate the cost of 
 maintenance of indoor paupers at 55. a week, the 
 cost for them would be ^117. The cost of the 
 outdoor paupers was ^52, and the total .169, as 
 against ^995 in 1831-2. The value of the change 
 is not, however, to be measured by the reduction 
 of the cost, but by the improvement in the condition 
 of the people. Poor they still are, but there is little 
 or no distress amongst them ; and their poverty is 
 as nothing compared with that of one hundred years 
 ago. They are better fed, better clothed, and 
 better housed, and many of them have something 
 to spare for sick clubs. They seldom ask for any 
 form of relief, and no one nowadays would dream 
 of asking to be paid for attendance upon a sick 
 relation. The prevailing spirit is entirely different 
 from that of other days. Bastardy has practically 
 disappeared. The village is no longer a village of 
 paupers, but one of self-respecting citizens. 
 
 The conditions are not, of course, even now
 
 54 POOR RELIEF IN A WEST COUNTRY VILLAGE 
 
 ideal ; wages are still much too low ; the labourer 
 is still too far divided from the land which he 
 cultivates. But in both those directions something 
 has been gained. Wages have certainly increased 
 considerably within the memory of the writer. 
 Practically every labourer has a garden attached 
 to his cottage, and many have allotments. The 
 lowness of wages is, to some extent, counterbalanced 
 by the cheapness of cottage accommodation, and 
 there is no doubt that this accommodation is 
 immeasurably better than that of a hundred years 
 ago. The labourer is no longer clothed, fed, and 
 housed by the parish. He does all this for himself 
 out of his wages, and the writer submits that this 
 is the true line of social progress rather than the 
 condonation of inadequate wages by poor relief 
 under whatever name it be disguised. The history 
 of poor relief in this village is identical with that in 
 hundreds of English villages. What, then, is the 
 cause of the change? Can there be any doubt that 
 it is due to the cutting off, in 1834, of the endow- 
 ment of pauperism ? Every practical man knows 
 that, even to-day, it would be easy to return to the 
 old conditions. Average human nature is not proof 
 against the common desire to live without labour, 
 to its own eventual ruin, body and soul. The 
 foregoing sketch has been made because the issues 
 are simple, and the facts at least to one who 
 knows the village and the people as vivid as if 
 they happened yesterday. Let any one who will 
 make a similar study with regard to his own village, 
 and form his own conclusions.
 
 NOTES FROM A WORKHOUSE 
 EXAMINATION COMMITTEE 
 
 THE question of workhouse management has been 
 very much to the fore of late years. We have 
 had two circulars, at least, from the Upper Board 
 upon the subject one in January 1895, the other 
 in July 1896. The first is general, and suggests 
 various improvements in workhouse and infirmary, 
 such as classification, improvements in nursing, 
 and various details, such as the abolition of dis- 
 tinctive clothing and other minor relaxations. 
 The second deals chiefly with the treatment of the 
 aged and infirm, for whom it prescribes classification 
 as especially important, and reiterates the sug- 
 gestions made in the former circular as to leave 
 of absence and non-distinctive clothing. The 
 circulars are only a reflection of what had been 
 taking place in many parts of London prior to 
 their issue. Altogether, no doubt, the tendency 
 of the last few years has been in the direction of 
 greater indulgence for certain classes of the inmates 
 of workhouses. With this, so long as it is rightly 
 applied, no one will quarrel. 
 
 The Local Government Board in its second 
 circular lays especial stress upon the importance 
 of classification of the aged and infirm, and of 
 separating those who have previously "led moral 
 and respectable lives from those who, from their 
 habits of speech, or for other reasons, are likely 
 to cause them discomfort." It would be interesting 
 
 65
 
 56 NOTES FROM EXAMINATION COMMITTEE 
 
 to know how far this classification has been carried 
 out. We know, indeed, that a proper separation 
 would involve the rebuilding of at least half the 
 workhouses in London. Most of them are already 
 overcrowded, and want of space prevents any 
 modification of existing arrangements. But even 
 supposing there were room, the difficulties of 
 classification are not surmounted. As it was 
 once put, " How are we to decide who shall be 
 placed in the back row of the stalls, and who shall 
 be in the front row of the pit ? " 
 
 The Poor Law which divides those receiving 
 relief into the able-bodied, the sick, the aged over 
 sixty, and the young, rather naturally leads to 
 the presumption that all those over sixty are to be 
 treated alike. They are no longer "able-bodied." 
 Relaxations of discipline and a more indulgent 
 dietary scale is prescribed for them. If tobacco 
 or snuff is given it is given to them, and they 
 are selected for any treats or outings which may 
 be available. Their clothing is to be non- 
 distinctive. In short, the sixtieth birthday is a 
 milestone : all those who have passed it, whatever 
 the cause of their entering the workhouse, whatever 
 their conduct whilst in it, can legally be treated 
 by the Guardians with certain indulgences which 
 are prohibited for those under that age. It will 
 probably be found that the practice of most Boards 
 of Guardians follows the presumption of the law, 
 and that those past sixty are in the main 
 treated alike. 
 
 The importance of considering this question 
 is obvious when we remember that the vast 
 majority of the inmates of workhouses, both in 
 London and country, are above the age of sixty, 
 and that the overcrowding of our workhouses is 
 chiefly due to the influx of this class of the poor. 
 Are we to treat them all alike as a privileged
 
 THE AGED OVER SIXTY 57 
 
 class ? That there are many very decent old 
 people, both men and women, in our workhouses, 
 no one would deny ; and though there can be no 
 doubt that many even of them need not have 
 been there if they had thought more of old age 
 when they were young, yet now that they are 
 there no one would be disposed to treat them 
 harshly or to grudge them the little indulgences 
 that the law allows. On the other hand, any 
 one who has had any lengthened experience of 
 the matter, knows that inmates over sixty differ 
 just as much, both morally and physically, as 
 those under sixty. 
 
 One point that will strike any one who has 
 any experience of the subject, is, that many people 
 who have passed the age-limit are physically much 
 more capable than others many years their juniors. 
 A typical case is that of an old man of seventy- 
 four who is, or was till quite recently, an inmate 
 of a London workhouse. He is as hale and hearty 
 a man as any one could wish to see. He has 
 married a wife about forty years younger than 
 himself, and has occupied his "declining" years 
 in begetting a family of five or six young children, 
 the eldest of whom cannot even now be much 
 more than ten years old. The Guardians have 
 kept his children almost continuously for several 
 years, and himself and his wife intermittently. 
 He has always pleaded that he is unable to find 
 work on account of his age, and he has been 
 constantly given passes "to look for work" for 
 this reason. His wife also took her discharge 
 from time to time, and only a few months ago 
 returned to the workhouse prepared to present 
 the Guardians with another " Poor Law child." 
 Subsequent inquiries have shown that upon at 
 least one occasion when he was out on pass, and 
 was representing to the Guardians that he was
 
 58 NOTES FROM EXAMINATION COMMITTEE 
 
 unable to get work, he was actually at work, 
 and earning over i a week. His employer 
 spoke of him as a strong, active man, and a good 
 workman. 
 
 Another man, just over sixty also strong and 
 hearty was let out repeatedly on pass to look 
 for work. His want of success led to inquiries 
 being made, and it was reported that he never 
 prosecuted his researches further than " The Well 
 and Bucket." 
 
 Another old man, charged with coming in 
 drunk, confesses his failings, but excuses them on 
 eugenic grounds. "Sometimes," he says, " I think 
 it's hereditary. My poor dear mother suffered 
 from it badly, and I am her only boy." Possibly 
 those who believe that we are not responsible for 
 our actions, but are the creatures of circumstance, 
 may be able to make some use of this. 
 
 Another typical case is that of an old pensioner. 
 He has been in and out of the workhouse for years. 
 He goes out regularly about quarter day and has 
 a debauch, and then returns to the workhouse. 
 His pension is one which is not attachable. 
 
 It would not be difficult to show that on the 
 women's side as well as on the men's side the dis- 
 tinctions are equally wide. The woman who has 
 led a drunken, disreputable life, and has passed 
 the age of sixty, is unhappily no uncommon 
 phenomenon in London workhouses. One such, 
 known to the writer, has also had two daughters 
 in the workhouse, both of whom had come in 
 with illegitimate children. 
 
 Again, it is well known that a very large 
 number of the old people both men and women 
 return from their weekly leave of absence the 
 worse for drink ; also that many of them are by 
 no means too refined in their language. It must 
 necessarily be a considerable hardship to those
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF CLASSIFICATION 59 
 
 who are decent and respectable to be mixed up 
 with these rougher elements. Miss Twining quotes 
 a case in which a blind man in a London workhouse 
 was forced to go to bed at six, in order to get 
 away from the foul language used in the day-room. 
 Altogether, everything points to the necessity of 
 some differentiation of treatment, as suggested 
 by the Local Government Board, between those 
 aged inmates of our workhouses who are decent 
 and respectable and those who are not. The 
 notion that to be over sixty confers of itself a 
 halo of respectability is a dangerous fallacy. If 
 metropolitan workhouses are not to be swamped 
 with those who have been and are still leading 
 dissipated and disreputable lives, greater stringency 
 will have to be adopted in respect to them, both 
 as a matter of public policy and in fairness to 
 the more decent inmates. A fair percentage at 
 least of those who frequent our workhouses need 
 not be there at all if they behaved themselves 
 even moderately well outside. We must all of 
 us know cases, for instance, in which children 
 would have kept their parents away from the 
 workhouse altogether but for their intolerable and 
 continued misbehaviour. 
 
 The difficulties of classification are, as already 
 pointed out, considerable. But we can, at all events, 
 refrain from encouraging impenitent old age by 
 gifts of tobacco, snuff, and sweets, by unlimited 
 liberty to come and go, and by dressing it up in 
 clothes which are sometimes better than those of 
 the respectable tradesman outside. It is not at all 
 necessary to go into people's past lives. The line 
 of demarcation between those who behave them- 
 selves decently and respectably and those who do 
 not, is quite sufficiently defined, and no good work- 
 house master, if he has the support of his Board, will 
 find much difficulty in doing justice, broadly speaking. 
 
 K
 
 60 NOTES FROM EXAMINATION COMMITTEE 
 
 And now we come to another class of inmates, 
 and by no means the least important one, namely 
 the able-bodied adults. The typical able-bodied 
 "in-and-out" is usually a happy-go-lucky, devil- 
 may-care sort of fellow, whose chief characteristic 
 is that he is totally devoid of any wish to maintain 
 himself. He can often work, and work well by fits 
 and starts ; but he has come to look upon the 
 workhouse or the casual ward as his home, and 
 when he has once got that idea into his head it is 
 extremely difficult to get it out again. 
 
 One such, a young fellow of about thirty, has 
 been in and out of the workhouse since he was 
 fourteen. He is short and thick-set, strong and 
 well-made, not bad-looking, with dark curly hair. 
 He has all his wits about him, and if there had 
 been no Poor Law would, undoubtedly, have been 
 earning his own living. Several times he has dis- 
 appeared for a short time, and it has been reported 
 that he is at work. He has, however, invariably 
 turned up again, stating upon almost every occasion 
 that he has had "an accident" which has obliged 
 him to throw up his work. He is by turns 
 threatened, cajoled, lectured, and prosecuted, but 
 all in vain. He takes it all quite good-humouredly. 
 When last remonstrated with he mildly remarked 
 that "he had not been in and out so wonderful 
 many times." 
 
 Another was always in and out " because of his 
 leg." It was quite true that he had a sore place 
 on his leg, but the medical officer, who knew him 
 of old, hinted that that sore place was as good as 
 an old-age pension to him, and that it was not very 
 likely that he would allow it to heal. He was 
 otherwise an able-bodied, healthy man. 
 
 Another strong, active young man who "could 
 not get work," was passing his time in a flirtation 
 with one of the ladies on the other side of the
 
 WORKHOUSE ATTRACTIONS 61 
 
 House. An intercepted letter, which ran as follows, 
 was one day laid before the Guardians : 
 
 " Dear liz lizey I am going out on Monday. If 
 you like you can come with me. I shall wait for 
 you at the prince of wails, yrs. truly, Bill." 
 
 Flirtations of this kind are by no means 
 uncommon in workhouse life. Probably every 
 workhouse has its in-and-out couple who have 
 originally been "married by the chaplain of the 
 workhouse." Sometimes even the aged succumb. 
 Two old men have taken to themselves wives from 
 amongst the female inmates. In neither case, 
 unfortunately, have the marriages turned out 
 happily. " She isn't at all the sort of woman I 
 expected," said one of them plaintively ; " she 
 drinks a bit." 
 
 The allowance of "extra diet to helpers" is a 
 difficult question. It is probably not uncommon 
 in London workhouses, and doubtless counts as 
 one of the attractions to the able-bodied. At first 
 sight it would appear that if a man or woman can 
 work inside a workhouse they can work outside, 
 and that they would be better outside. If, however, 
 they prefer to remain in, then they should work for 
 their keep. In neither case is it good either for 
 them or for the ratepayers to bribe them to stay. 
 It is assumed, of course, that the workhouse has a 
 proper and sufficient dietary scale. 
 
 There are some who think that the able-bodied 
 day-room, both on the men's side and on the 
 women's, has its charms for a certain class of 
 inmate. They are said to be scenes of a certain 
 rough conviviality, not always of too lofty a tone, 
 which is dear to the heart of the able-bodied in-and- 
 out. The supervision is often not very stringent, 
 and one has heard of such things as card-playing, 
 chuck-penny, and other similar amusements being
 
 62 NOTES FROM EXAMINATION COMMITTEE 
 
 carried on there sub rosa. One Board of Guardians 
 at least has interfered with such amusements by 
 appointing "mental instructors," whose business it 
 is to spend a certain time in the day-rooms, and to 
 endeavour to influence their inhabitants in the right 
 direction. 
 
 The question of the able-bodied inmate has 
 been much discussed during the last few years. 
 We have heard much of " paupers' paradises " and 
 the like, which shows which way the wind blows 
 though the particular Board gibbeted is often no 
 worse than its neighbours. 
 
 In illustration of the attractiveness of the work- 
 house for able-bodied women, two stories may be 
 quoted, both quite authentic, from the same work- 
 house. In both cases situations had been found 
 for the women by the matron or otherwise. In the 
 first case, the inmate in question consented to go 
 to the situation, but represented that she must be 
 back at the workhouse in time for the " Christmas 
 entertainment." In the other case, that of a girl 
 with an illegitimate child, she went to the situation, 
 but soon came back to the workhouse, as she said 
 that the work was not so hard there, and the hours 
 were shorter. Moreover, in private service she had 
 to get her own breakfast. 
 
 The following lines, accompanied by a cartoon, 
 were sent to the writer by an inmate who had 
 evidently been studying this question : 
 
 " I'm the able-bodied Fee-Foh-Fum 
 From the warm workhouse ward I come ; 
 And whether they can or cannot pay, 
 I swallow ratepayers every day." 
 
 There are a few other points in connection with 
 workhouse management. The first is whether it is 
 wise to give clothes to those who are leaving the work- 
 house. Of course there are times when it is necessary 
 to do this. The inmates' own clothes may have been
 
 GRANTS OF CLOTHING 63 
 
 lost or destroyed, or a friendless man may be dis- 
 charged from the infirmary, and the doctor may 
 certify that his own clothing is insufficient to keep 
 him warm. Or it may be a case in which a girl or 
 young woman is to be sent to service. If it were 
 certain that nothing but the want of a coat or a pair 
 of boots stood between an able-bodied man and his 
 chances of work, we should all get them for him 
 somehow. If the matter rested there, and were 
 confined to such cases, it would hardly be necessary 
 to allude to the subject. In some workhouses, 
 however, the giving away of clothes has attained 
 very considerable proportions, as is evident from 
 the fact that the Local Government Board has 
 issued a special minute upon the subject. A 
 gentleman of great experience said a few days 
 ago, in reply to the question : " Does your Board 
 give away clothes ? " " Of course it does. Often 
 a man who comes before it says, ' If you will give 
 me a pair of boots I will tramp away, and you 
 shall never hear of me again,' and my Board think 
 that the cheapest thing to do is to give him a pair 
 of boots." 
 
 When there is a Workhouse Examination 
 Committee the periodical appearance before the 
 Committee begins in time to be recognised as 
 the opportunity for the application of something, 
 usually clothing or passes to look for work. These 
 may have been granted, in the first instance, in 
 perfectly legitimate cases, such as those above 
 specified ; but when you have a Committee which 
 is known to grant such things, and it soon becomes 
 known, applications multiply at an astounding rate. 
 We thus have, on the one side, a sympathetic 
 committee committees are always sympathetic ; 
 on the other, an applicant who says that he could 
 get work, or at least would free the ratepayers from 
 the burden of keeping him, if he had, let us say, a
 
 64 NOTES FROM EXAMINATION COMMITTEE 
 
 pair of boots. The difficulty of testing his state- 
 ment is insuperable. There can only be one result 
 he gets the boots. In this manner the granting 
 both of clothes and passes soon assumes very large 
 proportions. That this in some cases it may 
 possibly be in very few cases constitutes an 
 "attraction" of the workhouse, is clear from the 
 following authentic dialogues : 
 
 A young and lusty tramp appears before the 
 Committee. 
 
 Chairman. "Well, what brings you in here?" 
 
 Tramp. " A pair of boots." 
 
 A well-known character who has been passed 
 to another Union turns up again. 
 
 Chairman. " What ! You here again ? You 
 know you have rendered yourself liable to prosecu- 
 tion. I should like to know what you have to say 
 for yourself." 
 
 Well-known Character. "Well, I hadn't got no 
 trousers to go out in : that partly brought me in." 
 
 Another habitue does not even wait to be 
 questioned, but begins at once " I came in for a 
 pair of trousers this time." 
 
 The wholesale giving away of clothes has long 
 since been abandoned in the workhouse in question. 
 
 There are many reasons why a Committee of 
 Examination soon becomes popular, in spite of the 
 fact that a great number of those who come before 
 it receive " severe reprimands " from the chair- 
 man. Severe reprimands, however, when repeated 
 possibly for the twentieth time to the same inmate, 
 are apt to lose their force, and even a chairman's 
 resources of language are not inexhaustible. Mean- 
 while, there are many who appear to delight 
 in their weekly appearance before the Guardians. 
 Some desire to give them a bit of their mind. " If 
 it wasn't for the likes of us, I should like to know 
 where the likes of you would be ? " said a promis-
 
 DIETARY SCALES 65 
 
 ing youth of nineteen to the chairman one day. 
 The question still remains unanswered. 
 
 Another handed in one day, with a low bow, a 
 copy of verses dedicated to the Committee. 
 It began : 
 
 " Who are the powers at 
 
 Whose conduct's base and low and mean ? 
 
 Our Guardians. 
 
 Who try to crush the very poor ? 
 Who every honest man ignore ? 
 
 Our Guardians. 
 
 Whose heads are empty as a bladder ? 
 Who couldn't if they tried be madder ? 
 
 Our Guardians. 
 
 Whose ways are base and dark and mean ? 
 Who do their work with hands unclean ? 
 
 Our Guardians. 
 
 Who honest ways do not approve, 
 Who others' goods with care remove ? 
 
 Our Guardians. 
 
 Whose wicked ways we will not tell, 
 
 Who when they die will go to 
 
 Our Guardians." 
 
 There had been some difference of opinion with 
 him as to his settlement, which it took nearly two 
 years to ascertain hence his animus. He was 
 passed to his parish and now some other Board 
 has its laureate. Even if the inmates had nothing 
 to complain of, they liked to have a chat. It was 
 said also that they liked coming before the Com- 
 mittee because they got an extra shave that day. 
 
 The dietary scales of different London work- 
 houses vary considerably. One, which is said to 
 be " the best in London," gives those over sixty 
 butcher meat four times a week, bacon or pork the 
 fifth, and meat puddings and meat broth on the 
 other two days. Though this is said to be the 
 best, there are several other Unions in which the 
 scale is practically the same, and the tendency in
 
 66 NOTES FROM EXAMINATION COMMITTEE 
 
 all Unions is now to pay more attention to the 
 feeding of the inmates than to any other matter. 
 The following appeared in a paper the other day : 
 
 " Ample food supply at ." The Guardians had 
 
 asked the Local Government Board to sanction an 
 addition of half a pint of milk a day to the present 
 dietary. The Local Government Board reply that 
 they will do so, "provided that some readjustment 
 be made in the present dietary." The Clerk 
 pointed out that at present the inmates had a 
 breakfast, lunch, a dinner, an early cup of tea and 
 three ounces of cake, tea again with bread and 
 butter and more cake, and then a supper. One of 
 the Guardians, " What a day's feeding ! " 
 
 Again, an inquest was held last year upon an 
 inmate who had died suddenly in a London work- 
 house. The doctor certified that the cause of 
 death was syncope, produced by an overloaded 
 stomach acting upon a diseased heart. 
 
 The Coroner. " One may say that he was 
 killed by kindness. It may or may not be kindness 
 to overload a man's stomach. Well, it shows that 
 he did not go short of food." 
 
 The Doctor. " Short ! By no means. They 
 have nothing to do but eat, drink, and sleep. And 
 this is the third case from the same workhouse 
 where death has been due to an overloaded 
 stomach." 
 
 A Juror. " When I am out of work, I shall 
 want to go there ! " 
 
 The question, however, is no new one. In the 
 year 1835 a document, of which the following is an 
 extract, was posted on the walls of a certain work- 
 house in Kent. It contained the terms of the 
 contract between the Guardians and contractors 
 for the catering for that workhouse. The con- 
 tractors were to furnish "warm, wholesome, sweet, 
 comfortable beds ; servants to cook and serve the
 
 NON-DISTINCTIVE DRESS 67 
 
 victuals and attend on the poor ; good, sweet, 
 wholesome, fat meat ; good, sound small beer ; 
 best flour ; good Gloucester cheese ; good and 
 clean butter. Pork and salt meat were forbidden, 
 but bacon and fish were allowed as a variety. 
 The fires were to be good and kept up in certain 
 rooms at all hours, so that the paupers might boil 
 their kettles. Lastly, the contractors were to 
 supply wigs for such as wear them or require them." 
 Earlier again, at Bedford, Sir F. Eden gives the 
 dietary of the workhouse where meat was given six 
 days a week, and broth and "hasty pudding" the 
 seventh. Of this Sir F. Eden, writing in 1797, 
 says, " The food was better than the most in- 
 dustrious labourer, either then or at present, could 
 afford himself in his own habitation. In those days 
 small beer was usually given for supper every 
 night, and "good strong beer" on Christmas Day. 
 
 There is the further question of non-distinctive 
 dress. Probably every Board of Guardians in 
 London has now adopted it, as suggested by the 
 Local Government Board, and the general impression 
 is that it has worked satisfactorily. Some Boards 
 have found it useful as a means of classification, 
 giving it only to those who return sober from their 
 leave. Others have probably given it to all, without 
 distinction. One difficulty that appears to arise is 
 the difficulty of finding any dress which is "not 
 distinctive," the real fact being that the clothes 
 provided are as a rule so much better than those 
 worn by people of the same class outside, that it is 
 impossible not to identify the inmate out for his 
 weekly walk. When the matter first came before 
 the writer's own Board, hats and bonnets of every 
 conceivable shape, with every variety of trimming, 
 double-breasted reefers, and every variety of 
 trouserings were submitted for selection. It was 
 a most arduous task. Finally, the old men, at
 
 68 NOTES FROM EXAMINATION COMMITTEE 
 
 least, were rigged out in a very neat and workman- 
 like manner ; but the old women were not so 
 fortunate. One fine day they all blossomed out 
 with dresses, some with red moons on a blue 
 ground, some with white moons upon a brown 
 ground. The dress, alas, though fashionable, was 
 more distinctive than ever! 
 
 If the writer, who has been chairman for many 
 years, off and on, of a Workhouse Examination 
 Committee, were asked to specify the ruling 
 characteristic of those with whom he has had to deal, 
 he would say that it is a sort of happy-go-lucky 
 irresponsibility. Occasionally some rather desperate 
 characters enter a workhouse, but they seldom stay 
 there long. There are also some who are clearly 
 mentally or physically deficient, for whom some 
 better system of treatment is desirable ; but the 
 majority are neither actively bad nor deficient, 
 except in the desire to keep themselves. They 
 know that the parish is bound to maintain them, 
 and they ask for nothing better. There are many 
 single men without dependents. One of them was 
 asked recently why so many single men came into 
 the workhouse, whilst married men were able to 
 keep a wife and family outside. His reply was 
 eminently candid : " I suppose it is because we ain't 
 got no wives to keep us." But responsibility sits 
 lightly also upon many married men. A young 
 woman became chargeable not long ago, deserted 
 by her husband. All that she had to show as to 
 his whereabouts was a letter, without address, in 
 which he exhorted her to "feed the rabbits and 
 pigeons well whilst he was away." A married man 
 was allowed out to look for work, leaving his wife 
 and children chargeable, and, as is the rule, was 
 told to report himself before the next fortnightly 
 meeting of the Committee. He did not appear, but 
 sent a letter to the Committee, apologising for his
 
 THE "HAPPY-GO-LUCKY" INMATE 69 
 
 absence on the ground that "he had to go to a 
 concert at the Radical Club." Another young 
 woman is in the workhouse, and her husband in 
 Canada. She has received a large number of 
 affectionate letters expressing a hope that she will 
 join him, but the only address given is 1063 James' 
 Street, North America, and all letters come back 
 from the Dead Letter Office. 
 
 Another family has been in and out for a 
 number of years. They stay out most of the 
 summer, and come in regularly in the winter. 
 Most of the children have been adopted by the 
 Guardians to save them from an in-and-out career ; 
 but a new infant is born nearly every year ; only 
 
 a few weeks ago it was reported that Mrs W 
 
 had presented the Guardians with another baby. 
 
 The great majority are quite well behaved whilst 
 in the workhouse, and work fairly well under 
 supervision. They are, except in rare instances, 
 not unpleasant to deal with. Though impervious 
 to exhortations to self-support, they bear no malice, 
 and are quite friendly. Some time ago a hawker, 
 who had been prosecuted again and again for wife 
 desertion, and against whom a warrant was still 
 outstanding, presented himself at the workhouse 
 door and offered to sell the master a " bunch of 
 sage." He was, of course, arrested and taken to 
 the police station. On his way, he invited the 
 warrant officer to have a drink with him. 
 
 The path of a Workhouse Examination 
 Committee is no easy one. Its members have to 
 deal with every variety of human nature. They are 
 engaged in an unceasing attempt, on the one hand, 
 to discourage pauperism ; on the other, to give 
 a helping hand to any one who shows any sign of 
 a desire for better modes of life. They begin by 
 the belief that every one has some good in him. 
 Every able-bodied man who comes in for the first
 
 70 NOTES FROM EXAMINATION COMMITTEE 
 
 time is encouraged to go out and look for work ; 
 he is, of course, now always referred to the Labour 
 Exchange, but seldom with any result. Work is, 
 indeed, often found for him by the workhouse 
 master. No one can say, when there is an efficient 
 committee and an efficient master, that a man is 
 "done for" when he comes into the workhouse. 
 Special attention is paid, of course, to the younger 
 inmates, who are never lost sight of. At one time 
 it was the practice in many workhouses to send 
 their able-bodied inmates to the various institutions 
 of the Church and Salvation Armies. Some sixty 
 or seventy of them were sent from the writer's own 
 workhouse ; but they were returned, almost without 
 exception, and the experience was the same else- 
 where. A committee of ladies deals with single 
 young women who come into the maternity wards, 
 and endeavour to reinstate them in society. 
 Generally speaking, the "curative and restorative" 
 treatment advocated by the Royal Commission has 
 been in practice in well-managed workhouses for 
 a number of years. It is very difficult work, and 
 often very disappointing. We may doubt whether 
 the Training Schools and Colonies, of which we 
 have heard so much of late, would have a much 
 better result.
 
 POOR LAW AND CHARITY 
 
 " The quality of mercy is not strained." 
 
 Merchant of Venice. 
 
 WHAT is the attitude of the public towards the 
 question ? So far as one can gather from the 
 tone of the Press and of public speakers upon 
 questions connected with the relief of the poor, 
 it is one of indifference. There seem to be very 
 few people nowadays who recognise any distinction 
 in principle between Poor Law and charity. So 
 long as relief of some kind is forthcoming it 
 matters little whether it comes from the rates or 
 from the pockets of private individuals. Co- 
 operation between Poor Law and charity is under- 
 stood to mean a small sum granted by the 
 Guardians, supplemented by smaller and more 
 casual amounts from private charity. Outdoor 
 relief is usually based upon the hypothesis that 
 "some little thing of which we don't know" is 
 coming in from some other source, and casual 
 charitable help, which may or may not exist, 
 which may or may not be suppressed, is relied 
 upon to supplement Poor Law relief admittedly 
 inadequate. So long as the people themselves 
 are content to live upon the parish half-a-crown, 
 plus income denoted by x, no questions are 
 asked. 
 
 The obliteration of the distinction between 
 Poor Law and charity has been greatly accelerated 
 by the recent flow of the tide in the direction of 
 n
 
 72 POOR LAW AND CHARITY 
 
 "collectivism," as it is called. The evils of poverty 
 are to be conjured away by State action. The 
 " State " is to be invested with all the attributes 
 of Christian charity. The "civic conscience" is 
 to take the place of the individual conscience, and 
 the civic conscience is to "find itself" in material 
 relief and again more material relief at least all 
 the practical suggestions that are made from time 
 to time appear to be in that direction. 
 
 Of course, if we are convinced that the improve- 
 ment of the condition of the poor is to be found 
 in the extension of material relief, then all questions 
 ,of distinction between Poor Law and charity sink 
 into insignificance. Our duty is plain. We have 
 by all means in our power to bring about that 
 condition, and to augment the volume of relief 
 from every possible source. 
 
 No one probably will assent to the suggestion 
 that material relief is the cure for poverty. On 
 the contrary, every one appears to recognise in 
 theory at least that material relief may do great 
 harm. But theory is a slippery thing, and difficult 
 to fix. Sometimes those who most vigorously 
 denounce one form of relief as " indiscriminate " 
 are foremost in advocating another form of relief 
 differing only in name. There is possibly some 
 rather loose thinking upon the matter, and a good 
 deal of unwillingness to face facts. Above all, 
 there is a sort of general feeling that it does not 
 much matter what we do so long as our aims 
 are right. The suggestion that we should be 
 guided by experience is received like most truisms 
 with ill-disguised impatience. We are told, for 
 instance, that there are many paths to the same 
 end ; that the old economic ideas, hitherto uni- 
 versally accepted, are obsolete, and that new factors 
 have come into existence; that "experiments" 
 which have failed repeatedly in the past will
 
 THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY NOT NEW 73 
 
 succeed now because of new conditions. At the 
 same time no one has sufficiently defined what 
 these new conditions are. No one has shown us 
 that human nature has changed in these days in 
 such a manner as to obviate old difficulties. 
 What we need most, perhaps, is to realise that 
 it does matter very much both to the poor and 
 to the nation what we do, what line we adopt, 
 and that it is therefore of supreme importance 
 that we should each of us think the question 
 out as clearly as possible for ourselves by the 
 light both of the history of the past and of the 
 experience of the present. 
 
 For the problem of poverty is no new one ; 
 neither are we, of this generation, the first who 
 have tried to solve it. It is a question which 
 has always become acute in ancient and highly 
 complex civilisations in which classes have drifted 
 apart from one another. There are plenty of 
 object-lessons in history of attempts to mitigate 
 poverty by large and sweeping systems of material 
 relief, sometimes originated by the State, sometimes 
 by great and powerful organisations. 
 
 In the Middle Ages the great abbeys supported 
 vast hordes of poor, "dispensing," says Fuller, 
 " mistaken charity, promiscuously entertaining 
 some who did not need it and many who did 
 not deserve it ; yea, those abbeys did but support 
 the poor whom they themselves had made." 
 
 Later again we see the question in a different 
 aspect. Defoe, in his celebrated petition to Parlia- 
 ment, entitled "Giving Alms no Charity," speaking 
 at a time when there were all sorts of schemes 
 on foot for the establishment of parish stocks, 
 or as they would be called in these days " municipal 
 workshops," holds up for imitation the example 
 of Queen Elizabeth, who endeavoured to solve the 
 difficulty by the encouragement of trade and not
 
 74 POOR LAW AND CHARITY 
 
 by relief. " Pauper ubique jacet," said our famous 
 Queen Elizabeth when in her progress through 
 the kingdom she saw the vast crowds of poor 
 thronging to see her and bless her, and the 
 thought put Her Majesty upon a continued study 
 how to recover her people from their poverty, and 
 to make their labours more profitable to themselves 
 in particular and the nation in general, and " the 
 wise queen found out the way how every family 
 might live upon its labour." 
 
 We have all heard of the old Poor Law which 
 brought this country as near to the brink of ruin 
 as it ever has been brought ; perhaps some may 
 say we have heard of it too often, but the truth 
 cannot be told too often, and reiteration does not 
 make it any the less true. 
 
 It is not necessary, however, to go back very 
 far for illustrations of the effect of wholesale and 
 highly centralised material relief; there are many of 
 us who have not yet forgotten the Mansion House 
 Fund of 1885 and the effect that it had upon 
 the poorer population of London. It may be seen 
 to-day in London and elsewhere where Boards of 
 Guardians have, with the perfectly honest con- 
 viction that they are doing what is kindest to the 
 poor, removed so far as they are able all restrictions 
 and limitations upon public relief. In London, after 
 ten years of unexampled commercial prosperity, we 
 have ten thousand more people chargeable to the 
 rates than we had ten years ago. That increase 
 is due to the action of a comparatively small 
 number of Boards of Guardians. The richest 
 West End parish has increased its pauperism in 
 the ten years from 22 to 26 per thousand of the 
 population, and actually has more paupers per 
 thousand than several of the poorest East End 
 parishes. A North London Board has increased 
 its pauperism from 19 to 21 per thousand;
 
 INCREASE IN POOR LAW EXPENDITURE 75 
 
 a Central London Board from 65 to 83 per 
 thousand; a South London Board from 32 to 51 
 per thousand; an East London Board from 17 
 to 26 per thousand. Yet these Boards are no 
 nearer to the solution of the problem of poverty 
 than other Boards which have adopted a contrary 
 policy. 
 
 The worst of it is that a policy of lavish relief 
 may go on for a few years, and then comes in- 
 evitable reaction. No rates nor even imperial 
 taxation can cope with the increased demand or 
 the wastage which is the result of such a policy. 
 The State, or in other words, that section of the 
 population which maintains itself independently, 
 cannot stand the drag upon it indefinitely, and 
 has to shake itself clear before it is itself sub- 
 merged. But meanwhile it has taught the poor 
 to look to it in all contingencies, and to live from 
 hand to mouth, and when the crisis comes, as 
 come it must, their suffering is ten times more 
 acute because they have no reserves to fall 
 back upon. 
 
 In the last ten years the expenditure on the 
 relief of the poor has gone up from ,8,600,000 
 to ^"11,500,000, or about 30 per cent., though 
 they have been ten years of great prosperity. It 
 has touched the highest point ever known in the 
 history of the country, and is still growing. 
 Meanwhile all sorts of proposals for further 
 expenditure are in the air. A large section of the 
 London School Board recently proposed to charge 
 the rates with the feeding of school children. 
 There is a tendency to turn Poor Law Infirmaries 
 into municipal hospitals. Many would charge 
 public bodies with the duty of finding work for 
 the unemployed. Many more would throw the 
 entire maintenance of old age upon the rates and 
 taxes, and pension schemes varying in estimated 
 
 M 
 
 \
 
 76 POOR LAW AND CHARITY 
 
 amount from ten millions to thirty millions a year 
 are in everybody's mouths. 1 In fact the possibilities 
 of State action are regarded as almost unlimited. 
 Apart from questions directed towards the actual 
 relief of the poor, there are all sorts of other 
 proposals in the air. The State is to house the 
 poor, and, in its attempts to do so, finds itself 
 upon the horns of a dilemma. Either it must let 
 at unremunerative and eleemosynary rents, or it 
 must house those who were sufficiently well housed 
 before. It is to buy up and work all sorts of 
 commercial undertakings ; it is to pay high wages 
 to those whom it employs, and to supply the 
 consumer cheap. The municipal debt last year 
 amounted to ^270,000,000 or about one-third of 
 the National Debt. The increase over the previous 
 year was 14,000^000, a sufficiently rapid rate of 
 progress. 
 
 Of course Poor Law administrators have nothing 
 to do with all this except to remember that their 
 expenditure is only part of a much wider question. 
 The modern idea of the State as an omnipotent 
 charitable agency is quite at variance with that 
 which the older generation were taught and believed 
 in. The matter is one so vital not to the poor alone 
 but to the whole country, of which the daily wage- 
 earners are the basis and foundation, that it affects, 
 possibly more than any other question foreign or 
 domestic, the future of the nation. 
 
 We have travelled far from the teachings of the 
 older economists often enunciated, seldom accepted. 
 They believed that the true line of progress was to 
 be found in the adequate payment of labour and in 
 the self-restraint and self-reliance of the industrial 
 classes themselves. They regarded relief by the 
 State with the utmost jealousy because they 
 
 1 Note, 1912. Most of these proposals have now been carried 
 into effect.
 
 PRINCIPLE OF "LESS ELIGIBILITY*' 77 
 
 believed it to be antagonistic to both these con- 
 ditions. They believed that whilst no civilised 
 country can allow any of its citizens to perish for 
 the want of the necessaries of life, whilst in other 
 words food, shelter, clothing, and warmth must be 
 provided for every destitute person who applies for 
 it, yet that the position of those in receipt of public 
 relief should be "less eligible" than that of the 
 \independent labourer. The words "less eligible" 
 do not mean that it is to be harsh or inhuman ; on 
 the contrary, the maintenance provided is to be 
 good and sufficient, but it must not attract those to 
 it who can by any means support themselves without 
 it. They did not consider, moreover, that legal 
 relief was to be a substitute for the obligations of 
 personal charity, and, in the development of their 
 idea, charitable action has been assigned a definite" 
 place. 
 
 The outward expression of this doctrine has 
 always been understood to be the offer of insti- 
 tutional relief by the State. Of course it has been 
 widely departed from in many cases, and we may 
 admit at once that it would be harsh to apply it 
 suddenly and rigidly in any district where the 
 contrary practice has long prevailed, unless at the 
 same time some steps are taken to deal with the 
 "hard cases" by voluntary action. The utmost 
 that even those who believe in it can wish is that it 
 should be gradually and humanely applied. This 
 much, however, is certain, juHgmg at least from all 
 the experience that we have ready to hand, that the 
 more widely we depart from this principle the greater 
 become the difficulties of State relief, the more 
 numerous and more miserable the poor. 
 
 The leading feature of State relief as compared 
 with charitable relief is that it is compulsorily levied. 
 Next to this come its centralisation, its indefinite 
 ownership, its indefinite limits. Owing to its
 
 78 POOR LAW AND CHARITY 
 
 centralisation it has the same sort of attraction 
 for the very poor and those whose lives are spent 
 in shadow as a lighthouse has for birds, moths, and 
 other winged things which are drawn to it and beat 
 themselves to death against the glass. The poor 
 get to measure their lives by it from the cradle to 
 the grave. They look on it as a right either as a 
 compensation for the wrongs of " the social system " 
 or as an insurance because they have paid rates. 
 It is idle to explain that if it is to be looked upon 
 in that light every one would have the right to 
 draw upon it in proportion to their contributions, 
 and the whole system would have to be rearranged 
 upon an actuarial basis. They have no notion 
 where it comes from or what are its limits. It is a 
 sort of purse of Fortunatus into which every one 
 dips. The Socialist uses it, quite candidly, to 
 advance his doctrines. The ambitious local ad- 
 ministrator uses it to win popularity. The clergy- 
 man dips into it for his parish poor. The employer 
 of labour not unfrequently uses it as a means of 
 pensioning an old and worn-out employee. It is 
 the prey of every one. "Where the carcase is 
 there are the eagles gathered together." Mean- 
 while those who administer public relief are ad- 
 ministering that of which their own contribution 
 represents so small a part that the personal motive 
 / for economy and restraint is practically non-existent, 
 I and the number of those who have sufficient faith 
 to bear unpopularity and reputation for harshness 
 is exceedingly small. 
 
 But even if there were none of these difficulties, 
 State relief remains as far as ever from charitable 
 relief. The essence of charity is personal feeling, 
 and it implies much more than the mere gift. But 
 how can we say this of public relief? So far as the 
 poor are concerned they learn to look upon it as a 
 right, the withholding of which is an injury. " Why
 
 79 
 
 don't some one make 'em act honest ? " said an old 
 lady outside a certain Board Room not long ago 
 after she had been refused outdoor relief. So far as 
 the administrators are concerned, what real personal 
 feeling can there be between a Board of Guardians 
 and a host of recipients of relief most of whom are 
 personally unknown to them? In country districts 
 applicants for relief are not even seen by the 
 Guardians as a body. All that they know of them 
 as a rule is that they are "recommended" by a 
 local Guardian or the relieving officer, coupled 
 with a sort of tacit log-rolling which says, "Vote 
 for my man to-day and I will vote for yours 
 to-morrow." 
 
 The abstract love of the poor which is so much 
 in the air nowadays, cannot be held to be a substitute 
 for this personal feeling. Abstract love of the poor 
 is sometimes quite reconcilable with concrete in- 
 difference for a poor person. The gun scatters so 
 widely that it hits nothing. 
 
 How, again, can we reconcile Christian charity 
 with the idea of a tax levied by the arm of the law, 
 with the voting by A of B's money to the use of C, 
 with the usual penalties if B fails to pay ? The 
 feelings of the man who finds his demand notes 
 rising year after year are very far from Christian. 
 He who does not pay his rates finds bailiffs in his 
 house, and perhaps eventually retires to Holloway 
 to ponder in seclusion upon the mysteries of the 
 civic conscience and civic benevolence. 
 
 Again, we have heard much of late of the 
 difficulty of housing the poor and of the pro- 
 hibitive rents in great towns. It was calculated 
 the other day that in a certain part of London, 
 upon a house rented at 8s. a week, 7d. of that 8s. 
 represented the amount levied for the relief of the 
 poor. Undoubtedly some part of the housing 
 difficulty in London is due to the ever-increasing
 
 80 POOR LAW AND CHARITY 
 
 incidence of rates. The odd yd., regularly put by, 
 would provide an old age pension. 
 
 The reason, therefore, why the older economists 
 looked upon legal relief as a dangerous expedient 
 a playing, as it were, with edged tools is clear. 
 On the other hand they believed that they saw in 
 voluntary effort a force involving infinitely less 
 danger, and yet one which, if fully developed and 
 wisely directed, would be capable of meeting all 
 emergencies not provided for by the Poor Law. 
 For charitable relief, whatever form it takes, or 
 whatever its effects, possesses at least this broad 
 distinction from State relief, namely, that it is 
 voluntarily provided, and usually comes from those 
 who can best afford it. 
 
 It may be at once admitted that there is much 
 charitable relief in these days which is as devoid of 
 the real spirit of charity as any public relief can be. 
 The fact is that "charity" nowadays has come to 
 be identified almost exclusively with the giving ot 
 money or some form of material relief. There is, 
 undoubtedly, much so-called "charity" which is not 
 only formal and unreal, but which even has mixed 
 motives in the background. Charity of that kind 
 blesseth neither him that gives nor him that takes. 
 It certainly would not pass muster with St Paul. 
 For instance, we see a beggar in the streets. A 
 passing emotion, or the desire to get rid of him, 
 prompts us to give him a small coin. Probably 
 most of us have done it. When he is out of sight 
 we forget all about him. Charity of that sort 
 neither "suffers long nor is kind." Or again, 
 charity "doth not behave itself unseemly." Has 
 any one ever been to a big society bazaar, or 
 even read an account of one in the newspapers ? 
 We all know the familiar headline, " In the Sacred 
 Cause of Charity," followed by a description of the 
 great people present (and some little ones) and of
 
 their dresses, of cafes chantants and lady palmists 
 and raffles, all of which is, possibly, harmless 
 enough in itself, but hardly recognisable as "the 
 sacred cause of chanty." Again, " Charity vaunteth 
 not itself ... is not puffed up " ; but the idea of 
 humility is the last thing that suggests itself when 
 we read the reports and advertisements of many 
 charitable institutions of the present day. The 
 percentage of success upon a huge scale claimed in 
 these reports strikes dumb those who have been 
 attempting similar work upon a more modest scale, 
 and who have found the enormous difficulty of 
 achieving real success even in a single case. There 
 is, to say the least, a looseness of statement which 
 it is impossible to justify. How well we know the 
 phrase, "so many benefited." "Benefited" may 
 mean anything from a free meal, or a pair of boots, 
 to social salvation. But charity is supposed to 
 "rejoice in the truth." 
 
 Perhaps it is too strong to say, as was said 
 recently in a sermon in the West End, that some 
 of these reports would "put to shame the fraudulent 
 prospectus of a joint-stock company." Probably 
 these statements are often made because their 
 authors have not followed up sufficiently the results 
 of their work, and really believe that if they have 
 given somebody something they have relieved 
 poverty. In other cases there is undoubtedly a 
 tendency to think that exaggeration is necessary, 
 and even justifiable, in appealing for public support. 
 
 Or again, looking at it from another point of 
 view, is the "charity" which rejoices in being 
 taken in, the charity which "rejoiceth in the truth"? 
 We all know the phrase, " I had sooner be deceived 
 ninety-nine times than send one deserving person 
 away unhelped." We send cheques to begging- 
 letter writers with a sort of comfortable assurance 
 that we are being deceived. We forget that for
 
 82 POOR LAW AND CHARITY 
 
 the one person whom we have " helped or benefited," 
 that is to say, to whom we have given something, 
 we have dragged ninety-nine people a little lower 
 into the slough of fraud and mendicancy. We 
 forget that most of them have wives and children 
 whom they are dragging down with them into the 
 abyss. 
 
 Then again, there is the " charity " of mixed 
 motives. At election time in some places it rains 
 coals and blankets and free dinners ; a parliamentary 
 candidate is judged by the size of his cheques to 
 local societies and institutions. If a rich man, he 
 has very possibly his tongue in his cheek ; if a poor 
 one, he gives with groans and mutterings. In any 
 case, rich or poor, they both look upon it as part of 
 the exigencies of our representative system, and 
 . regard it as a sort of blackmail. It makes very 
 little difference to them whether their subscriptions 
 are given to cottage hospitals or village ping-pong 
 clubs. Rich men, again, not infrequently give 
 big cheques with an eye upon political or social 
 advancement cheques which may be called 
 "Pilkerton peerage" cheques. A newspaper starts 
 a fund, and gets copy and circulation. Not long 
 ago a new weekly paper was started in life with a 
 charitable fund. The paper only lasted for three 
 or four weeks, and there is no record as to what 
 happened to the charitable fund ; but its object was 
 sufficiently clear. Is that the charity which "seeketh 
 not her own " ? 
 
 Of course, the cheque of the millionaire, the 
 fund of the newspaper, even the subscriptions of 
 the M.P., may be as much above suspicion as 
 Caesar's wife. Everything depends upon the motive. 
 An old writer says that " well-doing is to be 
 judged by the intention," and "to judge a man we 
 must a long time follow and very curiously mark 
 his steps." Charity will, of course, give its money
 
 "TELESCOPIC" PHILANTHROPY 83 
 
 as it will give much besides. Money is all that 
 some people can give, and if it be given from a 
 sense of duty it is true charity, though it carries 
 with it the further duty of seeing that the money 
 is rightly applied. Speaking generally, however, 
 the giving of money is the easiest thing for those 
 who have plenty of it, and it involves, per se, the 
 minimum of personal feeling, the minimum of 
 personal sacrifice ; but we live in a commercial age, 
 and no one who watches the signs of the times, or 
 directs his attention to the utterances of public men 
 and of the Press, or takes note of the references to 
 the subject in modern drama, can fail to be struck 
 by the fact that, so far as the public mind is 
 concerned, money-giving has monopolised the whole 
 landscape of charity. 
 
 Again, we have all read our Dickens, and 
 remember the "telescopic" philanthropy of the 
 immortal Mrs Jellyby and the " wholesale " philan- 
 thropy of the equally famous Mrs Pardiggle. 
 Mrs Jellyby, as we all know, was so wrapt up in 
 the affairs of the natives of Africa, of " Borrioboola 
 Gha," and of the "brotherhood of man," that she 
 found no time to look after her own family. "' It's 
 disgraceful,' said poor Miss Jellyby ; ' the whole 
 house is disgraceful. The children are disgraceful, 
 I'm disgraceful, Pa's miserable, and no wonder. 
 Priscilla drinks she's always drinking. It's 
 a great shame, and a great story of you if you 
 say you didn't smell her to-day. It was as bad as 
 a public-house waiting at dinner, you know it was.' ' 
 And again " ' I wish Africa was dead,' she said on 
 a sudden. ' I do,' she said. ' Don't talk to me, 
 Miss Summerson, I hate it and detest it : it's 
 a beast!" 
 
 We may ask ourselves whether there is no 
 "telescopic philanthropy" to-day? whether there 
 are no rich people who pay starvation wages and 
 
 N
 
 84 POOR LAW AND CHARITY 
 
 give big cheques ? or who draw their income from 
 dilapidated house property or shady financial under- 
 takings, bringing ruin to hundreds, and figure 
 prominently in the philanthropic world. Possibly 
 there are, at the present moment, workpeople in 
 factories, weekly tenants in poor districts, small 
 shareholders in joint-stock companies, who would 
 say with Miss Jellyby, " I wish philanthropy was 
 dead ; I hate it and detest it : it's a beast." 
 
 It has been necessary to dwell at some length 
 upon this dubious sort of "charity," because we 
 must clear our minds upon the subject. It is, 
 however, after all, only the froth and effervescence 
 which is on the surface, and which, though much 
 greater in volume than it need be, or ought to be, 
 yet is quite insignificant in comparison with another 
 sort of charity which lies deeper down, a charity 
 much more in accordance with the ideals of 
 St Paul. 
 
 That charity is not much recognised, certainly 
 not advertised at all, but it is the charity which is 
 felt. It is the sort of charity which takes trouble 
 which helps lame dogs over stiles, which goes out 
 of its own way to lead blind men over crossings 
 a thing we may see done almost any day in the 
 streets of London. It may have no money to give, 
 but it does not spare either personal sympathy 
 or personal effort. It begins at home because 
 it believes that its first duty is to itself, the duty, 
 namely, of self-respect. What it considers essential 
 for itself it tries to promote in others. Its next 
 concern is with those immediately around it, those 
 of its own house, its neighbours, its employees, 
 its friends. When it has dealings with those 
 previously unknown to it, it makes neighbours and 
 friends of them, and is satisfied with nothing less. 
 If it has money to give, it does not give simply 
 because it is asked, but because it has satisfied
 
 itself that the gift will be of real service to him 
 who receives it. It constitutes an undercurrent of 
 spontaneous and natural charity, the depth and 
 force of which is seldom realised because it flows 
 unseen. It keeps in motion some of the most 
 essential machinery of the social organism, and 
 generates, so to speak, a repairing force of 
 enormous potency. It has its perennial springs 
 in all that is best in human nature, and flows 
 weaker or stronger as these springs rise or fall. 
 
 It manifests itself chiefly in the mutual affection 
 \ and helpfulness of family life ; after that in the 
 sympathy of friend arid friend, neighbour and 
 neighbour, employer and employed. It comes into 
 play quite naturally and when it is most required ; 
 there is no compulsion, no ostentation or shadow 
 of unworthy motive on the part of the giver, whilst 
 it can be accepted without loss of self-respect. 
 This sort of silent charity pervades all our social 
 relations, and tends to fill up their gaps almost 
 insensibly. Parents support their children in 
 infancy, and children help their parents in sickness 
 and old age. Relations less closely connected help 
 one another to an enormous extent. Who is there 
 who would allow a relation to go to the wall if 
 he could do anything to prevent it ? The charity 
 of poor neighbours to one another is proverbial. 
 The " friendly lead " is the commonest feature of the 
 workshop. Every friendly society has its benevo- 
 lent funds. There are all sorts of social ties 
 or "clannishness" too various for enumeration 
 membership of the same profession, inhabitancy of 
 the same village or country town, old schoolfellow- 
 ship or membership of the same college, all of which 
 cement a mutual obligation to help in time of need. 
 
 With regard to employer and employed, it is 
 often the fashion to say that the old feelings of 
 mutual respect and affection have disappeared, and
 
 86 POOR LAW AND CHARITY 
 
 that there is now only to use an academic phrase 
 a "cash nexus" between them. Of course that 
 may be the case in some instances, but if it is to 
 become universal it is much to be deplored. One 
 may even be sufficiently optimistic to believe that 
 it is impossible for people to work together long, 
 in the relationship of employer and employed, with- 
 out the establishment of a very real mutual respect 
 and affection. We must all of us know some old 
 employees, old servants who have been and are 
 some of the best friends we have ever had. The 
 writer has, in the course of his own experience, 
 o/ten had to appeal to employers of labour to help 
 an old servant in time of trouble, and he has almost 
 always found that the sense of obligation when 
 the service has been good service has been freely 
 recognised. 
 
 If it were possible to tabulate any statistics as 
 to the extent to which this spontaneous and honour- 
 able sense of obligation operates as a repairing force 
 in society, I think it would surprise some of those 
 who talk glibly about a "cash nexus." The old 
 age pension fund alone, for instance, which is the 
 natural outcome of this feeling, must be of enormous 
 proportions. There is hardly any firm of size or 
 standing that has not its list of pensioners. The 
 number of those pensioned by smaller firms or 
 private employers is almost innumerable. Then 
 there is a form of quasi pension which, as Mr 
 Charles Booth says, is met by the provision of 
 "suitable light work at wages which are based 
 upon the needs of the recipient rather than upon 
 value of the services rendered," and "is based upon 
 a kindly social usage." Almost every firm in 
 London has a few old employees retained upon 
 these terms. In the country upon a great number 
 of farms, upon almost every estate, it is still the 
 custom to maintain this " kindly social usage."
 
 THE CHARITY OF THE PUBLIC 87 
 
 The repairing force, again, which consists in the 
 performance of family obligations is of even more 
 importance to the poor. It is at present widely 
 recognised as a paramount duty, and has become 
 of an increasing strength since the reform of the 
 Poor Law. Under the old Poor Law it had almost 
 disappeared, and it will disappear again if we enter- 
 tain the idea of transferring its responsibilities to 
 the State. 
 
 For that the assumption of responsibility by the 
 State means the throwing off of responsibility by 
 the individual is a mere truism. All Guardians 
 must be aware of the constant struggle that exists 
 even now between the two forces. Of course no 
 one will do that which he believes it to be the duty 
 ! of some one else to do. Children will no longer 
 help to support their own parents if they are taught 
 that the duty devolves upon the State, and they 
 are at the same time taxed to maintain other 
 people's parents. Under the old Poor Law they 
 actually claimed payment for sitting with their old 
 parents when ill. And so on throughout the other 
 natural obligations indicated above. Extensions of 
 State relief in any form must lead to the contraction 
 of voluntary obligations of all sorts, because no one 
 will do the same thing twice over, and will tax 
 himself voluntarily for that which he is already 
 taxed by the State. 
 
 At the back of this great volume of " natural" 
 charity which some believe to be of such enormous 
 importance as a repairing force in society but a 
 force which is extremely sensitive and not difficult 
 to displace comes a reserve force which, for want 
 of a better name, may be designated as the charity 
 of the public ; the charity, that is to say, of those 
 whose sympathies go out towards mankind in 
 general ; who are distressed at the suffering and 
 misery that they see daily in the streets, or read of
 
 88 POOR LAW AND CHARITY 
 
 in the newspapers, but with which they themselves, 
 for want of opportunity, are not brought directly into 
 contact. This sort of charity which is very real 
 charity often fails for want of knowledge. It too 
 often becomes the prey of the professional mendicant. 
 It seldom knows much of the result of its action. 
 It is spasmodic and uneven. It ebbs and flows 
 according to circumstances frequently quite acci- 
 dental. A picturesque report in a newspaper causes 
 it to overflow. The fact that it has been imposed 
 upon in an individual case causes it to recede almost 
 out of sight. It is a very true charity because it 
 proceeds from altogether the best motives, and it 
 is of almost unlimited volume. If it were only 
 possible to inspire it with greater knowledge and 
 greater sense of responsibility it might become, as 
 indeed it sometimes does become, of the greatest 
 value as a supplementary force to the charity of 
 natural obligations, and might serve to fill up its 
 deficiencies. As it is, this sort of charity too often 
 supplements irregularly small doles of Poor Law 
 relief. Charity tries to throw part of its responsi- 
 bility upon the Poor Law, and the Poor Law tries 
 to throw part of its responsibility upon charity. 
 Neither knows with any certainty what the other 
 is doing, and their unfortunate victim falls between 
 two stools. Many believe that Poor Law and 
 charity should be kept quite distinct, and that the 
 Poor Law, being a compulsory obligation, should 
 not be regarded as charity at all. But those who 
 think otherwise, and believe that charitable relief 
 can legitimately supplement Poor Law relief, should 
 at least feel the responsibility of being sure of their 
 facts. 
 
 The position, then, is this. We have a great 
 inert mass of poverty to deal with, the existence of 
 which we all admit and we all deplore. In which 
 direction does the remedy lie ? Does it lie in the
 
 POVERTY NOT DIMINISHING 89 
 
 further increase of material relief or does it lie 
 elsewhere? 
 
 As has been already pointed out, the tendency 
 of the present day is towards such increase. Both 
 Poor Law and charitable relief have greatly in- 
 creased in the last decade, and all sorts of schemes 
 for the acceptance of further responsibility by the 
 State are in the air, all of which take the shape of 
 further relief. And in spite of it all poverty shows 
 no sign of diminution. On the contrary, if we may 
 accept the statements of such an authority as Mr 
 Rowntree, things are growing worse and worse 
 and more hopeless. In his book, which is attracting 
 so much attention, he states that in the city of York 
 9 per cent, of the poor do not earn sufficient for the 
 bare support of a "moderate" family, computed at 
 three or four, even if all expenditure upon luxuries 
 such as beer and tobacco be eliminated. Though 
 there will probably be some difference of opinion as 
 to the bases of his argument, and the inferences 
 drawn, yet no one will doubt that there is sufficient 
 truth behind them to call for our most anxious 
 attention ; and that is, probably, the object of his 
 work. 
 
 If the solution of the problem lay in further 
 schemes of relief, we should all be in favour of 
 them. On the other hand, if we think otherwise, 
 it is our duty to say so, and to point out what we 
 believe to be the better way even though that way 
 be difficult and hard to follow. 
 
 Those who have studied the history of the 
 question in the past and watched it closely in the 
 present day, those who have been engaged in Poor 
 Law and charitable administration for many years, 
 and have watched the effect of relief upon individuals 
 and families over a long period, have gained the right 
 to be heard in this matter, even though their voice 
 be a "voice crying in the wilderness." Perhaps it
 
 90 POOR LAW AND CHARITY 
 
 is better, after all, to be a "voice crying in the 
 wilderness " than one stump orating in the market 
 places. 
 
 In our own time the attempts to mitigate 
 poverty by the action of the State have been many. 
 Some have already been mentioned, but there are 
 some others worthy of notice. In the early nineties 
 Vestries and other Local Boards were urged by the 
 Local Government Board to provide work for the 
 unemployed. That led to vast expenditure upon 
 road-sweeping and stone-breaking, as we all 
 remember, an expenditure with, to say the least of 
 it, very chequered results. Of late we have been 
 instructed to make all sorts of alterations in our 
 workhouses, some of them undoubtedly very 
 necessary, and not to offer the House to the aged 
 deserving poor, but to give them "adequate" out- 
 door relief. For many years past the same Board 
 has been urging on the construction of enormous 
 and splendid infirmaries which are gradually tending 
 to become municipal hospitals not confined to the 
 destitute only, and there are many who contend 
 that the whole charge of the sick should be taken 
 over by the State. The attempt by an important 
 section of the London School Board to throw the 
 charge of feeding "underfed" school children upon 
 the rates has already been noted. 
 
 It will not be forgotten, moreover, that by the 
 abolition of school fees a very considerable sum has 
 of late years been added to the income of the 
 labouring population. There were many prophecies, 
 at the time, of the advantage that would accrue to 
 them in consequence. 
 
 Alongside of all this we have had enormous 
 schemes of voluntary charity. Many years ago we 
 were all startled by the proposals of General Booth 
 and his book " In Darkest England and the Way 
 Out." The result of that book has been a great
 
 SCHEMES FOR CURING POVERTY 91 
 
 expenditure upon free shelters for the poor, labour 
 homes and farms, free or exceedingly cheap meals, 
 and other widely advertised and highly centralised 
 forms of material relief. It may be mentioned in 
 passing that General Booth was not the first in the 
 field. At the beginning of the century there was 
 a predecessor of his who undertook for a million 
 pounds to cure poverty and to beat the French. 
 Then came Mr Charles Booth with his great and 
 valuable book upon the poor of London. The 
 outcome of his book is a proposal for universal 
 pensions, a proposal which has " caught on," and 
 which is seriously entertained in many quarters. 
 Besides all this, there is an enormous amount of 
 free meals for children and adults robin dinners, 
 soup kitchens, etc. Free medical relief at hospitals 
 and dispensaries is ever growing in amount. Can 
 we say after all these years that any impression has 
 been made upon the volume of poverty, or that the 
 way has been found out of "Darkest England?" 
 According to Mr Rowntree's book, there is a large 
 percentage of the poor who do not earn sufficient to 
 provide for the barest necessities of themselves and 
 their families. It is a significant fact that a large 
 proportion of the most distressing cases cited by 
 Mr Rowntree are in receipt of relief. 
 
 There are still some who believe that much of 
 this, at least, is a beginning at the wrong end, and 
 that poverty will never be cured by great schemes 
 of centralised relief, amongst which State relief 
 must of necessity take the first place ; who believe, 
 with the older economists, that the real and only 
 true line of progress is to be found in the adequate 
 payment of labour, and in the self-restraint and 
 self-respect of the poorer classes themselves, and 
 that such schemes, instead of acting as the cure for 
 poverty, serve to render it inveterate, because on 
 the one hand they condone the under-payment of
 
 92 POOR LAW AND CHARITY 
 
 labour and make it possible, whilst on the other 
 hand they give a sanction to irresponsibility 
 amongst the poor. 
 
 With regard to the payment of labour, un- 
 doubtedly there has been great improvement in the 
 past century if we may trust such authorities as the 
 late Professor Thorold Rogers, Mr Shaw Lefevre, 
 and many others. There is still much to be 
 desired in many directions, but so far as we can 
 judge from the reports of the Labour Department 
 of the Board of Trade and the statistics given in 
 the Report of the Labour Commission that improve- 
 ment still continues. The progress made has been 
 made, be it remembered, under a Poor Law which, 
 in principle at least, is confined to the relief of 
 destitution, though in practice it has often gone 
 far afield. Many still believe that the maintenance 
 of that principle is the sheet anchor of future 
 progress. 
 
 Next to and of equal importance with the 
 adequate payment of labour is the strengthening of 
 the desire for self-maintenance and self-respect. 
 We hear much of altruism and collectivism in these 
 days. We hear but little of self-respect. If we do 
 hear of it, it is apt to be identified with selfishness 
 and self-love. Yet we have authority for saying 
 even of self-love 
 
 " Self-love, my lord, is not so vile a sin 
 As self-neglecting." 
 
 With the weakening or annihilation of self-respect 
 and the principle of self-maintenance the evils which 
 we seek to abolish grow in intensity ; no relief can 
 supply the gap which is created by the weakening 
 of character. Most of us probably know many 
 concrete cases of people who have been ruined by 
 "charity "and the Poor Law between them. We 
 see them in the streets every day. Self-respect is a
 
 SELF-RESPECT A DEFENCE 93 
 
 sensitive thing, not difficult to unbalance, especially 
 if we are taught, as we often are, that we can 
 depend upon others, and yet, by some juggling of 
 language, retain our independence. Most of us 
 probably know old labourers in the country and 
 elsewhere whose great and legitimate pride it is 
 that they have never had to apply to the parish for 
 anything. They have no illusions on the subject. 
 The same feeling is strong amongst members of 
 the great friendly societies. 
 
 Pauperism, be it remembered, is not necessarily 
 connected with vice and drunkenness as is too often 
 assumed. Its commonest form is an indefinite 
 weakening of character, a dulling of spirit, a sort of 
 lowering of pitch, to which the very poor and those 
 to whom life is hard are necessarily the most subject. 
 It comes disguised in all sorts of garbs and sweetened 
 with all kinds of relishes. Many roads, broad and 
 easy, lead down to it, whilst the upward path is 
 narrow and steep. The best defence against it is 
 the armour of self-respect, a real self-respect which 
 is not to be cheated out of itself by the subtleties of 
 modern logicians. 
 
 Next to the increase of payment for labour, and 
 the growth of the spirit of self-maintenance, we 
 believe in the growth of the spirit of real charity. 
 As the first two conditions fulfil themselves more 
 and more, so will the problem that has to be dealt 
 with by charity simplify itself, and charity will 
 become more capable of effecting its purpose. The 
 different sorts of charity have been already glanced 
 at. The most important, though the least recog- 
 nised, is that which has been designated as " natural " 
 charity the charity, that is to say, of those who 
 know and respect one another. But imagined 
 possibilities of State relief are directly antagonistic 
 to that charity, as we have already seen. We shall 
 be told that it is hard to ask children to support
 
 94 POOR LAW AND CHARITY 
 
 their parents ; the real question is whether they 
 should support their own parents or some one else's 
 parents. We shall be told that the rich ought to 
 be made to support the poor. But we may ask 
 whether that is a satisfactory ideal, especially for 
 those who are trying to build up a democracy upon a 
 sound foundation. It implies a permanence of the 
 present conditions, whereas we believe the truer 
 ideal to be that the poor should be gradually 
 recovered from their poverty and raised to inde- 
 pendence. It will be said again that this " natural " 
 charity cannot be relied upon ; that there are many 
 so poor and so friendless that they would be 
 altogether outside of its scope. That may be the 
 case in some instances, but it is not, by any means, 
 generally true. The almost unlimited variety of 
 that charity has already been glanced at, and there 
 are few people who go through life without making 
 some friends. Even if it is partly true we must 
 remember that whatever we do there will be some 
 hard cases, and that we shall always have the poor 
 with us. But if the charity of natural obligation 
 sometimes fails, we have still behind it an immense 
 volume of what has been called the charity of the 
 public, such as the endowed charities, and an almost 
 boundless almsgiving, in reserve. That charity, 
 we believe, is beginning more and more to recognise 
 its responsibilities, but there is still much to be done. 
 If we could only focus it upon those cases of distress 
 which are really friendless, and in which money can 
 be of real service, we should have made a great 
 stride upon the "way out" of " Darkest England." 
 The fact is that there is no one way out. As 
 the causes of poverty are various, so are the 
 remedies. But those remedies must strike at the 
 root of the disease rather than deal with symptoms. 
 With regard to the payment of labour we can each 
 of us do something in our generation to create a
 
 VALUE OF FRIENDLY SOCIETIES 95 
 
 new state of public opinion upon the subject. 
 There are many firms and private employers 
 nowadays who make it a point of honour to pay 
 their employees properly. We can help to promote 
 the growth of the opinion that it is discreditable to 
 do otherwise. There are other means of aiming at 
 the same end ; co-operation and profit-sharing are 
 all roads in the same direction. So, too, are trades 
 unions, though they, like every one else, sometimes 
 make mistakes. 
 
 Another reason for underpayment of labour is 
 inefficiency of labour. Both boys and girls when 
 they leave school too often learn no trade, but go 
 out straight to some unskilled employment. Here 
 is an opportunity for those who act as school 
 managers or who work amongst the poor. It is 
 not difficult to make oneself acquainted with the 
 conditions of employment in the various trades. 
 A word of advice at the right moment to a boy or 
 girl leaving school, or to their parents, may be the 
 means of altering the course of a lifetime. 
 
 Or again, it is possible to do much in the 
 direction of forwarding the growth of the great 
 friendly societies, the value of whose work is seldom 
 sufficiently recognised. We can, if we like, join 
 them ourselves, either as financial or honorary 
 members, and so gain an insight into that work 
 and make it more generally known. It is no 
 exaggeration to say that if every one who could do 
 so joined a good and sound friendly society when 
 young, the social question would be half-way 
 towards solution. It is an admitted fact that 
 members of friendly societies comparatively seldom 
 have to apply for relief, and they believe themselves 
 that they can, if not interfered with, solve the 
 question of support in old age. We read in the 
 February number of " Unity," which is a journal 
 widely circulated amongst Foresters, Oddfellows,
 
 96 POOR LAW AND CHARITY 
 
 and kindred societies "The friendly societies can 
 and will eventually provide pensions in old age as 
 one of the ordinary benefits of the societies, and 
 this is the only proper solution of the subject." 
 They have long ago solved the problem of main- 
 tenance in sickness. 
 
 This is magnificent work, and those who will can 
 forward it either from inside or outside the societies 
 especially amongst the young. Managers of 
 Board and Voluntary Schools, of Boy's Clubs and 
 Brigades and other similar organisations, have great 
 opportunities. As a step in this direction a manual 
 by Mr Pinhorn, the well-known Oddfellow, has 
 already been adopted for the use of schools by the 
 London School Board, and it might well be adopted 
 by School Management Committees throughout the 
 country. The value of a good friendly society lies 
 not only in its provident side and in the benefits 
 secured, but in the fact that the lad who joins it 
 finds himself at once in the company of the best and 
 most self-respecting class of working men. 
 
 Another thing we can do is to endeavour to 
 improve the work of voluntary charity, to turn bad 
 charity into good charity, and to direct it aright. 
 Many of us probably are trustees of endowed 
 charities ; there is much room for improvement in 
 their administration. Or if we are not, we can at 
 least try to guide wisely our own almsgiving and 
 that of our friends. 
 
 Guardians have to recognise more and more the 
 dignity and responsibility of their work. Unlike 
 some other local authorities, they have to deal with 
 human nature and not with things. Sometimes 
 there is too much tendency, not only in ourselves, 
 but in that august Board which rules over us, to 
 become microscopic, and to deal with trifles. We 
 receive circular after circular enjoining on us various 
 elaborate dietary scales which are supposed to
 
 NO SETTLED POLICY IN POOR LAW RELIEF 97 
 
 contain the exact amount of protein and calories 
 which go to make up a sufficiently able-bodied but 
 not too able-bodied pauper. Then we receive other 
 circulars, and we divide the people in our work- 
 houses into Classes A, B, and C, and we put one 
 class into a room with pictures, and another class 
 into a room without, and so forth. Then we 
 introduce "relaxations." One result of Mr Chaplin's 
 circular has been that a certain Board of Guardians 
 in London have held a special meeting to consider 
 the question of introducing ping-pong into the 
 workhouse, and have decided to do it. This is not 
 to say that dietaries are of no importance and 
 relaxations unnecessary, but that while we busy 
 ourselves with these smaller matters we are apt to 
 lose sight of the wider issues of Poor Law adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 Do not suppose that all that has been suggested 
 can be done in a day. Evils of long standing 
 cannot be eradicated by a stroke of the pen, and 
 any sudden reversal of policy must be harsh to 
 those who have grown up under an older system. 
 All this has been said before, and there is little 
 probability that it will meet with general accept- 
 ance. Still it is the honest belief of some of 
 those who have taken part for many years in 
 both Poor Law and charitable administration, and 
 who have tried to think out these matters. 
 
 The melancholy part of it all is that we never 
 arrive at any settled policy. The Legislature 
 has ordained in its wisdom that the administra- 
 tion of the Poor Law perhaps the most difficult 
 administration that there is shall be entrusted 
 to any one who chooses to come forward at 
 election time, and we all know how difficult it is 
 to get qualified people to offer themselves. It is 
 perhaps not to be wondered at, as the office brings 
 with it a good deal of drudgery and but little
 
 98 POOR LAW AND CHARITY 
 
 credit. Every ex parte statement against a Board 
 of Guardians is greedily swallowed by newspapers 
 and by that section of the public which thinks that 
 it has sufficiently disposed of Guardians when it 
 calls them Bumbles. Then in a year or two, just 
 when a Guardian is beginning to learn his work, 
 and it takes him all that time to do so, the 
 Legislature says again that he must take his 
 chance of being turned out. And so we have a 
 constant fluctuation of policy which is mischievous 
 and unjust to the poor, because they never know 
 what to expect. 
 
 A word of protest may be added against those 
 who go about amongst the poor preaching the 
 doctrines of helplessness : that they are not re- 
 sponsible for their own characters, but are the 
 victims of their " environment " : that they cannot 
 save, or that if they can, they ought not to do so. 
 Of course we all like to think that we are the 
 victims of circumstances ; that faults in our char- 
 acter are hereditary, or the result of our education 
 and surroundings, and not of our own making. 
 Whatever scintilla of truth there may be in it, it 
 is a miserable doctrine to preach to poor people. 
 The doctrine that a man cannot save without 
 injury to his family is sure to be welcome to 
 the man who spends possibly one-eighth of his 
 income in a public house. On the other hand, 
 the man who is saving something, and there are 
 not a few such, can only be discouraged by such 
 doctrines. If any one has ever inquired into the 
 question of children attending Board Schools in- 
 sufficiently fed, what will he find? Will he find 
 they are the children of those who have sufficient 
 sense of responsibility to put something on one 
 side for the future, or will he find that they are 
 the children of those who spend their money upon 
 themselves in the public house and elsewhere ? It
 
 COBDEN'S DEFINITION OF CHARITY 99 
 
 is difficult to have any patience with people who 
 do these things, people who are as often as not 
 " University professors " and the like. They invent 
 phrases and shibboleths in their studies which we 
 recognise afterwards in the workshops, in the 
 working men's clubs and debating societies, and 
 at the street corners at election time. In doing 
 so they are causing irreparable mischief to the 
 character of the poor. 
 
 For that character we believe to be of supreme 
 importance to the nation at large. We have been 
 told that we shall always have the poor with us, 
 but we have never been told that one class is to 
 be doomed to eternal poverty. But that is what 
 must happen if the poor resign themselves to 
 poverty, and are satisfied to be "kept" by the 
 State. We want, like Queen Elizabeth, to recover 
 people from poverty and to give free play to those 
 forces which are at work in an upward direction. 
 We want to stimulate their "ambition to rise," 
 as was said many years ago by one of the best 
 friends the poor ever had. 1 Lord Rosebery, 
 speaking at Liverpool the other day, said that 
 for an empire it is necessary to have an imperial 
 people. But we cannot have physical efficiency 
 without moral efficiency ; we cannot construct an 
 imperial people out of a spiritless and pauperised 
 population. 
 
 1 Mine is that masculine sort of charity which would inculcate 
 in the minds of the labouring population the love of independence, 
 the privilege of self-respect, the disdain of being patronised or 
 petted, the desire to accumulate, and the ambition to rise. COBDEN.
 
 SOCIAL REFORM AND THE NEW 
 SOCIALISM 
 
 WHEN I was asked to write a paper for this Con- 
 ference, and to choose my own subject, my thoughts 
 at first naturally turned to some of the many points 
 of practical Poor Law administration which it has 
 been the custom to discuss at these Conferences in 
 the past. But then it occurred to me, as it has 
 probably occurred to many others, that such dis- 
 cussions are losing their interest, because they are 
 rapidly becoming out of date ; that, for instance, 
 questions such as the treatment of the aged poor, 
 of the able-bodied, of the children, and the com- 
 parative merits of indoor and outdoor relief, are 
 losing their significance so far as the Poor Law is 
 concerned, because they are being withdrawn one 
 by one from the purview of the Poor Law altogether. 
 Indeed it appears likely that by the time the Royal 
 Commission issues its Report there will be only the 
 shadow of the Poor Law to report about, because 
 the aged poor will have been transferred to a pension 
 authority, the able-bodied to the bodies specially 
 formed for the purpose of finding work for the 
 unemployed, the children to the education com- 
 mittees, and the sick and impotent to some public 
 health authority. Already the London County 
 Council have had a sort of full-dress rehearsal of 
 the dissolution of Boards of Guardians. They 
 have already, in theory, torn us limb from limb, 
 
 100
 
 DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM 101 
 
 and after throwing certain parts of us, rather con- 
 temptuously, to Borough Councils, they have 
 reserved the lion's share for themselves to be 
 assimilated at their leisure. In view of these con- 
 siderations I have thought it better to raise a 
 discussion to-day upon the wider issues underlying 
 these changes, rather than to any specific points 
 of Poor Law administration : issues with which we 
 are concerned not only as Poor Law Guardians, 
 who may be presumed to have special knowledge 
 of questions concerned with the relief of the poor, 
 but as citizens. 
 
 I suppose that we shall all agree that the force 
 which is at the back of all this is that which is 
 known as " Socialism " ; but before going further it 
 is necessary to be clear as to what is meant by the 
 word itself. There are probably few words which 
 are used by so many, and the meaning of which has 
 been exactly thought out by so few. It is rare, 
 except within a very small circle, to find two people 
 who are agreed about it. Broadly speaking, every 
 one who is not purely selfish, but has aspirations 
 for better social conditions, and is prepared to help 
 towards these conditions, is a socialist : in that 
 sense, most of those who are the most convinced 
 individualists are very practical socialists. They 
 have no selfish ends to serve, but they believe that 
 the solution of the social problem is to be found in 
 the strengthening of the position of the individual, 
 and their idea of social service is directed to that 
 end. They deplore, as much as any one can deplore, 
 the evils of poverty and the contrasts of poverty 
 and wealth. But their remedy is to stimulate the 
 ambition and accumulative instincts of the industrial 
 classes, rather than to supersede the necessity for 
 these qualities. They agree with Carlyle, that 
 Poor Laws and poor relief of all kinds are "an 
 anodyne, not a remedy," and that to accept them
 
 102 SOCIAL REFORM AND THE NEW SOCIALISM 
 
 as a remedy is a policy of despair. Those who 
 hold these opinions are certainly deficient neither 
 in social instincts nor in social sympathies, and 
 their position is quite consistent with that of the 
 earlier Christian socialists such as Kingsley and 
 Maurice. 
 
 At the other end of the scale we have another 
 sort of Socialism altogether, a Socialism which is 
 very distinct and definite, and the adherents to 
 which know their own mind very clearly : a Socialism 
 which, whether practicable or not, is quite logical 
 and consistent. I mean that academic Socialism 
 which is the inheritor of the traditions of the French 
 Revolution, and of the doctrines of the German 
 socialists of the middle of the last century, and 
 which must be looked upon as the source of inspira- 
 tion of all the English Socialism of the day, and 
 the centre round which a mass of social theory 
 gravitates. It would, as we all know, throw the 
 whole responsibility for social welfare upon the 
 State, and for that purpose would abolish private 
 property as an institution, and vest all the means 
 of production in the State, which would organise 
 industry and carry on all manufactures, and whilst 
 accepting the responsibility for the maintenance of 
 its citizens, would regulate their lives and affairs 
 upon lines adopted by the vote of the majority. It 
 cannot be denied that Socialism of this kind has 
 made great advances of late years ; not that, in my 
 opinion, it is itself any nearer realisation, but that 
 it has acted with constantly increasing momentum 
 in the promotion of another form of Socialism to 
 which I shall presently refer. In the future it can, 
 I think, never be more than a dream. In the past 
 it has never been more than a theory : there is no 
 instance in history in which society has organised 
 itself upon such principles ; many attempts have 
 been made to form communities upon such a basis
 
 ACADEMIC SOCIALISM 108 
 
 from the time of Robert Owen onwards, but they 
 have without exception failed. The property instinct 
 is too deeply seated in human nature to tolerate 
 such conditions. Neither would any Englishman 
 endure for a day such a State regulation of his 
 private life as must follow. Apart from that, our 
 experience of the management of business affairs 
 by public bodies, which are constantly changing 
 in opinion and constitution, is not such as to 
 warrant us in looking forward with complacency 
 to the management of our industrial affairs by 
 the State. 
 
 I do not know whether any one here has seen a 
 little book by the late Dr Richter, who was leader 
 of the German Liberal Party, entitled " Pictures of 
 the Socialistic Future." It is a fanciful story of a 
 German workman and his family who have been 
 ardent supporters of the social revolution, and 
 opens at the time when that revolution is supposed 
 to have been accomplished amidst great popular 
 rejoicings. At first everything is couleur de rose, 
 and our friend the workman cannot congratulate 
 himself sufficiently. But before long difficulties 
 begin to arise ; his children bring in the news that 
 the savings banks are closed and guarded by 
 soldiers. Property is abolished and community of 
 goods established, so that private citizens have no 
 further need for savings, and the savings of his 
 life-time are appropriated by the State. Next, the 
 organisation of industry by the State necessitates 
 the separation of the family. His daughter's 
 betrothed is sent away from Berlin to a distant 
 German town because there are too many of his 
 trade in Berlin. The youngest child has to be sent 
 to the State institution for children, and the mother 
 is only allowed to visit her at fixed times and under 
 strict regulations ; she is not even allowed to take 
 her a toy, or a packet of sweets, "for fear of
 
 104 SOCIAL REFORM AND THE NEW SOCIALISM 
 
 favouritism." The family have to take their meals 
 at the public tables, where every one has the same 
 food, and though the complaints as to its quality 
 are many and loud no attention is paid to them. 
 The workmen in the State workshops refuse to 
 recognise the authority of the State foremen, and 
 are in a chronic condition of insubordination. There 
 are also some humorous touches : domestic service 
 has been abolished as degrading, and the President 
 of the Republic has to black his own boots before 
 proceeding to his State duties. He finds that this 
 and other domestic duties interfere with the proper 
 perusal and consideration of State papers. There 
 are many other details for which I must refer you 
 to the book itself, but it appears to me that it 
 presents a very fair picture of what would actually 
 happen if the social democratic revolution were 
 brought within the sphere of practical politics. 
 That such can ever be the case is, I think, highly 
 improbable ; it is true that a large section of the 
 Labour Party have adopted it as their programme, 
 but the returns of the Chief Registrar of Friendly 
 Societies shows that the industrial classes have 
 amongst them some four hundred millions of savings 
 and accumulations, and it is very unlikely that they 
 would acquiesce in the absorption of their savings 
 by the State. But it is impossible to strike at one 
 class of property without affecting the whole. 
 Neither is it likely that they would tolerate any such 
 interference as is contemplated in their private lives. 
 The instincts of self-preservation and the love of 
 family life are still, happily, strong with the 
 Englishman. 
 
 But there is another section of public opinion 
 from which perhaps the largest body of those who 
 would call themselves " Socialists " is found. These 
 last, for the most part, represent a vague but 
 widespread resentment against the inequalities of
 
 SOCIALIST MEASURES AND SOCIAL REFORM 105 
 
 poverty and wealth, and they desire to see a 
 redistribution of property by some means, of which 
 they have hardly thought out the details. They 
 recognise to the full the institution of private 
 property, and are in that sense as individualist as 
 the individualists, and they derive their main 
 support from those who, not having property, 
 want to have it. 
 
 Socialism of this kind is that to which the late 
 Sir W. Harcourt referred when he made use of the 
 well-known expression, " We are all Socialists 
 now," and its danger lies mainly in its indefiniteness. 
 It does not accept the underlying principles of 
 State Socialism, whilst it is prepared to accept, by 
 instalments, a large part of its programme under 
 the name of " social reform " a rather question- 
 begging phrase. Mr Balfour recently denned the 
 distinction between Socialism and social reform. 
 I have not his words by me, but they were to the 
 effect that whilst Socialism aims at the abolition of 
 private property, and the control of the means of 
 production by the State, social reform will have 
 nothing to do with such things, but starts from the 
 basis of the institution of private property. That, 
 however, being once granted (he continues), social 
 reform recognises that it is the duty of the State to 
 levy contributions upon the well-to-do for the 
 benefit of their poorer neighbours. With such a 
 definition, broadly speaking, no one will quarrel. 
 Everyone recognises the necessity of taxation for 
 Poor Law purposes, and for many other purposes 
 connected with the well-being of the community, 
 such as education and the like. But it is not 
 difficult to see that the definition is not a sufficient 
 one for practical purposes, and that it might be so 
 applied as to carry out in practice most of the 
 proposals initiated by the Fabian Society. I think 
 that I shall have no difficulty in showing that this
 
 106 SOCIAL REFORM AND THE NEW SOCIALISM 
 
 is really its present tendency. Meanwhile, neither 
 Mr Balfour nor any of those who speak about 
 social reform have clearly defined what they mean 
 by "social reform." It is possible that they have 
 not exactly thought it out in all its bearings them- 
 selves. We have, therefore, to judge from the 
 measures that have been actually put forward under 
 that name as to its true significance and tendency, 
 and it is plain that they have, without exception, 
 been initiated and inspired by the Socialist organi- 
 sations. It is of Socialist measures put forward in 
 the name of "social reform" by those who repudiate 
 the name of Socialism that I desire to speak as 
 " the new Socialism." 
 
 First and most important of these, because it 
 affects the whole population of working age, is the 
 recognition of the "right to work," which is implied 
 by the " Unemployed Workmen Act." It was, of 
 course, denied by its authors that the Act contained 
 any such implication, and Mr Gerald Balfour, in 
 proposing it, urged that it was so safeguarded by 
 all sorts of restrictions and limitations that no such 
 danger was to be apprehended. Public money was 
 not to be used except for machinery, and even for 
 that it was limited to a penny rate. Poor Law 
 relief was to disqualify, and the benefit of the Act 
 was to be confined by investigation to a strictly 
 limited section of the higher class of workmen 
 "exceptionally out of work." The opponents of 
 the Act pointed out that if once the principle of 
 State-provided work were recognised the safeguards 
 would be bound to go ; that all experience had 
 proved that it was ruinous for the State to attempt 
 to provide work outside of that demanded by the 
 economic needs of the community ; that when the 
 State stepped in voluntary subscriptions would 
 disappear, and that real and effective discrimination 
 by public bodies was an impossibility. However,
 
 UNEMPLOYED WORKMEN ACT 107 
 
 they hardly obtained a hearing, and the Act was 
 passed almost unanimously by a House of 
 Commons which would certainly repudiate the 
 name of " Socialist." The Labour Party were 
 more clear-sighted. Mr Will Crooks at once raised 
 a paean of triumph because "the principle had been 
 recognised." And now, after two years' experience, 
 what do we find ? My knowledge is chiefly confined 
 to London, but there the anticipations of the 
 opponents of the Act have been realised almost 
 to the letter. Voluntary subscriptions have dis- 
 appeared and an Exchequer grant has been a 
 matter of necessity. Investigation has proved 
 almost a farce owing to the different standards of 
 the Distress Committees. The benefits of the Act, 
 if doles of work can be called benefits, have gone 
 mainly to the casual labourer. The practical 
 impossibility of finding work which "will not 
 compete with the work of those already in employ- 
 ment " has been proved up to the hilt. Of some 
 29,000 registered last year, only 3500 obtained 
 temporary work, and a large proportion of the 
 remainder were kept hanging about the offices of 
 Distress Committees waiting for work which it was 
 obvious ab initio that they could never get, and 
 meanwhile were losing their places in the ordinary 
 labour market. Some of the work, e.g. the laying 
 out of golf courses and the formation of artificial 
 lakes, has been unnecessary and of doubtful 
 economic value, but much of it has been work 
 which must eventually have been done by the 
 labourer in the open market, who has therefore 
 been pro tanto the sufferer. It has been done at 
 a heavy loss varying from 25 to 75 per cent. The 
 London County Council have valued the work done 
 - for them at one-fifth the value of that done by the 
 ordinary unskilled labourer. Meanwhile the expen- 
 diture on machinery and officialism has been very 
 
 Q
 
 108 SOCIAL REFORM AND THE NEW SOCIALISM 
 
 heavy. 1 London has also made an experiment in 
 the direction of the "reclamation of foreshores," of 
 which we hear so much as a remedy for unemploy- 
 ment. Two hundred acres of land at Fambridge 
 in Essex have been rather doubtfully reclaimed 
 at a cost of ,25,000, and the land is now valued at 
 ;8oo. Such has been the experience, after two 
 years' working, of this flirtation with the main tenet 
 of the Socialist creed, that it is the duty of the 
 State to find work for everyone who is able and 
 willing to do it. It has done little or nothing to 
 mitigate distress from want of employment. On 
 the contrary, the interference with the mobility of 
 labour and the great expectations that have been 
 aroused have rendered the position more critical 
 than ever before. And I venture to prophesy that 
 the longer we persist in a mistaken policy, the 
 greater will be the extent of the evil. 
 
 The next plank in the Socialist programme 
 which has been accepted by both political parties is 
 the proposal for Old Age Pensions. Here, again, 
 non-Socialist Parliaments have again and again 
 accepted the principle as a measure of "social 
 reform." As to this, we have to recall the fact that 
 the question has been considered again and again 
 by Commissions or Committees of experts who 
 have in all cases decided against them, and that 
 the only support has come from Committees 
 composed exclusively of politicians. The main 
 line of cleavage is between those who believe that 
 the true line of social progress is to be found in the 
 gradual improvement of the payment of labour and 
 in the prudence and self-control of the working- 
 classes themselves, and those who believe that such 
 
 1 The expenditure on establishment charges in London from 
 Nov. 1906 to June 1907 was ^11,090, or 73. 4d. per case registered, 
 93. 6d. per case investigated, 3, 2s. 6d. per case provided with 
 temporary work.
 
 OLD AGE PENSIONS 109 
 
 a consummation is impossible and that the burden 
 of the maintenance of the aged poor must rest with 
 the State. 
 
 Here again, if you once accept the principle, 
 there is no limit to its extension ; invalidity is a far 
 more real claim to our sympathy even than old age, 
 which comes to all, and for which there is a whole 
 lifetime to prepare, and if we are to pension the 
 aged we must also pension those who are incapaci- 
 tated for labour from whatever cause : already in 
 Germany the invalidity claims have far outstripped 
 the old age claims. The fixing of any age is 
 unscientific; some are "too old at forty," others 
 capable of good work long after they are sixty or 
 even sixty-five. The opponents of old age pensions 
 believe that they would act in supplementation of 
 wages, and so indefinitely postpone the true 
 solution of the problem of provision for old age, 
 and that they would be detrimental to thrift, 
 because they would impose upon the thrifty the 
 burden of the maintenance of the unthrifty. 
 Finally, they know that the expectations which 
 have been aroused have already had a disastrous 
 effect upon the efforts that the working classes are 
 themselves making through the great friendly 
 societies and similar organisations, to provide 
 against old age. At the time when old age 
 pensions were first brought by Mr Chamberlain 
 within the field of practical politics, there had been 
 steady progress in this direction. For example, in 
 1871 there were twenty-one paupers in every 
 hundred of the population over sixty, in 1891 there 
 were only thirteen, and there was every reason to 
 hope that this improvement might have continued. 
 In the words of Lord Rothschild's Committee in 
 1898 "We desire to refer to one consideratoin 
 which the course of our inquiry has strongly 
 impressed upon us. It is that a large and
 
 110 SOCIAL REFORM AND THE NEW SOCIALISM 
 
 increasing number of the industrial population do 
 already, by prudence, self-reliance, and self-denial, 
 make their old age independent and respected. 
 We entertain a strong hope that the improvement 
 which is constantly taking place in the financial 
 and moral conditions of labour will do much to 
 deprive the problem we have had to consider of 
 the importance now attaching to it." 
 
 The next Socialist proposal which has obtained 
 a recognition in principle from the " new Socialism " 
 of a non-Socialist Parliament, has been that of the 
 State maintenance of children. In this we may 
 observe the gradual evolution that has taken place. 
 First of all, the children were to be educated com- 
 pulsorily ; then they were to be educated free the 
 school pence were remitted, and it was argued that 
 they would go to the better maintenance of the 
 children. In time this argument was forgotten, 
 and for many years past there has been increasing 
 pressure for the State feeding of children upon the 
 ground that you compel them to be educated, and 
 that this carries with it the duty of feeding them 
 also. The pressure has now culminated in the 
 passing of the Provision of Meals Act of last year. 
 Like all similar measures it is tentative, and educa- 
 tion authorities have the option of raising a rate 
 or dealing with the question by voluntary means. 
 For the moment a considerable number of these 
 bodies have adopted the latter alternative, but it 
 is not difficult to see that it will be impossible to 
 maintain this policy for long. Already there is 
 almost intolerable pressure upon local bodies to 
 throw the cost upon the rates : Socialist organisa- 
 tions are multiplying deputations upon the subject, 
 and Socialist or quasi-Socialist members of the 
 bodies themselves are not allowing the matter to 
 rest. As usual, the difficulty of raising voluntary 
 subscriptions increases when the rates are in the
 
 POOR LAW AND SOCIALISM CONTRASTED 111 
 
 background. Meanwhile Socialist managers of 
 schools are doing their utmost to magnify the 
 numbers of the children reported to be "underfed," 
 and are straining every nerve to bring about a 
 breakdown of the voluntary system. But of course 
 much wider issues are involved ; the question of the 
 feeding of the children is really a minor one. The 
 question of clothing, proper housing, and medical 
 attendance is of more than equal importance. 
 Meanwhile we have taken the first step upon an 
 inclined plane leading towards the acceptance of the 
 full Socialist demand for the State maintenance of 
 children. 
 
 So much for these developments of the "new 
 Socialism " which have already been or are about 
 to be realised. We have now to consider the 
 relation of the old Poor Law to the new Socialism. 
 I am aware, of course, that the old Poor Law has 
 been frequently discussed at these Conferences, and 
 that there is always some impatience when it is 
 mentioned. When I referred to it at a recent 
 Conference there was a general cry, " Oh, we have 
 heard all that before," and one of my critics 
 facetiously said, "As it was in the beginning, is 
 now, and ever shall be," etc. Well, I submit that 
 criticism of that kind is not real criticism at all. 
 These critics have one thing in common, namely, 
 that though they denounce your arguments as 
 obsolete they never attempt to answer them. The 
 only course, then, is to repeat them until we either 
 get an answer or become convinced that there is 
 no answer. The plain fact is that the old Poor 
 Law and the new Socialism are for all practical 
 purposes one and the same. 
 
 The first purpose of the old Poor Law was that 
 of setting the able-bodied to work, and the new 
 Socialism has just accepted a similar responsibility. 
 For some 230 years the old Poor Law was engaged
 
 112 SOCIAL REFORM AND THE NEW SOCIALISM 
 
 in trying to solve the problem of "finding work for 
 the unemployed." At the time of its enactment, 
 and for many years afterwards, the main industry 
 of the country was that of spinning and weaving, 
 and naturally the provision of artificial employment 
 usually took that form. Hundreds of schemes were 
 devised " for the better employment of the poor," 
 and hundreds of experiments made during these 230 
 years. The commonest was that of providing 
 parish "stocks," that is to say, stocks of flax, wool, 
 hemp, etc., to be worked up by the poor. The 
 Overseers, whose duty it was to do this, answered 
 to the Distress Committees of our day. These 
 schemes uniformly failed, and the author of 
 "Robinson Crusoe" pointed out, as far back as 
 1704, that if the State gives work to one man it 
 takes it away from another, and that the effect of 
 such employment is merely " to transpose our manu- 
 factures and confound our trade ; for every skein of 
 worsted spun in a workhouse there must be a skein 
 the less spun by some poor family who spun it 
 before ; to set poor people to work upon the same 
 thing that other poor people are employed upon is 
 giving to one what you take away from another, 
 putting a vagabond in the honest man's employ- 
 ment." So, too, under the new Socialism, most of 
 us must know cases in which the ordinary workman 
 has been thrown out of employment because the work 
 has been given to the unemployed. Most of the 
 work done by the unemployed of London in the 
 parks and elsewhere at a heavy loss would other- 
 wise have been done economically and well by the 
 ordinary workman in the open market. I am 
 afraid that the effect has been too often that of 
 putting a vagabond in an honest man's employment. 
 Under the old Poor Law, again, things came to 
 such a pass that at last no one could get employ- 
 ment at all except through the parish, and it seems
 
 POOR LAW AND SOCIALISM CONTRASTED 113 
 
 likely that the same will soon be the case in the 
 twentieth century under the new Socialism. Finally, 
 under "Gilbert's Act," it was provided that every 
 one capable of work should be provided with work 
 at or near his own home. The system of employ- 
 ment by parish stocks broke down early in the 
 day, and towards the end of the eighteenth and in 
 the beginning of the nineteenth century the main 
 employment given was in work upon the roads or 
 parish farms, or by hiring out labourers to farmers 
 on the "roundsman system." Local Authorities 
 were frequently reduced to such straits as putting 
 men to stand in the parish pound for so many 
 hours, or answering their names at a roll call in 
 return for parish pay. The practical impossibility of 
 finding economic work which will not interfere with 
 the work of those already in employment, will soon 
 reduce us to similar straits under the new Socialism. 
 
 The second great function of the Elizabethan 
 Poor Law was the relief of the impotent, and under 
 it practically every poor person had an old age 
 pension. Those who have studied the old parish 
 books will tell you that in most parts of England 
 almost the whole labouring population young, 
 middle-aged, and old were upon the rates, and 
 outdoor relief was universal. There is no difference, 
 but in name, between old age pensions and outdoor 
 relief, except that old age pensions are more 
 attractive, because they are on a higher scale 
 and are free from the name of pauperism. 
 
 With regard to the third point, the maintenance 
 of children, under what was known as the 
 " Speenhamland Act," from is. 6d. to 2s. 6d. 
 a week, according to the price of the quartern 
 loaf, was allowed to practically any labourer who 
 chose to apply for it in respect of each child, 
 and the State or rate (for it is the same thing) 
 maintenance of children was almost universal.
 
 114 SOCIAL REFORM AND THE NEW SOCIALISM 
 
 So, then, we see that the new Socialism, so 
 far as it has gone at present, is carrying us back 
 in the direction of the old Poor Law, which is the 
 one great Socialist measure which has been enacted 
 in this country. We all know its history, and that 
 of the ruin to which it led. Then came the new 
 Poor Law, which laid it down that the position 
 of the pauper should be less eligible than that of 
 the independent labourer. Now once more we 
 are making it more eligible to be a pauper, but 
 the recipient of State relief is no longer to be 
 called by that name. Thoughtful people who have 
 studied the question, both in the past and the 
 present, are, not unnaturally, alarmed at the 
 outlook. It is true that we call things by grander 
 names nowadays than they used to a hundred 
 years ago. The word pauperism offends our ears, 
 and much of what is really the purest materialism 
 masquerades under the name of " idealism." Some 
 here may think that I have gone outside the scope 
 of a Poor Law Conference, but these are really 
 the vital issues which are before the country, 
 and I do not think that Guardians can afford to 
 ignore them because it pleases people to make 
 believe that they are not Poor Law questions. 
 The great need of the moment is to clear the 
 issues, and to call things by their right names. 
 
 Let me, then, recapitulate shortly the main 
 points that I wish to place before you. First of 
 all, public opinion upon these questions is divided 
 roughly into three heads. We have the section 
 of "Individualist" opinion, as it is called, which 
 holds that the solution of the social problem is to 
 be found in the strengthening of the individual, 
 and that this must be an essential condition of 
 true social reform, and that everything else leads 
 to social disorganisation. At the other extreme 
 we have the academic Socialist opinion ; this again
 
 OPINION ACTUATED BY VARIOUS MOTIVES 115 
 
 we can respect ; it knows its own mind, and is 
 very clear and definite as to its objects, and what- 
 ever we may think as to the practicability of these 
 objects it has a logical and well-defined social 
 policy. Between these two extremes, there is that 
 large loose and fluctuating body of public opinion, 
 which, though it is certainly not Socialist at heart 
 in the true sense of the word, yet derives its 
 chief inspiration from the academic Socialists, and 
 is prepared to accept a large part of their 
 programme. It is actuated by various motives, 
 some of which are purely philanthropic, others 
 political. It has not any very definite programme, 
 and has not thought out the matter very clearly, 
 neither have its adherents considered the logical 
 consequences of measures hastily adopted by them. 
 For example, it was probably something of a 
 shock to the authors of the Unemployed Workmen 
 Act to hear it cited the other day by Mr Ramsay 
 Macdonald as the basis of his "Right to Work" 
 Bill. Yet Mr Ramsay Macdonald was undoubtedly 
 justified in his assumption. Similarly, Mr 
 Chamberlain's scheme for contributing old age 
 pensions by way of deferred annuity has developed 
 into a scheme for universal non-contributory 
 pensions, and the Provision of Meals Act is clearly 
 another step in the direction of the State main- 
 tenance of children. This body of opinion, if 
 indeed it deserves the name of opinion, is most 
 heterogeneous in composition. It includes a vast 
 number of people sincerely anxious to improve 
 social conditions, but who have had no practical 
 experience of social work, and have no clear idea 
 as to how to set about it. It includes many who 
 are tossed to and fro between the waves of sense 
 and sensibility, and whose opinions are, to use 
 the words of an old writer, " milde, mungrel, and 
 ambiguous." It includes many political oppor- 
 
 R
 
 116 SOCIAL REFORM AND THE NEW SOCIALISM 
 
 tunists, and many who have pledged themselves in 
 advance to opinions from which they are unwilling 
 to recede. These last may be reminded that " for 
 a man to correct himself, and when he is most in 
 earnest to leave an ill opinion, are most rare, noble, 
 and philosophical conditions," and again, that he 
 who persists in an opinion after he has lost 
 his faith in it "loveth himself better than the 
 truth." These, then, are the three main divisions 
 of public opinion: I believe that the middle posi- 
 tion, which is that of the "new Socialism," is an 
 untenable one, and that sooner or later its supporters 
 must range themselves definitely on the one side 
 or the other. 
 
 I have chosen to speak to you upon this subject 
 because it appears to me to be the main issue now 
 before the country, and one upon which Poor Law 
 Guardians, who have wide experience and training, 
 and full knowledge of the evils of pauperism, are 
 better qualified to form an opinion than any others. 
 The details of administration sink into absolute 
 insignificance in comparison. Many suggestions 
 are being made now for Poor Law reform ; in my 
 opinion, they most of them amount to little more 
 than a shuffling of the cards. The main question 
 is not by whom the Poor Law is to be administered, 
 but upon what principles it is to be administered, 
 and sooner or later the country will have to make 
 up its mind upon the subject. So far, all that has 
 been, done has been to evade the question by 
 putting forward measures which are really Poor 
 Law measures, and calling them something else. 
 This has been the sole result, up to the present, 
 of the new Socialism, which, as I have tried to 
 show, has been carrying us back faster and faster 
 towards the old Poor Law, and which contains 
 within it the seeds of irretrievable national disaster.
 
 DEMOCRACY AND LOCAL ELECTIONS 
 
 FOR some time past there has been a growing 
 uneasiness in the minds of many observers with 
 regard to the question of our system of local 
 government. On the one hand there are widespread 
 complaints of municipal mismanagement and ex- 
 travagance, on the other a constant demand for the 
 conferring of greater powers and responsibilities 
 upon municipal bodies. Often, indeed, the very 
 people who are loudest in their complaints of 
 incompetence are most insistent in demanding 
 further powers for the bodies they denounce. 
 Meanwhile enterprise of all kinds, both civic and 
 philanthropic, is passing more and more out of the 
 hands of individual citizens into those of public 
 bodies "elected by the people." The magnitude 
 of the powers now exercised by these bodies, and 
 the fact that there appears to be no prospective 
 limit to their activity, render it imperative that we 
 should scan closely the operation of the system 
 under which they are appointed and ask ourselves 
 whether it works as it is intended to work, and 
 whether we are securing under it the administrators 
 best fitted for functions which concern the future of 
 the country more closely than any question of foreign 
 policy or imperial extension. 
 
 The nature and constitution of municipal bodies 
 and the methods of their appointment were finally 
 settled and prescribed by the Local Government 
 Act of 1894. The main object of that Act was, as 
 
 117
 
 118 DEMOCRACY AND LOCAL ELECTIONS 
 
 is well known, to carry the democratic principle to 
 its extreme limits in local elections. Qualifications 
 both for candidates and voters were swept away 
 as also was the principle of nomination by the 
 Local Government Board. The last trace of plural 
 voting was effaced, and the principle that taxation 
 and representation go together finally discarded. 
 It was urged that the measure would widen and 
 intensify the interest in local affairs, that with 
 greater power there would come greater responsi- 
 bility, and that thenceforward every citizen would 
 be awakened to an intelligent interest in local 
 government and to a full sense of its importance. 
 The average citizen who had up to that time dis- 
 played a persistent disregard for the affairs of his 
 town or parish was to be "educated" out of his 
 apathy by a sense of responsibility. It was suggested 
 at the time that the administration of the Poor Law 
 was too difficult and complex a subject for the turmoil 
 of the hustings. The answer was that the electorate 
 would soon learn all that it was necessary to learn 
 about the Poor Law, and would exercise their 
 suffrages with discretion and intelligence. More 
 than ten years have gone by. The Act has had a 
 fair trial, and it is time to inquire how it has worked, 
 and whether in fact it has had, or appears in the fair 
 way to obtain, the results that were anticipated by 
 its authors. 
 
 An attempt is made in this article to bring these 
 questions to some sort of preliminary test by an 
 inquiry with regard to a single local election in a 
 single place the election, namely, of Boards of 
 Guardians in London, which took place in 1904. 
 A fuller inquiry is no doubt very desirable, but a 
 single election in a great town may be fairly taken 
 as a test of the conditions attending similar elections 
 in other great centres of population. Moreover, a 
 Poor Law election has a special significance because
 
 POOR LAW ELECTION OF 1904 119 
 
 the Poor Law is a branch of local administration 
 which has a sinister history behind it, and which 
 demands special qualifications and capabilities from 
 those who undertake it. It becomes essential to 
 inquire whether its administrators possess these 
 qualifications, and whether the electorate itself is 
 becoming better qualified to judge as to those who 
 will serve it best. 
 
 The method adopted has been as follows. 
 Information has been collected from all parts of 
 London with regard to the election in question, 
 including statistics as to the polls in each union, 
 election addresses of candidates, local newspapers, 
 and other contemporary expressions of opinion. 
 The information is not absolutely complete, because 
 in some cases it was found impossible to obtain the 
 particulars asked for, even within a short time of 
 the election, which is rather a significant sign of the 
 ephemeral nature of the interest awakened. How- 
 ever, a large amount of matter has, through the 
 kindness of various correspondents, been brought 
 together, and it is hoped that it may be considered 
 of sufficient importance to establish the necessity 
 of further inquiry upon some of the points indicated. 
 
 First of all, with regard to the polls, statistics 
 were obtained as to the number of wards in each 
 union contested or uncontested. When there were 
 contests figures were asked for as to the number of 
 voters upon the register and as to the number of 
 those who actually voted. A detailed table of the 
 results will be found at the end of this article, but 
 the following is a summary. 
 
 Information was furnished from twenty-seven out 
 of thirty-one unions. In these twenty-seven unions 
 there were in all 236 wards. Of these 122 were 
 polled; 115, or nearly half, remained unpolled. In 
 two of the twenty-seven unions there were no con- 
 tests ; in three, though there were contests, it proved
 
 120 DEMOCRACY AND LOCAL ELECTIONS 
 
 impossible toobtain the actual figures. In theremain- 
 ing twenty-two unions, out of 296,725 electors upon 
 the register in the contested wards, 69,385 voted, or 
 rather less than one-quarter. We may take it there- 
 fore that, in the whole metropolis, in round figures, 
 half the wards were polled, and that in that half a 
 quarter of the electorate only made use of their votes. 
 These figures, however, do not represent the 
 whole truth. It is, of course, well known to every- 
 one who has been concerned in local elections that 
 those immediately interested spare no effort to 
 secure the return of themselves and their friends. 
 The support of political and other associations is 
 enlisted. Election Committees and bands of 
 canvassers are organised. No means that human 
 ingenuity can devise are left untried in order to 
 induce people to vote. In Lambeth, according to 
 a local paper, "seven out of eight of the voters 
 were whipped to the poll by party organisations." 
 In Islington it was "a matter of the candidates 
 drumming up such of their private friends and 
 neighbours as would go outside their doors to oblige 
 them." In Lewisham "what excitement there was 
 was limited to the candidates and their friends." 
 The same story comes from all parts of London. 
 In Marylebone "little enthusiasm" ; in Shoreditch 
 " deadening lack of interest " ; in Camberwell 
 "colossal apathy"; and so elsewhere. But it 
 is hardly necessary to elaborate the point. The 
 figures speak for themselves. In the individual 
 polls it is rare indeed to find one which runs into 
 four figures, though the voters upon the register 
 in the wards are usually from 3000 to 5000. Local 
 elections have been " democratised," but the 
 democracy, after many years' trial, still stands 
 aloof. What voting there is, is organised by the 
 efforts of candidates themselves. There is no 
 spontaneous interest.
 
 LOCAL GOVERNMENT DISCREDITED 121 
 
 A letter in the " Clapham Observer " (i6th April 
 1904) analyses the voting in the huge union of 
 Wandsworth, containing a population of more than 
 400,000, and points a moral. The writer states 
 that, in the three years of office of the outgoing 
 Board, a total of .642,620, showing an increase 
 of twenty-seven per cent, in the three years, " had 
 been spent by the Guardians." He goes on to say 
 that, at the three elections out of twenty-four wards 
 only eight polled. "The total number of voters in 
 the union is 73,340; of these only 5086 voted, or 
 not quite seven per cent. In the eight wards con- 
 tested only 21.66 per cent., or not one-quarter of 
 the ratepayers, took the trouble of voting. Upon 
 whom does the blame rest if the expense of Poor 
 Law administration goes up by leaps and bounds ?" 
 
 What, then, is the cause of this ? The answer 
 probably is that there are many contributory 
 causes, but that the main cause is the little 
 credit which local government enjoys in popular 
 estimation. The average citizen looks on it with 
 something like contempt : he will neither take 
 part in it himself nor will he trouble himself to 
 vote, or even to learn anything about it. He 
 has ajvague idea that Guardians are "Bumbles," 
 and borough councillors not much better. He 
 has no clear ideas as to the functions of a 
 multiplicity of local bodies, and he resents the 
 frequency of elections. This is the case with 
 the "well-to-do" class of voter; the poorer voter, 
 in addition, has the grievance that he has been 
 repeatedly promised all sorts of benefits without 
 any result, and his constant dictum is that "one 
 lot is as bad as the other, and that he won't 
 vote at all." The discredit into which local govern- 
 ment has fallen affects unfavourably the class of 
 candidates who offer themselves for election. The 
 average citizen sees in it no outlet for honourable
 
 122 DEMOCRACY AND LOCAL ELECTIONS 
 
 ambition. He is, as a rule, especially in the 
 poorer parts of London, fully occupied with his 
 own business, and there is little temptation to 
 him to sacrifice any part of his time to work 
 which brings with it little credit and not seldom 
 a considerable share of blame. The absence of 
 candidates of some standing and position reacts 
 unfavourably upon the electorate, who, as a rule, 
 know little of those who offer themselves, and 
 feel no enthusiasm for them. The position with 
 regard to Poor Law administration is a particularly 
 difficult one. The road to popularity does not 
 lie through the careful expenditure of public 
 money. The Press and many public men lose 
 no opportunity of denouncing " bumbledom," and 
 the opprobrium often falls upon those who deserve 
 it least. 
 
 The result of all this is that the work too 
 often falls into the hands of those who have 
 "axes to grind," and that in the absence of 
 suitable candidates the electorate is at the mercy 
 of anyone who will come forward, and that scandals 
 of all kinds are of frequent occurrence. In a 
 recent number of the " Poor Law Officers' Journal " 
 it is reported that at a single sitting of a certain 
 metropolitan Board of Guardians this year, no 
 less than two sons of Guardians were appointed 
 to paid offices under the Board, in spite of the 
 protest of a minority. Anyone who is behind the 
 scenes will know that this is no isolated occurrence. 
 But, further, a seat upon a local Board is frequently 
 the first step to an office under that Board. The 
 present writer is aware of a case in which at 
 least three medical officers have obtained appoint- 
 ments under a certain Board, having first been 
 "elected by the people." The local government 
 papers report frequently "the resignation of a 
 Guardian " in order to take up a registrarship
 
 POLITICAL CLUBS CONTROL ELECTIONS 123 
 
 or even the post of relieving officer : people who 
 do these things will not of course stop short at 
 other doubtful practices. All this naturally tends 
 to bring local government into deserved disrepute, 
 and the whole system moves in a vicious circle ; 
 the discredit into which it has fallen becoming 
 the chief obstacle to improvement. Meanwhile 
 those who are responsible for these practices are 
 frequently the very men who appear before the 
 public at election time as the most ardent advocates 
 of humanity, the foremost champions of the cause 
 of the poor. 
 
 It cannot be a matter for wonder that the 
 electorate, who over a succession of years have 
 watched the sequence of promise and performance, 
 should regard the situation with something more 
 akin to dislike than indifference, and should abstain 
 from taking any part in electing those whom they 
 have learned to distrust. 
 
 The fact that local elections are decided by 
 so small a number of votes places the control in 
 the hands of political clubs and associations, and 
 other combinations which may happen to be 
 influential for the moment in any district. Candi- 
 dates are elected because they are Conservatives, 
 or because they are Liberals, or because they 
 are Churchmen, or because they are Noncon- 
 formists. In Brixton, for instance, "four wards 
 were swept by the Nonconformist churches." In 
 Chelsea and other places the political associations 
 controlled the election. In some places labour 
 organisations are all-powerful. This was the case 
 in Battersea and Hackney. But the smallness 
 of the polls in every part of London precludes 
 the idea that the results were really representative 
 of public opinion, or that they really indicated 
 "the voice of the people." When the associations 
 take no part in these elections it is hardly too 
 
 s
 
 124 DEMOCRACY AND LOCAL ELECTIONS 
 
 much to say that there is no voting at all. The 
 present writer was upon one occasion returned for 
 a ward containing 5000 voters at a bye-election. 
 He received about 230 votes ; his opponent received 
 about 50. 
 
 It has been said that Poor Law elections are 
 a specially crucial test of local government, because 
 administrators of the Poor Law require special 
 qualifications of knowledge and intelligence. It 
 may be added that they differ from other municipal 
 authorities in that they deal directly with human 
 beings, rather than with things, and that human 
 nature is a dangerous plaything for amateurs. In 
 order to gauge to some extent the existence of 
 these qualifications in those who came forward as 
 candidates, a large number of election addresses 
 have been gathered and examined. The result is 
 extremely disappointing. The addresses which 
 exhibit any knowledge of Poor Law history or 
 principles are insignificant in number. The 
 majority are studiously vague. "Economy and 
 efficiency," "humanity and kind treatment of the 
 poor " are the most frequent watchwords. Or 
 they appeal for support on the ground of " long 
 residence " or for other personal reasons. Where 
 they descend to particulars there is one feature 
 that is common to almost all of them, namely, 
 the advocacy of outdoor relief "to prevent ex- 
 penditure upon bricks and mortar and upon large 
 and costly buildings " ; " to prevent the breaking- 
 up of homes " ; " to keep the poor by their own 
 firesides." From one union comes a pictorial 
 address: "(i) United and happy outdoor relief; 
 (2) Parted and pauperised no outdoor relief." 
 The first is a representation of an old couple 
 sitting by the fire drinking tea ; the second of a 
 similar couple bidding good-bye to one another 
 at the workhouse door. Another complains of
 
 ELECTION ADDRESSES 125 
 
 " the niggerly [sic] manner in which outdoor relief 
 is granted." Generally speaking, that is the line 
 taken by the great majority of addresses which 
 deal specifically with any question of administra- 
 tion, and it may be added that addresses of the 
 same nature have done duty at Poor Law elections 
 for many generations. No one apparently stops 
 to ask why it is that though outdoor relief has of 
 late years been largely on the increase in all but 
 an infinitesimal number of unions, expenditure 
 upon "bricks and mortar" has tended to increase 
 even faster. No one has asked why it is that 
 the largest increase of indoor expenditure has 
 taken place precisely in those unions which have 
 expended most upon outdoor relief, or why it is 
 that more "homes are broken up" in outdoor 
 unions than in indoor ones. Yet as to the facts 
 there can be no doubt. Meanwhile the advocacy 
 of outdoor relief is, and always must be, popular, 
 and is of course especially welcome to those 
 associations which control the elections, and which 
 themselves largely depend for their existence upon 
 popularity. Here and there we find an address 
 of a different quality. One from Paddington 
 contains a quotation from an Annual Report of 
 the Local Government Board to the effect that 
 " outdoor relief has never sensibly reduced indoor 
 relief." A very outspoken one from St Pancras 
 defines the object of the Poor Law as being " the 
 diminution of the curse of pauperism, and the 
 raising of the condition of the poor." The writer 
 failed to be elected. One from Shoreditch speaks 
 of the "difficult and complicated question of out- 
 door relief," one or two more of the necessity 
 of "discrimination," but they are very guarded 
 in their utterances, and, speaking generally, the 
 public is not likely to derive much enlightenment 
 upon Poor Law questions from the addresses of
 
 126 DEMOCRACY AND LOCAL ELECTIONS 
 
 the candidates, and so far as these are concerned 
 the "education" of the electorate does not appear 
 likely to progress apace. 
 
 There are also some addresses of an extremist 
 kind. The increasing intervention of the labour 
 party in local elections has been already mentioned. 
 In at least two unions they have an official pro- 
 gramme and manifesto containing a long list of 
 proposed "reforms," many of which would be 
 considered outside the province of the Poor Law. 
 Judging from that programme, it would appear 
 that they look to the Poor Law for the solution 
 of the problem of poverty, and we have the 
 ominous spectacle of a "labour" party clamouring 
 for relief from the rates. 
 
 But there are other extremists besides those of 
 the labour party. It is remarkable that in those 
 unions in which outdoor relief has been carried to 
 its greatest lengths the cry for its extension is the 
 most persistent. In Camberwell, for instance, the 
 out-relief expenditure is some ,30,000 a year, 
 and yet we find the following in one of the addresses 
 from that union : 
 
 "The people are being driven into the work- 
 houses at enormous cost, where outdoor relief at 
 one quarter the cost is being viciously refused . . . 
 the money is infamously dragged from the poor and 
 lavishly squandered upon the rich. One big 
 butcher got a contract for nearly ^"8000 \sic\ of 
 meat, for one six months. If outdoor relief were 
 intelligently given, thousands of aged workhouse 
 inmates could live at home with their grown-up 
 sons and daughters, and the little butchers would 
 sell more meat, and we should all be paying less 
 rates, and everybody would benefit." This sounds 
 like an echo from some far-off fiscal platform. 
 Another address from the same union also advocates 
 more outdoor relief: "habitual pauperism," it
 
 CANDIDATES AND RECIPIENTS OF RELIEF 127 
 
 contends, "is encouraged by indoor relief." In 
 Poplar, Hackney, Islington, and other unions in 
 which the expenditure upon outdoor relief is already 
 enormous, there is a similar demand upon all sides 
 for its extension. 
 
 Another somewhat singular address comes from 
 Camber well. It purports to emanate, not from the 
 candidates themselves, but from "the inmates of 
 the Gordon Road workhouse" who are "gratified 
 
 to know that Mr W. H is contesting the ward 
 
 against Miss J . The aged inmates (rather 
 
 ungallantly) wish him every success. Mr J is 
 
 also an exceedingly able young man. Nunhead 
 will do well to elect them." This address has some 
 significance as marking the fast disappearing 
 margin that divides the administrators of the Poor 
 Law from the recipients of poor relief. It does not 
 stand alone in this respect. Not long ago in 
 another workhouse a memorial was extensively 
 signed by the inmates in favour of the election of 
 certain candidates, and it is becoming plain that 
 the recipients of relief are occupying more and more 
 a position to dictate the terms of their own relief. 
 The writer was concerned a few years ago in an 
 election in which the contest turned upon the out- 
 relief question. The out-relief party won. At the 
 first relief meeting of the newly elected Board 
 applicants appeared before the Board with the 
 election addresses of the out-relief party in their 
 hands, which they flourished in the face of the 
 Guardians present. 
 
 Passing from the consideration of the election 
 addresses to other features of the election in question, 
 one point that appears to be novel is the number 
 of ex-officers of Guardians, some of them actually 
 in receipt of retiring allowance from their Boards, 
 who came forward as candidates for election. 
 There were several of these in Lambeth, and at
 
 128 DEMOCRACY AND LOCAL ELECTIONS 
 
 least one was elected. In Fulham, Bethnal Green, 
 and probably other unions there were ex-officers 
 amongst the candidates. The question of their 
 eligibility or otherwise was put before the Local 
 Government Board, who declined to give an opinion. 
 The position is, however, a somewhat difficult one. 
 The best qualified officers are not, as a rule, those 
 who are the first to be retired, and it may happen 
 that an officer who has been retired for incompetence 
 or other reasons may return to the control of the 
 very institutions which he has been considered 
 unfit to manage, and all sorts of personal friction 
 may be the result. In any case, he may be put 
 into the somewhat invidious position of signing 
 cheques for his own salary. 
 
 It is not, of course, intended to suggest in what 
 has been said that none of those who come forward 
 at these elections are qualified for the position. 
 On the contrary, there are many who are fully 
 qualified in every way, and are doing excellent 
 service. The general standard, however, is not a 
 high one, and they work as a rule under extreme 
 difficulties. They have, it is true, often an influence 
 disproportionate to their numbers, but the advocacy 
 of economic doctrines is unpalatable to the caucuses, 
 and their position is at all times precarious. They 
 find considerable difficulty in obtaining election ; 
 every three years they are liable to be unseated, 
 and many of them have met with that fate. They 
 are as a rule elected in spite of their opinions rather 
 than because of them. Their appearance is 
 accidental, and in spite of the system rather than 
 because of it. 
 
 Another difficulty that they encounter is in the 
 changed action of the Local Government Board. 
 There was a time when they could have looked to 
 it for support in the maintenance of principles which 
 the Board itself has repeatedly recognised. Now
 
 LOCAL GOVERNMENT UNREPRESENTATIVE 129 
 
 the circulars and letters of the Local Government 
 Board are thrown in their teeth at every turn. 
 They have succeeded after a struggle in reducing 
 extravagant expenditure upon outdoor relief. The 
 Local Government Board issues a circular com- 
 mending it to Guardians. They endeavour to 
 maintain some sort of discipline and regulation in 
 workhouse management. The Local Government 
 Board issues circulars enjoining relaxation and 
 indulgences. Since Mr Goschen's circular of 1869, 
 the central Board has in fact abdicated its old 
 controlling function. The inspectors, in London 
 at least, show little or no sign of official disapproval 
 of laxity of administration. This has changed to 
 some extent since Mr John Burns succeeded to the 
 Presidency of the Local Government Board. 
 
 To sum up, then, if we may judge from the 
 analogy of the election in question, there is no 
 reality in our system of popular representation in 
 local government. We hear the voice of political 
 clubs and coteries, of churches and chapels, and of 
 late especially the voice of a small but well-organised 
 socialist party. The voice of the people is con- 
 spicuously silent : about one-eighth of the electorate 
 only voted, and that under great pressure. The 
 extreme subdivision of local administration, involv- 
 ing a wearisome multiplicity of elections, and obscur- 
 ing the broader issues to the public mind, is to a 
 great extent responsible for the discredit into which 
 it has fallen. There is little inducement to the 
 more capable citizens to offer themselves for election, 
 and little inducement to the average elector to 
 record his vote. The system has got into a rut 
 out of which it is essential that it should be 
 extricated. 
 
 It is sometimes urged that the remedy will 
 come automatically : that the increase of rates will 
 eventually bring about its own cure. This of
 
 130 DEMOCRACY AND LOCAL ELECTIONS 
 
 course may be true, but the process is a slow one, 
 and meanwhile the position may become irremedi- 
 able. The increase of rates is disguised to the 
 great majority of the electors. The working classes 
 complain, it is true, of the increase of their rents, 
 but they are for the most part compound house- 
 holders, who do not pay their rates direct, and they 
 ascribe the increase of their rents exclusively to 
 "grasping landlords." Almost the only direct 
 ratepayers in poor districts are the great firms and 
 corporations and a percentage of the shopkeepers, 
 but they have scarcely any voice in the matter, and 
 are looked upon in many cases as legitimate objects 
 of plunder. It must not be forgotten that of late 
 years the socialist party has been gradually 
 acquiring more and more power in these local 
 elections. In some places they control them 
 almost exclusively. They make it no secret that it 
 is their object to bring about a silent revolution 
 through municipal action, and subordinate all other 
 considerations to that end. Not only the Poor Law, 
 but borough councils and education committees are 
 their field of action. So long as this is the case we 
 may be sure that no considerations of economy will 
 be allowed to have any weight, not at all events 
 till it may be too late. We have seen also that the 
 line of demarcation between those who pay the 
 rates and those who receive them is fast disappear- 
 ing, that inmates of workhouses are now proposing 
 to select the managers of the workhouses, and that 
 the main issue put before electors in poor districts 
 is that of outdoor relief. Already there is strong 
 pressure for the removal of the disfranchisement of 
 paupers, and a forward move in that direction has 
 been given by the Unemployed Workmen Act, 
 which is a standing invitation to the electors in 
 poor districts to vote for those who will make work 
 for the unemployed outside the Poor Law. In fact,
 
 POLICY OF DRIFT 
 
 131 
 
 the danger of a corrupt motive in local elections is 
 becoming more and more evident on every side. 
 
 We have for a long time been drifting in these 
 matters. It is evident that we cannot continue to 
 do so much longer. We are near the parting of 
 the ways, and must make up our minds whether 
 we are to accept the position of the socialists or 
 whether we are to revert to the older ideas as to 
 the functions of local bodies. The decision rests 
 with that great body of public opinion which has 
 till now remained silent. 
 
 Elections of Guardians in 1904. 
 
 Name of Union. 
 
 Wards 
 uncon- 
 tested. 
 
 Wards 
 con- 
 tested. 
 
 Number on 
 register in 
 contested 
 wards. 
 
 Number 
 who voted. 
 
 Per- 
 centage. 
 
 Kensington 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 IO,OOI 
 
 2,462 
 
 24 
 
 Paddington 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 11,478 
 
 l,45 
 
 13 
 
 Fulham . 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 11,275 
 
 2,788 
 
 25 
 
 Hammersmith 
 
 6 
 
 i 
 
 2J2I 
 
 7H 
 
 26 
 
 Chelsea . 
 
 o 
 
 5 
 
 12,029 
 
 2,958 
 
 24 
 
 St George's Hanover Sq 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 8,568 
 
 1,646 
 
 19 
 
 Marylebone . 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 no par 
 
 ticulars 
 
 
 Hampstead 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 3,6i3 
 
 552 
 
 15 
 
 St Pancras 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 14,510 
 
 2,843 
 
 20 
 
 Islington 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 27,856 
 
 3,409 
 
 12 
 
 Hackney 
 
 12 
 
 3 
 
 13,132 
 
 2,684 
 
 2O 
 
 St Giles . 
 
 5 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 Westminster . . 
 
 i 
 
 4 
 
 4,734 
 
 i,355 
 
 29 
 
 Strand . 
 
 4 
 
 i 
 
 1,618 
 
 356 
 
 22 
 
 
 
 
 no par 
 
 ticulcirs 
 
 
 City 
 
 
 
 no par 
 
 ticulars 
 
 
 Shoreditch 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 16,083 
 
 4,198 
 
 26 
 
 Bethnal Green 
 
 i 
 
 3 
 
 14,453 
 
 3,376 
 
 23 
 
 Whitechapel . 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 2,592 
 
 899 
 
 35 
 
 St George's, E. 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 3,659 
 
 (abt.) i, 800 
 
 50 
 
 Poplar . 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 no par 
 
 ticulars 
 
 
 Stepney . 
 
 5 
 
 o 
 
 
 ... 
 
 
 Mile End 
 
 o 
 
 6 
 
 no par 
 
 ticulars 
 
 
 St Saviour's . 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 20,746 
 
 3,945 
 
 19 
 
 Bermondsey . 
 
 i 
 
 10 
 
 17,507 
 
 6,425 
 
 36 
 
 Lambeth 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 48,781 
 
 7,5" 
 
 15 
 
 Wandsworth . 
 
 16 
 
 8 
 
 33,465 
 
 5,086 
 
 15 
 
 Cambervvell 
 
 8 
 
 12 
 
 27,456 
 
 12,953 
 
 47 
 
 Greenwich 
 
 
 
 no par 
 
 ticulars 
 
 
 Lewisham 
 
 
 
 "8 
 
 22,293 
 
 4,825 
 
 21 
 
 Woolwich . 
 
 
 
 no par 
 
 ticulars 
 
 
 Total . 
 
 "5 
 
 122 
 
 296,725 
 
 69,385 
 
 ...
 
 THE REPORTS OF THE POOR LAW 
 COMMISSIONS OF 1834 AND 1909 
 
 THE issue of the Report of the Royal Commission 
 of 1909 marks a new stage in the three hundred 
 years' history of the English Poor Law. That 
 of the first two hundred years was brought to 
 a close by the Royal Commission of 1834. The 
 present Report brings the question up to date in 
 the light of modern developments, both social and 
 industrial. 
 
 For nearly eighty years all our Poor Law 
 administration has been, in theory at least, based 
 upon the Report of 1834. That Report has been 
 the text-book one may almost say the classic 
 of students of the Poor Law, not only in this 
 country, but in Europe and across the Atlantic. 
 It is, therefore, of special interest now to inquire 
 whether that Report has been superseded by that 
 of 1909; whether its conclusions have been tried 
 and found wanting, and what is the general attitude 
 of the Commissioners of 1909 towards the verdict 
 of their predecessors. A discussion of the question 
 in this aspect will serve, perhaps better than 
 anything else, to illustrate the difference of principle 
 underlying the Majority and Minority Reports of 
 the Commissioners. 
 
 There appears to be the very general misunder- 
 standing as to what these differences are. It is 
 urged, for example, that because the two Reports 
 agree upon points of detail in recommending or 
 
 182
 
 ROOT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REPORTS 133 
 
 deprecating certain things, because they would 
 both abolish Boards of Guardians and mixed work- 
 houses, because they both advocate labour 
 exchanges, labour colonies, and, though in different 
 ways, workmen's insurance, that there is, therefore, 
 no very fundamental difference between them. 
 Thus Mr Russell Wakefield, in a short speech to 
 the Central Unemployed Body, recently expressed 
 the opinion that " there is no necessary antagonism 
 between the two Reports." An article in the 
 " Athenseum " expresses the same opinion. In an 
 admirable " Synopsis " issued by Messrs Knight, 
 the well-known publishers, it is stated that the 
 "root difference" between the two Reports is that 
 the Minority Report divides necessitous persons 
 into non-able-bodied and able-bodied, and deals 
 with them by separate methods, whilst the Majority 
 makes no such distinction, and it is plain that the 
 author has very imperfectly grasped the funda- 
 mental divergence between the two Reports. What, 
 then, is this " root difference " ? 
 
 In the first place, the Minority Report definitely 
 breaks with all tradition, and dissociates itself from 
 the Report of 1834. Its authors are industriously 
 circulating the suggestion that the Majority Report 
 does the same. They have said that the Majority 
 do not render "even lip service" to the conclusions 
 of their predecessors. It will not be difficult to 
 show that such statements are contrary to the 
 facts. 
 
 The main principle adopted by the Majority 
 Report, in comparison with which all others sink 
 into insignificance, is that the basis of all Poor 
 Law legislation should be to "foster the instincts ' 
 of independence and self-maintenance amongst 
 those assisted," and thereafter, upon almost every 
 page, we find some reference to this principle, 
 which is, of course, a simple restatement of the
 
 134 REPORTS OF THE POOR LAW COMMISSIONS 
 
 principles of 1834. Moreover, almost every section 
 of the Report, except those dealing with entirely 
 new matter, is prefaced by a recital of the views 
 of the 1834 Report, these views being treated as 
 almost axiomatic. In many cases when the 
 Commissioners propose a new departure, they take 
 pains to show that it was either the original 
 intention or the natural corollary of the old Report. 
 For example, classification by workhouses instead 
 of in workhouses was, they contend, the original 
 intention in 1834, though it was abandoned in 
 1840. So, again, their proposals for bringing 
 voluntary charity into line with the Poor Law 
 are the natural development of the opinions of the 
 older Commission. We may go further, and say 
 that their recommendation for the abolition of 
 Boards of Guardians is a reversion to the views 
 of some of those who were mainly responsible 
 for the Report of 1834. Sir Edwin Chadwick 
 was never in favour of placing the administration 
 of the Poor Law in the hands of casually elected 
 bodies, because he said " there is no security for 
 qualifications of which a high degree of speciality 
 is needed for a very difficult service." When the 
 Government of the day refused to listen to him, 
 he prophesied that the lessons of 1834 would have 
 to be learnt over again, and that is the present 
 position. The Majority Report accepts the doctrine 
 of "less eligibility" again and again in scattered 
 sentences, though it is to be regretted that it does 
 not put it forward as a separate recommendation. 
 Both here and elsewhere its language might have 
 been more clear and definite, and it might have 
 left less to be inferred by that great body of 
 readers who, coming fresh to the subject, will 
 look to it for guidance. It seems, for example, 
 to be a serious omission that in its chapter upon 
 the causes of pauperism it submits the question to
 
 INDECISIVENESS OF MAJORITY REPORT 135 
 
 no psychological analysis, and altogether ignores the 
 old and well-recognised distinction between poverty 
 and pauperism. In the words of an old writer : 
 "It is of the utmost importance to distinguish 
 between poverty and pauperism, for, by confound- 
 ing them, poverty is dishonoured and pauperism 
 countenanced. Supply poverty with means and it 
 vanishes ; but pauperism is the more confirmed. 
 Poverty is a natural appetite merely wanting food, 
 pauperism a ravenous atrophy which no food can 
 satisfy. Poverty strives to cure itself, pauperism 
 to contaminate others. Poverty often stimulates 
 to exertion, pauperism always paralyses. Poverty 
 is sincere, pauperism an arch-hypocrite. Poverty 
 has naturally a proud spirit, pauperism a base one 
 now servile, now insolent. Poverty is silent and 
 retiring, pauperism clamorous and imposing : the 
 one grateful, the other the reverse. There is much 
 that is alluring in poverty, but pauperism is alto- 
 gether hateful. It is delightful to succour the one, 
 and irksome to be taxed for the other. Poverty has 
 the blessing of heaven, as well as of those who 
 relieve it. Pauperism, on the other hand, has 
 nothing in common with the Christian virtues." 
 Except for a few stray phrases, the Report takes 
 little heed of this side of the question, and it is 
 noteworthy that the chapter upon the "causes of 
 pauperism " is one of the few chapters which ends 
 with no "conclusions." It approaches the subject 
 of administration as a cause of pauperism, a question 
 which is at the root of the difference of opinion 
 between different schools of thought, half timidly, 
 as "controversial." But it is for the very purpose 
 of deciding controversial questions that a Royal 
 Commission is appointed. 
 
 Elsewhere we find the same indecisiveness. Its 
 characteristic is that it attempts to convey its 
 opinions by suggestion and illustration, and though
 
 136 REPORTS OF THE POOR LAW COMMISSIONS 
 
 those who read between the lines have little difficulty 
 in grasping its meaning, yet it does not speak out 
 in language intelligible to the average citizen who 
 knows little about the Poor Law. In this respect 
 it compares unfavourably with the older Report, 
 which is conspicuous for its masterly analysis of 
 human nature, and for the clearness and preciseness 
 of its conclusions. But at least it cannot be said 
 that the majority, whatever the form in which their 
 Report is presented, and whatever the result of 
 their recommendations, if adopted, might be, have 
 "abandoned the principles of 1834." They hold 
 fast to dispauperisation and the preservation of 
 independence. They accept the principle of "less 
 eligibility " and of destitution as a qualification for 
 public relief. They insist upon the administration 
 of the Poor Law by a separate and homogeneous 
 branch of the public service to be guided by these 
 principles and carried out by a special and inde- 
 pendent organisation. It is clear, then, that the 
 Majority Report neither supersedes the 1834 Report 
 nor, though it modifies its methods, does it question 
 its conclusions. 
 
 When we come to consider the Minority Report, 
 we are on altogether different ground. That Report 
 definitely and frankly breaks with all tradition, and 
 demands the repeal of all Poor Law legislation 
 subsequent to 43rd Elizabeth. It is, therefore, in 
 so far as it is constructive, a totally new proposal 
 based upon no previous experience. No more, 
 however, need be said about it here as it is dealt 
 with fully in the following chapter. 
 
 The problem of pauperism is one which has no 
 place in the economy of the authors of the Minority 
 Report. It hardly receives adequate consideration 
 even from that of the Majority. To understand it 
 in its true light we must turn back to the old 
 Report of 1834, and it is safe to say that that
 
 PRINCIPLES OF 1834 ENDORSED 137 
 
 Report will continue to be read and studied by 
 students of Poor Laws in all countries. However 
 that may be, we have now at least arrived at this 
 that fourteen out of eighteen Commissioners 
 appointed on account of their special fitness for 
 this inquiry have once again endorsed the wisdom 
 of the principles laid down by their predecessors in 
 the great inquiry of 1834. "Poor Law adminis- 
 tration," they say, "moves in cycles determined in 
 part by varying prosperity and in part by the 
 coming of a new generation which lacks the experi- 
 ence of its predecessors and has ideas of its own. 
 Difficulties recur ; old abuses and old evils which 
 were thought to have been buried reassert them- 
 selves ; the scale of needs and resources is greater, 
 but the problems are fundamentally the same " 
 (Report, Part IV., 238).
 
 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 A CRITICISM 
 
 Introductory. 
 
 IT is difficult for the practical Poor Law adminis- 
 trator to criticise a document which regards the 
 whole question from a standpoint so different from 
 his own. What appear to him to be points for 
 criticism would probably appear to the authors of 
 the Minority Report and their friends to be its 
 principal merits. His ideals for the future and his 
 views as to the solution of the problem of poverty 
 are so widely divergent from theirs that it is next 
 to impossible for him to meet them upon common 
 ground or to consider their Report as a Poor Law 
 Report at all. The aim of those who have studied 
 the question in the past has always been to combine 
 assured maintenance for all who are destitute with 
 a maximum of independence, and the goal to which 
 they have looked has been that ultimately the 
 people should "live by their labour." The 
 proposals of the Minority, on the other hand, 
 contemplate with equanimity conditions under 
 which the bulk of the population would be con- 
 demned to permanent dependence. They entirely 
 ignore the whole question of pauperisation by the 
 Poor Law, of which we have had, and still have, 
 such bitter experience in this country a question 
 which appears to most Poor Law administrators to 
 be of vital importance. Or perhaps it would be 
 
 188
 
 ANALYSIS OF THE REPORT 139 
 
 more accurate to say that they profess to be able to 
 cure pauperism by making everyone a pauper. It 
 is plain that the authors of the Report have had 
 no experience of pauperism in the concrete or of 
 practical administration. 
 
 The following imperfect analysis will try to 
 show first that the Report is a Socialist document 
 advocating, with but little disguise, " universal 
 provision " by the State of the necessaries of life. 
 It will naturally gain the support of Socialists 
 indeed the Socialist organisations are working for 
 it tooth and nail throughout the country but it 
 will be regarded with suspicion by those who still 
 regard self-provision as the true basis of social 
 welfare. The actual proposals of the Minority will 
 next be examined, and their claim to "scientific 
 precision," and it will be shown how little warrant 
 there is for any such claim. The illusory natu; a of 
 the safeguards proposed, the probable effect of the 
 delegation of relief administration to bodies elected 
 for other purposes, the manipulation of the labour 
 market with dictatorial power conferred upon 
 superintendents of labour exchanges, the artificial 
 exclusion of certain classes of people from the 
 labour market altogether, the ear-marking of huge 
 sums for the " regularisation " of labour, the possi- 
 bility of "training" and "honourably maintaining" 
 enormous numbers of adults in public training 
 establishments and of inspiring them wholesale 
 with morale all these questions will be dealt 
 with in turn and critically examined. Certain 
 inaccuracies in matters of fact and internal incon- 
 sistencies will also be indicated as bearing upon 
 the credit of the Report. 
 
 Finally, something will be said as to the attitude 
 of the Minority upon a question which will appear 
 to many to be the most important question of all, 
 namely, the question of character or, to use their 
 
 U
 
 140 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 own expression, of the "moral factor" in the 
 problem of pauperism. It may be said at once 
 that the general impression left upon the mind by 
 the Report is that it is a gospel of materialism 
 which is certain to defeat its own objects, because 
 character, as the antithesis of pauperism, is 
 essential to material well-being. 
 
 The Authorship of the Report and its Sponsors. 
 
 The authors of the Minority Report are not 
 disposed to let the grass grow under their feet, and 
 are prosecuting a "crusade against destitution," 
 with the Report as their war-cry. The movement 
 is god-fathered by the distinguished names of 
 Sir John Gorst, Mr Bernard Shaw, Mr H. G. 
 Wells, and Mr Sidney Webb. Mr Sidney Webb, 
 indeed, is something more than a godfather. He 
 is joint-author of the Report, of which he speaks 
 frankly as "our Report." Lord George Hamilton, 
 the Chairman of the Royal Commission, has 
 recently pointed out that Mr and Mrs Sidney 
 Webb have claimed the copyright of this public 
 document, which they could not have done if the 
 other signatories had contributed even a line to its 
 pages. The position is novel. Never before, so 
 far as we know, has the Report of a Royal Com- 
 mission being written in great part by one who has 
 neither been appointed to the Commission nor 
 has been present at its meetings nor heard the 
 evidence. A question arises whether this will be 
 taken as a precedent in the appointment of future 
 Royal Commissioners, and whether such appoint- 
 ments will be considered to be dual appointments. 
 The preliminary manifesto of the "crusade" 
 appears in the June (1909) number of the Rev. 
 R. J. Campbell's paper, The Christian Common- 
 wealth. Mr H. G. Wells gives it his benediction.
 
 PROGRAMME OF THE REPORT 141 
 
 "The Minority Report," he says, "expresses that 
 deliberately constructive Socialism which I have 
 always advocated." The views of its other 
 sponsors are equally enthusiastic. Mr Bernard 
 Shaw hails it as the greatest evolutionary discovery 
 since that of Darwin, and it is only reasonable to 
 assume that this approval from leading Socialist 
 authorities shows that its recommendations are 
 socialistic in their tendency. 
 
 Its Programme. 
 
 The programme of the manifesto is a sweeping 
 one. The Poor Law is to be "abolished," that is 
 to say, it is to disappear as a separate branch of 
 administration. Boards of Guardians are to be 
 swept away and their duties handed over to the 
 various Committees of the County and Borough 
 Councils. At the same time all the safeguards 
 which the experience of three hundred years has 
 led us to adopt are to be put on one side. The 
 position of the pauper is no longer to be less 
 attractive than that of the independent labourer. 
 Public relief is no longer to be confined to the 
 destitute, but is to be extended to everyone who is 
 even likely to become destitute. Upon this basis 
 children are to be maintained, when necessary, as 
 well as educated by the Education Committees ; 
 the sick and impotent are to be maintained by 
 the Public Health Committees ; the aged by the 
 Pension Committees, and so forth. For the able- 
 bodied a new national authority is to be created 
 under a Minister for Labour, who will organise the 
 labour market in such a way that the "opportunity 
 of employment shall not be lacking to any able- 
 bodied man," and "honourably maintain" those 
 who fail to get employment, in or near "public 
 training " establishments. The Committees will
 
 142 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 provide "whatever treatment may seem most 
 appropriate in each case," and the only check 
 upon their action will be the " Registrar," whose 
 duty it will be to register public relief, to sanction 
 grants of home aliment, and recover relief from 
 those able to pay "upon such terms as Parliament 
 may decide." 
 
 Its Promises. 
 
 The Minority promise great results from their 
 scheme. Overlapping is to be stopped, destitution 
 prevented in its earlier stages and eventually 
 abolished altogether. " We may be unduly hopeful," 
 they say, "but after the most careful consideration 
 and a great deal of consultation with practical 
 administrators on all sides of the question, we make 
 bold to say that it can be done. We can abolish 
 destitution." It would be interesting to learn 
 the names and qualifications of those "practical 
 administrators " who would endorse this statement. 
 The Association of Poor Law Unions, which is the 
 leading body of practical expert opinion upon the 
 subject, has already expressed an opinion adverse 
 to the Report. At the last Central Poor Law 
 Conference, according to the most friendly estimate, 
 only thirty hands were held up in its favour, though 
 some five hundred delegates were present. 
 
 This is not the first time in history that we have 
 been promised the abolition of poverty through 
 the Poor Law. Doubtless the authors of the Act 
 of Elizabeth thought that they had solved the 
 problem when they provided for the " relief of the 
 impotent and the setting of the able-bodied on work." 
 Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies 
 many of the most eminent thinkers, amongst whom 
 John Locke was the most conspicuous, devised 
 scheme after scheme for this very purpose. Sir F. 
 Eden, writing at the close of the eighteenth century,
 
 "SCIENTIFIC PRECISION" OF THE REPORT 143 
 
 says, " It may be of some consolation to the many 
 patriotic but unsuccessful philanthropists, who since 
 his time have attempted the arduous work of repairing 
 this portion of the legislative fabric, that even so 
 great a man as Mr Locke attempted it to but little 
 purpose." Yet once more we have a panacea 
 proposed to us a short cut out of all our difficulties, 
 and past experience suggests that we should examine 
 it both critically and closely. The manifesto of the 
 crusaders is rather a call to arms than a serious 
 argument, and in order to understand the position 
 clearly we must turn to the Minority Report itself. 
 
 Its Claim to "Scientific Precision." 
 
 There is a general impression that it contains a 
 very clearly and fully thought-out scheme of reform. 
 The Commissioners themselves seem to be of that 
 opinion, for they speak of the "detailed and finished 
 scheme which they have presented" (p. H79). 1 
 Canon Barnett in a recent number of the " Fort- 
 nightly Review" commends the Report for its 
 " scientific precision." I think that this opinion is 
 erroneous, and in that opinion I am borne out by 
 the able writer of Messrs Knight'sadmirable synopsis 
 of the Reports, who says : " An administrator of the 
 present system will naturally desire to understand 
 first, how the new machinery would work in the 
 details of administration. But the Report does not 
 discuss these details except in meagre fashion. It 
 is more concerned with establishing the general 
 principles upon which its scheme of reform depends." 
 Yet in Poor Law matters details are of the essence 
 of the problem, and even in Part I., where the 
 Commissioners are especially satisfied with the 
 "finish" of their scheme, it will not, I think, be 
 
 1 The references throughout are to the original official volume 
 containing both the Reports of the Commission [CD. 4499].
 
 144 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 difficult to show that some of the most important 
 questions are left unanswered. For example, the 
 several Committees to whom the relief of poverty is to 
 be entrusted will "provide, under suitable conditions 
 and safeguards to be embodied in Statutes and 
 regulative Orders, for the several classes of persons 
 committed to their charge, whatever treatment they 
 may deem most appropriate to their condition." 
 But we have in the Report no clear statement of 
 what these conditions and safeguards are to be ; all 
 we know is that they are to be laid down at some 
 future period. We know indeed that the Com- 
 mittees are not to be bound by any of the automatic 
 tests of 1834, and we are given to understand that 
 there are still some conditions and safeguards to be 
 " embodied in regulations and statutes." Surely we 
 ought to know what these are to be. 
 
 The Registrar. 
 
 In the next place the position of the Registrar is 
 far from clear. We naturally ask ourselves whether 
 his control, which is the sole check upon the powers 
 of the Committees, is likely to be an effective 
 substitute for the older automatic checks which are 
 now to be discarded, and we cannot see that this is 
 likely to be the case. 
 
 First, it is noticeable that his power in the 
 matter of "home aliment" is only to be a power of 
 revision. The original decision is arrived at by the 
 local executives which the Minority are pleased to 
 call the "many-headed" body. It would appear 
 likely that the original decision will prevail in the 
 vast majority of cases, and that the sanction of the 
 Registrar will, except in extreme cases, be little 
 more than a formality. This view is borne out by 
 the fact that the Registrar will have "nothing to do 
 with the treatment of the case" (p. mi), but the
 
 FUNCTIONS OF THE REGISTRAR 145 
 
 most important practical question in the treatment 
 of a case is usually whether indoor or outdoor relief 
 is to be offered. On the other hand, he will plainly 
 have discretion as to the amount of outdoor relief 
 which is to be granted. When two or three of the 
 new authorities have recommended overlapping 
 out-relief for the same family, he will have the 
 power to see that it is " neither too much nor too 
 little." But his general function will apparently be 
 not so much to determine whether out-relief is to 
 be granted, but as to its amount. The practical 
 granting of out-relief will therefore apparently still 
 remain with the "many-headed" body. But even 
 if that is not so, it is evidently the intention of the 
 Minority that out-relief should be granted in all 
 cases where it is reasonably possible, and to many 
 which are now outside the scope of the Poor Law 
 altogether. Those who believe that the Minority 
 wish to restrict out-relief by the intervention of the 
 Registrar, will find themselves disappointed. 
 
 The second principal function of the Registrar 
 is to be the recovery of relief from "those able to 
 pay." Here again the ability to pay is to be 
 determined by future legislation, based presumably 
 upon some such consideration as a "poverty line," 
 the course recently roughly adopted by the London 
 County Council with regard to the feeding of school 
 children. It is hardly necessary to point out the 
 extreme practical difficulty of any such enactment. 
 The "poverty line" is an abstraction about which 
 it is next to impossible to generalise. If it is to be 
 based upon earnings, not an agricultural labourer in 
 the country would be assessable by the Registrar. 
 All could claim exemption. We can easily imagine 
 the debates in the House of Commons when such 
 a subject was discussed. The Minority point, 
 apparently in support of their proposals, to the fact 
 that already a certain amount is recovered from
 
 146 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 recipients of Poor Law relief. When we examine 
 the figures we find that it amounts to under half 
 a million out of some 15 millions expenditure, or 
 3 per cent. One-half of this is paid in respect of 
 lunacy cases, when the relations are frequently in 
 good positions, and almost the whole of it is 
 voluntarily offered and paid. The amount is 
 usually roughly assessed between Boards of 
 Guardians and applicants for relief or their 
 relations, and is recovered by moral suasion and 
 appeals to self-respect and personal responsibility. 
 An infinitesimal fraction is recovered by legal 
 process. As a rule, when applicants refuse to 
 repay, the onus of proving means is too hard a 
 task for Guardians, and the matter is allowed to 
 drop. The argument of giving relief on the basis 
 of recovery is a favourite one at the present time, 
 and as it is practically the principal limitation upon 
 the relief proposals of the Minority, it is necessary 
 to examine it narrowly, and to consider whether 
 it is likely to be an effective check upon pauperism. 
 We have had some recent experience in the matter. 
 The argument is most commonly used with regard 
 to the feeding of school children. First feed the 
 child, it is said, and then recover from the parent. 
 Not long ago the Local Government Board issued 
 an Order enabling Guardians to feed school children 
 on that basis. The Order was largely acted upon 
 in Bradford, and of ^1300 spent in meals only $ 
 was recovered. The London County Council are 
 experiencing the same difficulty, and have only 
 recovered 26 out of ,34,000. This power of 
 recovery, then, would apparently be of little effect, 
 except in the cases of those who are comparatively 
 affluent. The bulk of the labouring population, 
 whose means are fluctuating and difficult to gauge, 
 but who now contrive to support themselves and 
 their families, and often even to put something by
 
 ABOLITION OF THE POOR LAW 147 
 
 in a sick club, would be exempt, and it is evidently 
 the intention of the Minority that they should be 
 so. But they are the real difficulty, the real problem. 
 It would perhaps be unfair to say that this aspect 
 of the question of assessment and recovery has not 
 been considered by the Minority. It is evidently 
 part of their deliberate policy that the bulk of the 
 poorer population should be entitled to relief with- 
 out any question of recovery. In fact, they say in 
 one place, that of course it is impossible to recover 
 from people unless the community places them in 
 the position to pay. Generally speaking, it cannot 
 be said that the Minority scheme is "scientifically 
 precise." It leaves many questions of principle to 
 be settled by future legislation. It discusses details 
 in the most "meagre fashion." It proposes things 
 which have been practically proved to be impossible. 
 
 The Abolition of the Poor Law and the Proposal 
 to transfer the Responsibility of giving Relief 
 to various Administrative Departments other 
 than the Poor Law so-called. 
 
 The Minority would repeal all Poor Law 
 legislation or Orders subsequent to the Act of 
 Elizabeth, retaining the Act of Elizabeth in order 
 to preserve "the right to relief" (p. 1030). The 
 Act of Elizabeth would then be carried out by 
 the several administrative departments specified : 
 the Poor Law would be "abolished" as a separate 
 branch of administration, but would reappear in 
 education, sanitation, and industry. The Majority 
 1 criticise this proposal on the ground that it 
 would lead to much overlapping, and that the 
 new authorities being elected for another purpose 
 would consider the question rather from the point 
 of view of their special functions than from a 
 Poor Law point of view. The administration of 
 
 x
 
 148 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 public relief is, they consider, a matter of so much 
 complexity, its maladministration in the past has 
 led to such grave evils, that it is necessary that 
 it should be administered by experts specially 
 appointed and qualified for the purpose, otherwise 
 no limits can be set to the spread of pauperism 
 and dependence. The Majority would appear 
 to have some warrant for their criticism in the 
 experience that we have already had of the 
 delegation of relief duties to bodies outside the 
 Poor Law. Since the relief of the able-bodied 
 was handed over by Mr Chamberlain's Circular, 
 and later by the Unemployed Workmen Act, 
 to bodies other than the Guardians, not only has 
 overlapping increased enormously, but the number 
 of the unemployed has also shown a constant 
 tendency to increase. I mean, of course, by the 
 unemployed those who apply as such to public 
 bodies, and not the unemployed percentages of 
 trades unions, for the proportion of trades unionists 
 amongst such applicants is infinitesimal. Similarly 
 with regard to the feeding of necessitous school 
 children. The London County Council have only 
 recently placed it upon the rates, yet within a 
 few months the number of children fed has more 
 than doubled itself and is still increasing. The 
 Minority themselves point out that it has led to 
 a large amount of overlapping, as in many cases 
 the children are fed by the Education Authority 
 whilst their parents receive out- relief from the 
 Guardians. There can be no doubt indeed the 
 Minority do not attempt to conceal it that if 
 these various Committees are to administer the 
 Act of Elizabeth upon the lines indicated and 
 with the new duty to "search out destitution," 
 there will be a vast increase both in expenditure 
 and in pauperism, if, indeed, the word is still to 
 be allowed to have any meaning.
 
 DUTIES OF COMMITTEES 149 
 
 A recapitulation of the duties that will fall 
 upon these Committees if the Minority Report 
 becomes law will serve to show the extent of 
 the responsibilities that will be incurred by the 
 community in regard to the several classes dealt 
 with. In all cases, be it remembered, destitution 
 is to be sought out, and there is to be no waiting 
 for an application for relief, and every case is to 
 receive whatever treatment the Committee dealing 
 with it "may consider most appropriate." The 
 children will be dealt with upon these lines by the 
 Education Committees. Under a special heading, 
 new to the Poor Law, "birth and infancy" will be 
 dealt with by the Public Health Authority, and 
 nursing mothers will receive nourishment both 
 before and after confinement and nourishment for 
 their babies. The sick and impotent will also 
 be maintained by the Public Health Authority, 
 whose duty it will be to search out "incipient" 
 sickness. The feeble-minded will be handed over 
 to a Lunacy Authority, whose business it will be 
 to search out incipient feeble-mindedness a rather 
 alarming prospect. The aged are to be looked 
 after by the Pension Committee ; the age is to be 
 reduced to "sixty-five or even sixty," by which 
 provision the cost will be doubled or even quadrupled 
 at a stroke. For those disabled under the pension 
 age, whatever it may be, "local pensions" will be 
 provided by the Public Health Authority. A 
 network of new institutions, such as public day 
 industrial schools, hospitals, and sanatoria, etc., is 
 also suggested or will be the necessary corollary. 
 The Minority admit the probable increase in expense, 
 but regard it with equanimity. The cost of public 
 assistance, they say, is not keeping pace with the 
 wealth of the country, as if, forsooth ! that were a 
 matter for regret ; perhaps the future question will 
 be whether the wealth of the country is keeping
 
 150 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 pace with the cost of public assistance. But, 
 after all, to many the real question is not the 
 cost but the increase of dependence. 
 
 The Able-bodied. 
 
 Their proposals in regard to the able-bodied 
 provide for a Minister for Labour, who is to 
 "organise industry" and provide work for as 
 many as possible, and to maintain honourably 
 the remainder. The principal instrument which 
 is to be used in the organisation of industry is 
 the labour exchange, from which all employers of 
 casual labour are to be compelled to hire their 
 labour, though labourers will not be compelled to 
 register unless they become in some way chargeable 
 to the public authority. It will be the duty of 
 the superintendent of the labour exchange to 
 "dovetail" casual work that is to say, that 
 instead of giving two days' work apiece to A, B, 
 and C, he will give six days' work to one of them 
 at his discretion ; at least there is nothing to show 
 how he is to decide between them, and a wide 
 door is opened to favouritism. The other two will 
 be ousted altogether from the labour market, and 
 will have to be maintained. They become " the 
 surplus of labour." "We cannot," say the 
 Minority, "avoid the conclusion that there is 
 this surplus of labour." 
 
 Surplus Labour. 
 
 This argument of " surplus labour " was used 
 with constant iteration against the reformers of 
 1834. If we turn to the Majority Report (Part III., 
 sections 442-445) we shall find how it was met by 
 them, and how their arguments were justified by 
 the eventual absorption of this supposed "surplus "
 
 EXCLUSION FROM LABOUR MARKET 151 
 
 in the labour market. The conditions are very 
 similar at the present moment. Then we had a 
 mass of "unemployed" centring round the parish 
 pay-tables and claiming parish work and parish 
 allowances. Now, we have similar apparently 
 " stagnant pools " of labour besieging the doors of 
 Distress Committees and Borough Council offices. 
 We have in addition huge centralised charities pro- 
 viding relief work and free meals, which make the 
 problem even more acute. Then, as now, we had 
 an alleged surplus of labour which did not disappear 
 till outdoor relief to the able-bodied was cut off 
 and wages were no longer supplemented. 
 
 Artificial Exclusion from the Labour Market. 
 
 But, assuming for the moment that this surplus 
 of labour is a fact, we have to consider how the 
 Minority propose to deal with it. First, they would 
 endeavour to reduce it by the exclusion of certain 
 classes of labour from the labour market. Women 
 with young children would be provided with adequate 
 outdoor relief on condition that they did no work. 
 The school age would be raised to fifteen, and 
 young people up to eighteen would be only allowed 
 to work thirty hours a week. We can hardly con- 
 template with equanimity the number of inspectors 
 that would be required to enforce such a policy. 
 We may doubt, judging from the Scottish experi- 
 ment of giving "adequate relief" to widows in 
 order to keep them out of the labour market, 1 and 
 indeed from much experience in out-relief adminis- 
 
 1 " A considerable number of these widows fell into bad habits, 
 became drunken, and otherwise unsatisfactory, and had to be struck 
 j ; off the roll. ... So many of the women are devoid of domestic and 
 other interests that work for wages is a positive safeguard. How 
 they are to be taught to care wisely for their homes and their 
 children, and to spend their relief to the best advantage, is a problem 
 which this scheme has not solved." Majority Report, Part IV., 
 chap. 6, 275.
 
 152 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 tration, whether it is desirable to keep women in 
 total idleness. We may doubt whether it would be 
 possible or even desirable, by a cast-iron law, to 
 exclude a young man with ambitions from his 
 workshop, where he may be receiving a much more 
 valuable education than he can get in Polytechnics, 
 and where he is earning something for the support 
 of himself and family, and his work is "sweetened 
 by the prospect of reward." But, supposing that 
 all these proposals 1 were carried out, there would 
 still, say the Minority, be a surplus of labour to be 
 dealt with, and, to use their own expression, "honour- 
 ably maintained " by the Ministry for Labour. This 
 maintenance would take several forms. The first 
 would be that of adequate "home aliment," on 
 condition of daily attendance at a training establish- 
 ment. In the second, the head of the family would 
 enter the training establishment and his family 
 would be maintained outside. The third would be 
 the purely residential colony, reserved chiefly for 
 single men. The fourth, the detention colony for 
 the lowest class of labour with "morbid" proclivities. 
 But a large number of men who are now in the 
 labour market, but partially disabled, would be sifted 
 out altogether, and handed over to the Public Health 
 Authority. If unable to do full work, they would 
 not be allowed to do any. We have already seen 
 that by the "dovetailing" process a large number 
 of men would be ousted altogether from the labour 
 market, and it remains to be seen how these are 
 to be dealt with in detail. The Minority tell us 
 (p. 1152) that in Liverpool out of 15,000 men at the 
 docks, 5000 are "surplus labour," and so would 
 have to be excluded from the labour market. If 
 in a single industry in a single town it becomes 
 necessary to maintain 5000 men in training estab- 
 
 1 We may observe that all these proposals are based upon the 
 often exposed "lump of labour" fallacy.
 
 TRAINING OF THE ABLE-BODIED 153 
 
 lishments, we can easily see that the problem before 
 us for the whole country is no light one. 
 
 The Organisation of the Labour Market. 
 
 In their proposals for the ''organisation of the 
 labour market," the Minority would, in fact, stretch 
 it, bound hand and foot, upon a bed of Procrustes. 
 The working man would be obliged to accept any 
 job that is offered to him by the labour exchange, 
 regardless of time and place, under the risk, if he 
 refused, of being sent to a penal colony. He might 
 be sent off by administrative order to any part of 
 Great Britain (p. 1208), like the young man in 
 Richter's " Pictures of the Socialistic Future." He 
 would be cut off from all chances of a temporary 
 job, which might be just what he wanted to tide 
 him over a difficulty. If he was a railway, tram, or 
 omnibus employee, his hours of labour would be 
 limited, and he could no longer earn money by 
 working overtime. The employer of labour would 
 be debarred from giving a man a job except through 
 the labour exchange. The whole labour market 
 would be delivered over in fetters to a number of 
 salaried officials. 
 
 Training. 
 
 We have next to see what is meant by "training." 
 The Minority only tell us that "the technique of 
 this subject is as yet in the making " (p. 107 1 ). They 
 can only offer suggestions, and these suggestions 
 are that mental arithmetic, mechanical drawing, 
 and drawing to scale, gardening, cooking, washing, 
 might be tried. The men are to be medically 
 examined and tested : and there are to be physical 
 exercises and organised recreation (p. 1204). We 
 may pause for the moment to think of the position 
 of Local Authorities such as those in Liverpool, 
 whose business it would be to set 5000 dock
 
 154 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 labourers forcibly deprived of all work to mental 
 arithmetic and the rest. But as this theory of 
 "training" is for the moment so generally adopted, 
 and as so much depends upon it, it is necessary 
 that we should examine it very closely. The 
 "technique," say the Minority, is not yet developed. 
 The only experience we have had so far in England 
 has been that of Hollesley Bay, of the results of 
 which the Majority say it is too soon to judge. 
 Many of those who have had experience of Hollesley 
 Bay have grave doubts of the ultimate result of 
 the "training" received there. There were some 
 witnesses before the Commission who feared that 
 the men there were apt to become "institutionalised." 
 Mr Lansbury himself, in a recent article in the 
 "Commonwealth," uses the expressive phrase "wet- 
 nursing " in connection with it, and there is in fact 
 evidence that men there are being "wet-nursed," 
 but not that they are being " wet-nursed " back 
 into the labour market. There is also evidence 
 that the men "do not take the training sufficiently 
 seriously" (p. 1121). The Minority poke fun at 
 the attempt made in certain London Workhouses 
 to supply a " mental instructor " for the able-bodied 
 inmates. The men either "went to sleep or inter- 
 rupted" (p. 1065). Possibly the trainer of the 
 future may share the same fate as the mental 
 instructor of the past, though he would have the 
 new power of consigning those who showed dis- 
 taste for mental arithmetic to a "penal colony." 
 Abroad, training colonies have been in existence 
 for many years and the " technique " should have 
 been worked out by this time. But the general 
 consensus of opinion is that their training and 
 reformatory influence has been but slight, and that 
 they have become "colonies of social wreckage 
 rather than colonies of unemployed" (Board of 
 Trade Reports, 1893, I 94)-
 
 HOLLESLEY BAY TRAINING COLONY 155 
 
 Hollesley Bay. 
 
 As the Report contemplates the establishment 
 of colonies of the Hollesley Bay type "near every 
 large town," it is of some importance to consider 
 what are the results that have been achieved by 
 that colony during the four or five years of its 
 existence. It is necessary first to say that it is 
 managed by a very able staff who are enthusiasti- 
 cally devoted to this work, and that nothing is 
 left undone that appears likely to improve the 
 "technique" of dealing with the unemployed. But 
 so far it has been disappointing in several ways. It 
 is admitted on all sides that it has failed in its 
 original object of "tiding over" periods of unemploy- 
 ment, and it is on its training side that most is now 
 hoped of it. But so far there has not been much 
 to show in this respect. It is claimed for it that it 
 has " trained " a few men for emigration, but there 
 is nothing to show that these men made better 
 emigrants than those who were emigrated direct by 
 the Central Body, the great majority of whom did 
 exceedingly well. A small number of men have 
 been migrated to different parts of the country ; 
 some have returned, but some remain. Those who 
 have succeeded may or may not owe their success 
 to the training received there. Altogether the 
 results are at least not very tangible, whilst the 
 expense has been very heavy. There are, however, 
 one or two considerations which have not, I think, 
 received enough attention. The fact is that the 
 atmosphere of a training colony is, in the very 
 nature of things, an extremely artificial one. The 
 men, all of whom are married, are cut off from 
 their wives and families, and have for sixteen 
 weeks no responsibility in regard to them. They 
 work under skilled superintendence by time-table 
 so many hours a week, and receive sixpence a week 
 
 Y
 
 156 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 pocket - money, which is frequently irregularly 
 supplemented by small sums sent by their wives 
 from the money received for their maintenance. 
 Most of the men live in the main College building, 
 which is a sort of barrack ; a small number known 
 as "settlers," who are specially selected for emigra- 
 tion, migration, or life on a small holding, live 
 with their families in cottages on the estate. These 
 cottages are quite unlike ordinary labourers' 
 cottages, and can only be described as of the 
 "garden city" style of architecture. They are 
 picturesque, but the accommodation is not always 
 very suitable. Adjoining them are outhouses 
 which, in order to give the "settlers" a foretaste 
 of life in the backwoods, are of rude "Canadian" 
 construction. There are organised games and 
 recreations, but, as they have not yet been made 
 compulsory, many of the men on the wrong side 
 of forty do not feel moved to take part in them. 
 In the evenings there are lectures, which are' 
 compulsory for some of the men, chiefly upon 
 subjects connected with farm or garden, but varied 
 occasionally by matters of general interest. For 
 example, the distinguished authors of the Minority 
 Report gave them, not long ago, a lecture upon 
 the " Problem of the Unemployed," and another 
 upon the "Sweating System." The men are also 
 encouraged to write essays, chiefly upon agricultural 
 subjects, and often write them very well. The 
 Londoner is very quick-witted in such matters. 
 There is no doubt, moreover, that many of the 
 men work well when their task is set them under 
 the supervision of the able farm manager. Their 
 behaviour is usually unexceptionable, and the 
 reports from week to week are that everything 
 is going well. But the question still remains 
 whether this is the sort of training which makes 
 men, or whether the "institutional" atmosphere
 
 NON-RESIDENTIAL COLONIES 157 
 
 of the colony is not inimical to such results. We 
 have little to go upon so far. Only a small 
 percentage of men have been re-established in the 
 labour market. The Minority put it at 10 per cent, 
 (p. 1122). There is nothing to show that even 
 this has been the result of their stay at Hollesley 
 Bay, and we have to set against it the fact that, 
 except for their periodical "outings," they have 
 for sixteen weeks been secluded from opportunities 
 of looking for work. The only other evidence 
 we have as to the results of training colonies 
 comes from abroad, and the only colonies that 
 appear to have met with much success there have 
 been the semi-penal colonies. "Recidivism" is 
 a well-known feature of the foreign colonies, and 
 the " Kolonie bummler" a familiar figure in 
 Germany. It is significant that already there has 
 been a disposition on the part of a good many 
 men who have had their sixteen weeks or more 
 at Hollesley Bay to try to get back there. 
 
 N on- Residential Colonies. 
 
 Of course the Minority contemplate also another 
 type of colony, the non-residential colony, which 
 is to be a sort of industrial school for the man 
 out of work but the question of the efficacy of the 
 training is the same everywhere. The theory of 
 this training, which is the keystone of the con- 
 structive policy of the Minority in regard to the 
 able-bodied, is that adults can be trained both 
 physically and morally to a new life. But the 
 nature of grown-up men and women is not so 
 easily changed. Those who have experienced the 
 difficulty in a single case, it may be that of a 
 relative or friend, will find it hard to believe that 
 chance comers can be inspired wholesale with 
 morale in public training establishments. Yet 
 otherwise the whole policy falls to the ground.
 
 158 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 Errors of Fact. 
 
 The Report is strongest on its denunciatory 
 side ; yet even here it is by no means infallible. 
 Errors of fact have already been pointed out. 
 For example, it cites the Atcham Union as one in 
 which the children are still educated and maintained 
 in the workhouse (p. 963). At the recent Central 
 Poor Law Conference the Atcham representatives 
 pointed out that they had been sent out to the 
 public elementary schools many years ago. The 
 incident is interesting for a special reason : Atcham 
 is one of the small number of " strictly " administered 
 Unions which are especially obnoxious to the 
 Minority, who never lose a chance of having a 
 "dig" at them when they think that they see the 
 opportunity. In this case, at least, their "dig" 
 has been a failure. So, too, with their assertions as 
 to the excessive infantile mortality in workhouses. 
 The facts are at least disputed. The Minority 
 themselves admit the "shortcomings of the statistical 
 data" (p. 782) upon which they base at least 
 three pages of denunciation in the Report ; but 
 of course such loose statements are useful with 
 popular audiences. On the other hand, the Local 
 Government Board has issued a Memorandum 
 upon the subject, which puts a different colour 
 upon the figures, and the Chairman of a large 
 and important London Union has recently shown 
 us that they are quite inapplicable to his Union. 
 Generally speaking, the declamatory statements of 
 the Minority appear likely to defeat themselves by 
 their very extravagance. For example, they are 
 saying publicly that "the whole of the ^15,000,000 
 now spent under the Poor Law is absolutely wasted 
 and thrown away." A perusal of the valuable 
 Blue-book 1 just issued by the Local Government 
 
 1 Public Health and Social Conditions [CD. 4671].
 
 ATTITUDE OF REPORT TO GUARDIANS 159 
 
 Board is a sufficient answer to this, or a reference 
 to the separate Memorandum of Dr Downes will 
 show what enormous progress has been made. 
 
 The Attitude of the Report towards Guardians. 
 
 The Report, like that of the Majority, proposes 
 to abolish Boards of Guardians, but not at all 
 because of "any inferiority of calibre" (p. 737) or 
 "any personal shortcomings" (p. 787). On the 
 contrary, "grave injustice has been done to them" 
 by the Majority (p. 1003), although they have given 
 "devoted public service gratuitously rendered" 
 (p. 1007). The Minority wish especially to 
 dissociate themselves from such a statement (by 
 the Majority) as the following : " The work is 
 tending to fall into the hands of persons who, 
 caring more for their own interests than those of 
 the community, direct their administration more 
 to the attainment of their own popularity than to 
 the solution of the real problem of pauperism " 
 (p. 1003). Such flattering assurances might almost 
 induce Guardians to acquiesce in their own extinc- 
 tion ; but, unfortunately, the force of them is 
 considerably modified by other and jarring senti- 
 ments in the same Report, which lead us to doubt 
 whether they are altogether sincere. For example, 
 a little earlier they speak of the Guardians as 
 "jealous of the officers and their powers, and 
 keenly alive to the electoral advantages of being 
 able to oblige individuals, and to obtain a reputation 
 for sympathy with the poor in whole neighbour- 
 hoods" (p. 760), and a little later of their "short- 
 sighted good-nature, the desire for electoral 
 popularity, the irresistible tendency of a ward 
 representative to be looked on by his supporters 
 as a patron saint" (p. 761), expressions even 
 stronger than those of the Majority at which the
 
 160 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 Minority are so shocked. Elsewhere they charge 
 the Guardians with various sins of commission or 
 omission, which are hardly consistent with superior 
 " calibre," intelligence, or even humanity. " They 
 settle down to slipshod inquiry and the soothing 
 dole " (p. 746). " They take no steps to require 
 the most elementary sanitary conditions even, we 
 grieve to say, where children are being reared " 
 (p. 750). They tolerate "mephitic atmospheres" 
 in nurseries. The Local Government Board 
 "despairs" of being able to induce them to remove 
 children from the workhouse (p. 802). "They 
 cannot be got to think of anything but board and 
 lodging" (p. 813). "They have not troubled' to 
 look after the children they were maintaining" 
 (p. 831). " The average Guardian is more impressed 
 by these trifles than by solid work" (p. 817). 
 They have been guilty of inhuman or irrational 
 practices (p. 820), and so forth in many other 
 places. Guardians will probably take these buffets 
 and rewards with equal thanks. It is very im- 
 probable that they will be cajoled into support of 
 the Minority proposals. 
 
 Inconsistencies. 
 
 Inconsistency has no terrors for the Minority 
 in speaking to their brief. Inquiry is "slipshod" 
 on p. 746, on p. 833 and elsewhere it is " in- 
 quisitorial." In one place Borough Councils are 
 condemned for taking on men "at haphazard" 
 (p. 1162), in another the Unemployed Workmen 
 Act has failed partly owing to the " inquisitorial 
 inquiries" (p. 1129). Coming to their own 
 proposals, the Registrar is to have a staff of officers 
 for " systematic " inquiry. We may ask whether 
 "systematic" inquiry is to be "inquisitorial." 
 They are scornful of the Majority for proposing
 
 INCONSISTENCIES IN THE REPORT 161 
 
 such changes in terminology as "continuous 
 treatment" for the "good old-fashioned term 
 ' detention.' ' Yet they themselves desire to 
 substitute the word "home aliment" for the "good 
 old-fashioned term " outdoor relief. Similarly, for 
 purposes of declamation, the "cellular" casual 
 wards in Poplar became " solitary pens " (p. 1082), 
 and we can hardly believe it when we read that in 
 the new receiving houses "a certain amount of 
 cellular accommodation will be essential" (p. 1213). 
 When they have to defend their training establish- 
 ments against the objection that they will be too 
 deterrent, their answer is that "a man has always 
 the alternative of earning his living outside " 
 (p. 1206). But that is precisely the argument that 
 has always been used with regard to the offer of 
 the workhouse of which they will hear nothing. 
 "Solitary pens," "mammoth workhouses," and 
 the like are phrases typical of the wealth of 
 rhetoric in the Report which contribute not a little 
 to its literary effectiveness. 
 
 We may notice in passing the naive surprise of 
 Mr Lansbury (with the others) that "a great 
 number of able-bodied men in health are receiving 
 outdoor relief without any task of work" (p. 1093), 
 although in Mr Lansbury's own Union from 172 
 to 534 men were so relieved weekly in 1906 (p. 209). 
 
 It is interesting to find that the Minority agree 
 that the cause of failure hitherto of labour ex- 
 changes has been that they have been associated 
 with Distress Committees and relief works (p. 1124). 
 They quote with approval the words of the late Sir 
 C. Trevelyan as to the evil of "mixing labour with 
 relief" (p. 1097). But this does not prevent them 
 from proposing a scheme by which the labour 
 exchanges and the "maintenance" proposals will be 
 under the same authority working alongside of one 
 another.
 
 162 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 Window Dressing. 
 
 There is a good deal in the Report which we 
 may look on as a kind of "window dressing" 
 intended to reassure the more timid. The 
 Registrar is to be provided with case-papers "of 
 the most approved pattern." References to "self- 
 respect, personal responsibility, and the integrity of 
 family life," are scattered about as it were with a 
 pepper-pot. For example, the Local Authority is 
 to "stimulate parental responsibility, self-control, 
 and self-help" (pp. 794-5), and how? By the 
 provision of free milk at the municipal depot where 
 the " baby is to be brought to be weighed, the 
 mother's interest not allowed to slacken, praise and 
 approval are to be given when the baby continues 
 well, blame and warning if it sickens." By these 
 means " self-respect, power of will, and personal 
 responsibility," are to be evoked. Similarly in 
 another place the same qualities are to be manu- 
 factured by the proposed training establishments. 
 We may differ in our views as to what the result 
 will be in this respect, but we shall all agree that 
 the Socialist writers have in the past given but 
 little prominence to these qualities and conditions. 
 Indeed Socialists of a certain school are altogether 
 inimical at heart to the "integrity of family life." 
 We are entitled, therefore, to look with some 
 suspicion upon this new-born solicitude, especially 
 when it comes from the Fabians, who are generally 
 reputed " to be the Jesuits of their creed. The 
 following definition of the "whole duty" of a 
 Fabian is from the pen of a prominent Fabian in 
 the early days of that Society : " There should be 
 only one absorbing principle in a Fabian's life the 
 attainment of Social Democracy, and all means 
 and methods to attain that end are laudable. Study 
 to be as morally immoral as possible. To be a
 
 IS IT A SOCIALIST REPORT ? 163 
 
 true, earnest, upright Fabian a man should be as 
 free from principle and morality as a parson." 
 Workman's Times, i3th February 1893. Ridentem 
 dicere verum quid vetat ? 
 
 Is it a Socialist Report ? 
 
 It is curious to observe the anxiety that exists 
 in many unexpected quarters to minimise the 
 Socialist proclivities of the Report. For example, 
 in a little book recently issued and entitled " By 
 What Authority ? " a book which is the joint work 
 of three learned professors, we find that " Socialism 
 is not the issue," "there is a marked absence of 
 the formulae and industrial aspirations of current 
 Socialism " (p. 10). Undoubtedly it has not been 
 the cue of the Minority to put forward the 
 " Socialist aspirations "too baldly, but one would at 
 least have expected that some suspicions might 
 have been aroused in the minds of these ingenuous 
 professors by the general proposals of the Minority, 
 and especially those in regard to the organisation 
 of labour and by the frequent occurrence of well- 
 known Socialist phrases, such as "the way in which 
 we have chosen to organise industry " (pp. 1095, 
 1131), "an incident of the competitive system" 
 (p. 1132), the "economic circumstances we have 
 chosen to create" (p. 1079). The question, how- 
 ever, has now been set definitely at rest by the 
 enthusiastic reception of the Report by all leading 
 Socialists, and especially by Mr H. G. Wells. 
 
 Labour Exchanges as a Test of Unemployment. 
 
 The Minority appear to accept the labour ex- 
 change as a test of unemployment that is to say, 
 if there is no job offering to a man at the labour 
 exchange, it is to be assumed that he cannot get
 
 164 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 work. This, of course, involves the assumption 
 that all the jobs offering can be registered at the 
 labour exchange, a thing which is inconceivable. 
 Many thousands of labourers now tide over their 
 times of unemployment for themselves by street 
 selling and other quite legitimate ways of earning 
 a living. Thousands of men, who have reached 
 honourable and even distinguished positions, have 
 had in their day to resort to all sorts of shifts and 
 devices to tide themselves over difficulties shifts 
 and devices which could figure in no labour ex- 
 change, however complete. We have heard of 
 writers, who have afterwards become great, who 
 have had to sweep a crossing. We have heard 
 of "captains of industry" who have had similar 
 experience of one kind or another, yet they have 
 "worried through" by grit and self-reliance. Yet 
 these, one and all, could under the Minority pro- 
 posals claim at the first check in their career to be 
 maintained in a training establishment, because 
 there might be nothing offering for them at the 
 labour exchange. The Minority point out to us 
 with regard to insurance against unemployment 
 that " the power to draw out-of-work pay may, by 
 its subtle play upon motive, tend insidiously to 
 slacken the effort to obtain another job " (p. 1 143) ; 
 and, again, that the labourers before 1834, "secure 
 of subsistence, lowered the quality and quantity of 
 their effort" (p. 1038). What, then, would be the 
 result of "honourable" maintenance and "secure 
 subsistence " in a training establishment with mental 
 arithmetic, organised recreation, physical drill, and 
 the rest ? What would have been the fate of many 
 men who have succeeded after a life of struggle, if 
 at some critical moment in their lives they had been 
 relegated to a training establishment, whilst their 
 wives and families received "adequate home 
 aliment " ?
 
 REGULARISATION OF LABOUR 165 
 
 Regularisation. 
 
 Towards the end of the Report we find an 
 elaborate scheme for the " regularisation " of labour. 
 Under this the Government is to "ear-mark" at 
 least four millions a year of expenditure upon the 
 public service, for work which is to be undertaken 
 out of loan on a ten years' programme at unequal 
 annual rates to the extent of ten or even fifteen 
 millions in a single year whenever the " Index 
 Number" of unemployment has reached "Warning 
 Point" (p. 1196). The money is then to be spent 
 in guns, battleships, barracks, post offices, schools, 
 printing historical manuscripts, and renewing worn- 
 out furniture. Simultaneously public bodies are to 
 be urged to undertake their ordinary municipal 
 work. It may be feared that the " Index Number," 
 which will be determined by the number of 
 applications for work to the labour exchange of 
 the future, will tend under these conditions to 
 remain permanently at "Warning Point," and 
 there is after all some limit to the number of guns, 
 battleships, etc., which are required, and some limit 
 to the ordinary municipal undertakings of Borough 
 Councils. Many will be of opinion that already 
 there has been far too much pressure put upon 
 them to manufacture work. There are those who 
 will enter a protest against these further proposals 
 for the manipulation of the labour market. Sir 
 George Nicholls said many years ago, " No one 
 now doubts the pernicious effect of artificial employ- 
 ment, or is blind to the consequences of tampering 
 with the labour market, whether by the parish or 
 in any other way," and that until lately has been 
 the view of most responsible statesmen. We first 
 turned our back upon that policy in 1886 when 
 Mr Chamberlain issued his "momentous" Circular, 
 and we have since embodied the principle of that
 
 166 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 Circular in the Unemployed Workmen Act. 
 Like all previous attempts at manipulation, both 
 the Circular and the Act have been shown to be 
 failures, yet their failure is now made a reason for 
 further efforts in the same direction. 
 
 The Minority and the Moral Factor. 
 
 The attitude of the Minority in regard to the 
 question of character is a difficult one to under- 
 stand. They complain in their manifesto of critics 
 who say that they ignore the "moral factor" of the 
 problem of pauperism. The moral factor, they say, 
 is to them " the whole of the problem." But this 
 is difficult to reconcile with their views in several 
 parts of the Report. For example, in speaking of 
 unemployment they say, "We have deliberately 
 subordinated the question of character because it 
 does not seem to us to be of significance with 
 regard to the existence or amount of unemploy- 
 ment" (p. 1172). But they contradict themselves 
 almost in the next sentence, because they admit 
 that efficiency of labour, which is another word for 
 character, "is one of the factors of productivity, 
 and the greater the national product the larger the 
 number of persons it will maintain." The amount 
 of unemployment, they say, depends upon "brisk- 
 ness of trade," but it is impossible to conceive of 
 trade being brisk in any country where the workers 
 are inefficient or wanting in morale. Every 
 efficient worker becomes a consumer as well as a 
 producer, and swells the demand for commodities 
 upon which briskness of trade depends. But 
 further, the efficient and thrifty man has as often 
 as not invested his money, not in beer and tobacco, 
 but in the numerous investments available for 
 working men, all of which are employed in 
 reproductive enterprise and give employment to
 
 'CHARACTER AND PROBLEM OF POVERTY 167 
 
 labour. The savings of the working classes under 
 this head are at the present moment about 400 
 millions. On the other hand, the consuming power 
 of the less efficient worker is reduced to a minimum, 
 or he becomes an actual burden upon industry, like 
 the "parasitic" labourer before 1834 (p. 1037). 
 The Minority admit, indeed, that distress from 
 unemployment is greatly aggravated by faults of 
 character. This we believe to be true both because 
 the inefficient, undisciplined man is not readily 
 employed, and also because his unwise methods of 
 expenditure do not contribute to the conditions 
 which cause " briskness of trade." We should 
 have expected, if for these reasons only, that they 
 would have been anxious to maintain a high 
 standard of character. But what is their con- 
 clusion ? After a sneer at the ideal of the " capable 
 and perfectly virtuous man who may possibly be 
 able to go through a period of prolonged unemploy- 
 ment without physical or mental deterioration," 
 they decide that the question of character is totally 
 irrelevant, and because "the unemployed are like 
 other men, full of faults" (p. 1175), they determine 
 to ignore it altogether. 
 
 But that, of course, is only the question of 
 character in regard to the particular issue of 
 unemployment ; there is the wider question of its 
 relation to the whole problem of poverty. In 
 regard to this everything depends upon what we 
 mean by "character," what this "moral factor" 
 really is, and what are the conditions essential to 
 its existence. The Minority tell us in their mani- 
 festo that it is something which can only be 
 enforced by the methods they propose ; and, though 
 they are not very explicit, they give us to under- 
 stand that this is to be done by administrative 
 action in individual cases when certain rules of 
 conduct have been definitely violated. If a man is
 
 
 168 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 a drunkard, or if he is actively cruel to his wife and 
 children, he will be discovered and "got at" 
 through the various Committees, and will be 
 "trained" or punished; and so, presumably, when 
 many have been trained or punished the "moral 
 factor " will once more assert itself. But until there 
 has been some actual transgression of the moral 
 law, some actual dereliction of duty, no action can 
 be taken, and action can only be taken in individual 
 cases. The "moral factor," as some of us conceive 
 it, is of quite a different nature. It turns upon the 
 effect that the expectation of public maintenance 
 has, or is likely to have, upon whole sections of the 
 poorer population in relation to pauperism and 
 dependence. This is no question of active 
 immorality. Pauperism is a negation the loss of 
 something, rather than a definite violation of any 
 law. It is rather an economic phenomenon, the 
 expression of the rule that human nature follows 
 the line of least resistance, and, if encouraged to do 
 so, becomes atrophied in body and soul. It is a 
 question of morale rather than of morals. We have 
 had and still have plenty of experience of it in this 
 country. The Minority are quite aware of its 
 existence. They speak in one place of the 
 "demoralisation of the rural population by a 
 hypertrophied Poor Law" before 1834. What 
 they have now to prove, therefore, is that their 
 present proposals which are surely fora "hyper- 
 trophied " Poor Law, if ever there was one will 
 not have similar results. 
 
 Attitude of the Minority towards Charity. 
 
 Curiously enough, the Minority admit the 
 demoralising effect of charity. In fact they view 
 it with so much apprehension that they would 
 abolish it altogether, except so far as institutional
 
 CONCLUSION 169 
 
 relief is concerned. " No encouragement whatever," 
 they say, " should be given to any distribution of 
 food, clothes, or money in the homes of the poor by 
 voluntary charity" (p. 1022). They would thus 
 throw everything that is now done by voluntary 
 charity at the home upon the rates. It is strange 
 that, after all the evidence that they have received 
 as to the evils of outdoor relief, both now and in 
 the past, that they should give it this preference 
 over charity. The truth may be that voluntary 
 chanty is incompatible with the Socialist ideals. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 The Minority then invite us to pass a sponge 
 over the slate of Poor Law history from 1601 
 onwards ; to discard all experience ; to set at 
 nought the teaching and conclusions of all re- 
 sponsible writers upon the Poor Law ; and, more 
 particularly, to reverse the "principles of 1834." 
 And yet many eminent thinkers of wide experience 
 have endorsed those principles. Mr Gladstone, 
 shortly before his death, told us that the Poor 
 Law of 1834 " rescued the English peasantry 
 from the total loss of its independence" (Life, 
 vol. i., p. 115), and Mr Gladstone had lived 
 under both the old Poor Law and the new. The 
 evidence before the present Commissioners shows 
 that since the reform of 1834 rural able-bodied 
 pauperism has almost disappeared, which is no 
 small testimony in their favour. Dr Munsterberg, 
 the eminent director of poor relief in Berlin, has 
 told us in his evidence that in Germany they 
 have adopted the principle of "less eligibility," 
 which is at the root of the principles of 1834. 
 Yet, in spite of all this, we are asked to embark 
 upon a revolutionary scheme of "constructive 
 Socialism," which is contrary to all experience,
 
 170 THE MINORITY REPORT 
 
 and, we might almost say, to all common-sense. 
 Its authors have had no experience of Poor Law 
 administration, but are the leaders of the most 
 powerful Socialist movement in the country. Their 
 arguments are so inconclusive, so irrelevant to a 
 solution of the problem and to difficulties which 
 are common to all countries in which poor laws 
 exist, that we cannot believe that they are intended 
 as a serious contribution to the literature of the 
 question. The Report, indeed, appears to be 
 rather an attempt to trouble the waters for the 
 coming Socialist fishing-party. Its authors are 
 indeed perfectly frank in some respects. The 
 scheme is admittedly a ballon cfessai. To those 
 who criticise their proposals in regard to un- 
 employment as visionary, their reply is: "It is 
 not a valid objection that a demonstrably perfect 
 technique, either with regard to the prevalence of 
 unemployment or the treatment of the unemployed, 
 has never yet been worked out. No such technique 
 can ever be more than foreshadowed until it is 
 put into operation." Utopian? they say; well, we 
 have only to put it in operation and see. "Could 
 there have been anything more Utopian in 1860 
 than a picture of what to-day we take as a matter 
 of course, the seven million children emerging 
 every morning washed and brushed from five or 
 six million homes in every part of the kingdom, 
 traversing street and road and lonely woodland, 
 going o'er moor and fell, to present themselves 
 at a given hour at their 30,000 schools, where 
 each of the seven million finds his or her own 
 individual place, with books and blackboard and 
 teacher provided?" (p. 1215). The analogy, 
 despite its poetic force, is a misleading one. 
 The problem of organising public education and 
 of providing "books, blackboard, and teachers" 
 is a very different one from that of "abolishing
 
 CONCLUSION 171 
 
 destitution," and recalling the Golden Age. Their 
 proposals are for the control by a bureaucracy 
 of those moral and economic forces which move 
 the whole of human society, and nothing similar 
 to them has ever been proposed or even dreamed 
 of either in this or in any other country. 
 
 2 A
 
 "THE SLIPPERY SLOPE" 
 
 THE principle of "acceleration" has been referred 
 to in a former chapter. The expression used by 
 Dr Chalmers hardly requires explanation, but it 
 may be well to cite his own words : " Every 
 known charity for the relief of indigence," he says, 
 "multiplies its objects ... it tells, and with great 
 practical certainty, upon all their habits of indul- 
 gence and expense . . . and hence it is that a 
 public charity necessarily creates more poverty 
 than it provides for ; that a feeling of pressure 
 or deficiency haunts every footstep of its operations; 
 and that the evil which it tries -to overtake swells 
 and magnifies upon all its advances." This is 
 only to say that the forces that make for public 
 relief acquire additional momentum as they travel. 
 The principle has been illustrated historically : it 
 may be well to trace its effects in our present 
 social economy. 
 
 And first with regard to expenditure, though 
 this is by no means the most important aspect of 
 the question. If the social question could be 
 solved by public expenditure no one would ever 
 wish to economise, but otherwise we can only 
 view with great alarm the enormous increase in 
 recent years. A quarter of a century ago the 
 total public expenditure for relief of all kinds was 
 about eight millions ; it is now approximately thirty 
 millions. Relief under the Poor Law has nearly 
 
 172
 
 INCREASE OF POOR LAW EXPENDITURE 173 
 
 doubled itself. The last Annual Report of the 
 Local Government Board was over ^15,000,000, 
 and since 1908 another ^13,000,000 has been 
 added for old age pensions, with the certainty of 
 a considerable increase in the near future. In 
 1910, .183,000 were spent for the relief of the 
 able-bodied under the Unemployed Workmen Act. 
 To this must be added an unascertained sum for 
 the relief of school children by the Education 
 Authorities, whilst the Insurance Act is eleemosy- 
 nary to the extent of "ninepence for fourpence." 
 Yet, a feeling of pressure haunts every footstep of 
 our eleemosynary legislation, and the supply creates 
 a demand of ever increasing insistence. The 
 Majority Report of the Royal Commission on the 
 Poor Law points out that notwithstanding our 
 enormous expenditure, amounting to nearly sixty 
 millions a year upon poor relief, education, and 
 public health, we have now an enormous army of 
 paupers quartered upon us unable to support 
 themselves, an army which has recently shown 
 signs of increase rather than of decrease : to what, 
 it says, is this retrogression due? It cannot be 
 attributed to lack of experience (Part II., p. 152). 
 No indeed ; the reply to this ingenious question 
 may be that the contrary is the case. We all 
 know the well-worn sayings that "you may have 
 as many paupers as you choose to pay for," "the 
 plaister is never as large as the sore." 
 
 The increase in expenditure is serious, but the 
 increase in the dependence of the people is far more 
 alarming, and this applies to all departments of 
 public relief. Up to 1886 there was no public 
 relief outside the Poor Law, but in 1886 Mr 
 Chamberlain's Circular gave the first impulse to the 
 " break-up" of the Poor Law. That Circular made 
 provision for the relief of certain classes of workmen 
 "ordinarily in employment but temporarily un-
 
 174 "THE SLIPPERY SLOPE" 
 
 employed " by public bodies other than Boards of 
 Guardians, and gave the first official sanction to the 
 relief of any class of the poor outside the Poor 
 Law. The Circular was specifically stated to be 
 only intended for times of exceptional distress, but 
 " exceptional distress " was not defined, and the 
 Circular was issued again and again by successive 
 Presidents and its operation became continuous. 
 This was followed in 1905 by the Unemployed 
 Workmen Act, which like the Circular was in- 
 tended for times of exceptional distress, but the 
 provision of State relief work became thenceforward 
 a normal feature of the winter months. We see, 
 therefore, the accelerative forces in regard to the 
 relief of the able-bodied which began by taking 
 them outside the limitations of the Poor Law, and 
 which have since carried us on from a Local Govern- 
 ment Circular issued for a special occasion to a 
 permanent system of public relief embodied in an 
 Act of Parliament. But the process of acceleration 
 has continued since the Act itself came into force. 
 For it was originally intended that public money 
 should be used for machinery only and that the 
 actual work should be provided by voluntary sub- 
 scription, a "safeguard" which disarmed much 
 opposition. Mr Long indeed, when he promulgated 
 his scheme upon which the Act was based, assured 
 us that under no conditions could a Treasury grant 
 be made. But voluntary funds disappeared after 
 the first year ; Mr Burns was compelled to promise 
 a Treasury grant within a few months of his 
 accession to office, and since then all work has been 
 provided by public money. The checks and safe- 
 guards originally inserted in the Act have been 
 abandoned one by one. So far from being reserved 
 for an exceptional class of workmen, it has been 
 almost monopolised by the casual labourer. It has 
 done much to aggravate the evils of casual labour
 
 OLD AGE PENSIONS 175 
 
 by creating nurseries of casual labour throughout 
 the country. It has been unanimously condemned 
 by the Royal Commission on the Poor Law. Yet 
 no one has had the courage to put an end to it 
 because a large section of the political world 
 believe that they see in it the germ of further 
 extension. Both Mr Ramsay Macdonald and Mr 
 Crooks have hailed it as a recognition of the "right 
 to work," and the Fabian Society welcome it as a 
 recognition of the principle of the break-up of the 
 Poor Law. And so we see acceleration at work 
 with the prospects of further acceleration. 
 
 In 1895 another step was taken towards the 
 break-up of the Poor Law when Mr Chamberlain 
 propounded his scheme of deferred annuities in 
 order to make provision for the aged poor outside 
 the Poor Law, and Old Age Pensions were then 
 for the first time brought within the range of 
 practical politics. His scheme was contributory 
 and strictly limited, but the limitations were pro- 
 nounced to be impracticable. It paved the way, 
 however, to a host of similar contributory schemes, 
 and over a hundred of them were considered and 
 reported upon by Lord Rothschild's Committee in 
 1898. None were recommended, but by this time 
 "the principle had been accepted," and Mr Charles 
 Booth published his universal non-contributory 
 scheme which ultimately became the basis of the 
 present Act. But the Act itself had hardly been 
 passed before the process of acceleration again set 
 in. It was at first intended that Poor Law relief 
 should disqualify, and there were many prophecies 
 that this would stimulate to self-support until the 
 pension age was reached. But this provision led 
 to such obvious injustice that the idea was soon 
 abandoned, and in 1911 the Poor Law disqualifica- 
 tion was swept away altogether. 
 
 In 1906 the first step towards removing children
 
 176 "THE SLIPPERY SLOPE" 
 
 from the province of the Poor Law was taken by 
 the Provision of Meals Act, and the accelerative 
 process in regard to them has been even more 
 remarkable. It is interesting, indeed, to go back as 
 far as the Education Act of 1870 and to trace the 
 course of events since that time. First of all a 
 cheap and efficient elementary education was pro- 
 vided for all poor children ; their education was 
 made compulsory, and then it was made free, and 
 it was argued that the remission of fees by which 
 some two or three millions was returned to the 
 pockets of the labouring classes would enable them 
 to feed and clothe their children. But this argu- 
 ment was soon forgotten, and within a few years 
 the question of the feeding of school children became 
 acute. For some time the need was met by volun- 
 tary action through the London School Dinners 
 Association and other similar bodies, but the 
 Socialist pressure for State action became stronger 
 and stronger. That pressure culminated on the 
 Provision of Meals Act of 1906, which gave power 
 to Education Authorities to charge school meals 
 upon the rates. For a time an attempt was made 
 to maintain the voluntary system, but in 1908 the 
 London County Council yielded to irresistible 
 pressure and threw the charge upon the rates, 
 and other education authorities followed their 
 example. Since then acceleration has set in fast 
 and furious. The average weekly number of 
 children fed in London has gone up from 29,000 
 to 42,000, and the number of meals provided from 
 74,000 to 203,000 (Ann. Report L. C. C. 1910, 
 Vol. IV., p. 38). At first the hope was held out 
 that a large part of the cost would be recovered 
 from neglectful parents, but last year only ^510 
 was recovered out of ^88,000 spent. There is 
 now a strong agitation to continue the meals 
 during the school holidays. But lately a further
 
 MEDICAL CARE OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 177 
 
 movement has set in : it is argued, quite irresistibly, 
 that the ailing school child is often suffering from 
 causes other than that of lack of food, and in 1907 
 the (Education) Administrative Provisions Act was 
 passed which provides for the medical inspection 
 of all school children, and where necessary for 
 their medical treatment. Following the precedents 
 of the Unemployed Workmen Act and the 
 Provision of Meals Act, the London County 
 Council are at present trying to provide this 
 treatment through the voluntary hospitals and 
 dispensaries, but there is already strong pressure 
 for the establishment of rate supported clinics, and 
 there can be little doubt that this will be the 
 ultimate result. The Act provides for the recovery 
 of part of the cost from the parents, but last year 
 only ^329 was so recovered, and it is clear that 
 this provision cannot operate as an effective check. 
 Meanwhile the London County Council, who " have 
 found considerable difficulties in this part of the 
 work" (ibid., p. 44), have adopted a maximum 
 charge of is. and a minimum of id., but "arrange- 
 ments are being made for remitting the charge in 
 necessitous cases." If we ask what are " necessitous 
 cases," the answer is " No hard-and-fast rule for 
 determining necessity has been adopted by the 
 Council" (ibid., p. 35). If we ask what is the test 
 of the need of the child, the answer is, " There is no 
 absolute standard of what or what is not healthy 
 nutrition . . . necessitous children are not neces- 
 sarily ill-nourished at the time of application, though 
 they would become so were relief withheld" (ibid., 
 p. 35). It is clear, therefore, that the Council are 
 not disposed to be at all exacting either as to the 
 means of the parent or the needs of the child. If 
 the following sentence from the report of the 
 Education Officer is to be taken as an indication 
 of the opinion of the Council, it is clear that they
 
 178 "THE SLIPPERY SLOPE" 
 
 consider that education is synonymous with the 
 entire State maintenance of children. "Formerly 
 education," he says, "was in the main confined (i) 
 to the growth of character, (2) to the growth of 
 the mind. Now it looks increasingly at the social 
 problems that present themselves for solution in 
 the case of the individual child, the problem of 
 physical deterioration, of under-feeding, of im- 
 poverished homes, and unsuitable employment. 
 The State has come to see that it is not suffi- 
 cient to impart knowledge, but that it must also 
 see that the child is capable of assimilating that 
 knowledge." It is noticeable that not a word is 
 said as to the duties of the parent. The pro- 
 cess of acceleration has, in a word, brought us 
 in forty years from State education to State 
 maintenance. 
 
 It has always been argued that the various 
 measures of "social reform" which have been 
 referred to would reduce the pressure upon the 
 Poor Law and perhaps altogether do away with 
 the necessity for a Poor Law. They have shown 
 no signs of doing this up to the present. The 
 Unemployed Workmen Act was intended to 
 prevent able-bodied workmen from coming upon 
 the Poor Law, yet the statistics of able-bodied 
 pauperism show no reduction. 
 
 The figures for quinquennial periods are as 
 follows : 
 
 1892 . . 9,245 
 1897 . . 101,829 
 
 1907 . . 111,503 
 1912 . . 120,217 
 
 1902 . . 94,681 
 
 Annual Report L. G. B., 1911, ii., p. 153. 
 
 There are many who urge that the Old Age 
 Pensions Act would do away with the necessity for 
 workhouses, yet the figures of indoor pauperism 
 continue to rise.
 
 MEASURES TENDING TO CREATE PAUPERS 179 
 
 The figures are : 
 
 Jan. i, 1892 
 1897 
 1902 
 
 I75>34i 
 
 198,750 
 209,280 
 
 Jan. i, 1907 
 1912 
 
 245,945 
 . 260,206 
 
 Ibid., p. 151. 
 
 In spite of the feeding and medical treatment 
 of children by the Education Authority, as large 
 a number of children as before continue to receive 
 relief of all kinds from the Poor Law. 
 
 The figures are : 
 
 
 Children returned under the Poor Law. 
 
 
 Indoor. 
 
 Outdoor. 
 
 1892 
 
 50,282 
 
 177,245 
 
 1897 
 
 52,270 
 
 178,186 
 
 1902 
 
 52,864 
 
 159,143 
 
 1907 
 
 60,421 
 
 171,497* 
 
 1912 
 
 70,698 
 
 181,139 
 
 * Annual Report L. G. B., 1911, ii., p. 151. 
 
 There is good reason indeed to believe that 
 some at least of these measures tend to feed the 
 Poor Law rather than to atrophy it ; any measure 
 which creates pauperism outside the Poor Law 
 must ultimately tend to create pauperism within 
 the Poor Law, which has to deal with the wreckage. 
 A very large proportion of those who have been 
 inadequately dealt with by the Unemployed Work- 
 men Act undoubtedly come back ultimately upon 
 the Poor Law. A return presented to the Royal 
 Commission from a single district showed that of 
 437 cases assisted by the Distress Committee, 234 
 were previously known to the Guardians, whilst 
 8 1 of them had already reverted to the Poor Law, 
 and these figures may probably be taken as fairly 
 typical of the conditions elsewhere. The Act had 
 at that time only been in operation for about three 
 years, and the number of similar cases must now 
 
 2 6
 
 180 "THE SLIPPERY SLOPE" 
 
 be very considerable. So, too, with the Old Age 
 Pensions Act. Not only do a large number of old 
 age pensioners continue to receive poor relief, but 
 the Act is actually bringing upon the Poor Law a 
 number of people who would otherwise have been 
 maintained either by themselves or by their relations. 
 When the pauper disqualification was removed there 
 was, of course, a large transfer of outdoor paupers 
 from the out-relief lists to the pension authority, but 
 this led at once to a marked increase in out-relief 
 to those under seventy. The Local Government 
 Board call attention to this in their half-yearly 
 return for ist January 1911, and it is strongly 
 corroborated by a recent return from the Lambeth 
 Union, showing that there were 200 more outdoor 
 poor under seventy than at the corresponding 
 period of the previous year. It may be added 
 that almost all recent returns show a marked 
 increase in outdoor relief to those under seventy. 
 In other words, the places of those who have been 
 transferred to the pension authority are being 
 gradually filled by younger people. This is not 
 at all to be wondered at. Formerly, the older 
 people were given preference in out-relief, which is 
 a charge upon the rates, and the Guardians had 
 the fear of the ratepayers before their eyes, so 
 far as younger people were concerned. Now the 
 older people have been transferred to the imperial 
 taxation, and they can safely put the younger 
 ones on the list without serious increase of local 
 charges. But, in addition to this, the fact that 
 an old age pension is due in a year or two is now 
 used as an irresistible argument for giving outdoor 
 relief in the interim. It will be remembered that 
 the argument used when the Old Age Pensions Act 
 was passed, was that the prospect of a pension 
 at a certain age would be a strong inducement to 
 people to keep off the rates up to that time ; but,
 
 DUPLICATED RELIEF 181 
 
 instead of this, we see that relief is made a reason 
 for more relief. 
 
 Formerly, the greatest stress was laid upon the 
 condition that the old age pensioner should be 
 dissociated altogether from the Poor Law, and 
 for that reason the administration of the Act was 
 assigned to the officers of excise, who, of course, 
 are entirely unversed in such administration, whilst 
 the very name of the relieving officer was anathema. 
 For the same reason, strict rules were laid down 
 that all the information obtained by the excise 
 officers regarding old age pensioners should be 
 treated as confidential, and there was to be no 
 touch between old age pensioners and the Guardians. 
 But, in fact, a very large number of old age 
 pensioners continued to receive Poor Law relief, 
 often simultaneously with their pension, whilst the 
 Guardians are unable to recover any appreciable 
 part of the cost. The Committee of the Central 
 Poor Law Conference have recently made some 
 inquiries into the matter, and have received definite 
 answers from about 134 Boards of Guardians. 
 The result is very striking. At least 100 of 
 these Boards report duplicated relief, which usually 
 takes the form of infirmary treatment plus the 
 old age pension, whilst they are in most cases 
 entirely unable to recover anything from the 
 pensioner. In West Derby, for example, in a 
 single year 301 pensioners received duplicated 
 relief of this kind, and only 10 was recovered. 
 In Bethnal Green the number was 240, and all 
 but six of these continued to receive their pensions ; 
 practically nothing was recovered. 
 
 There is similar evidence from a number of 
 other Unions. The pension authority, in most 
 cases following instructions from headquarters, 
 refused to give any information to, or to co-operate 
 with, the Guardians. We have thus the singular
 
 182 "THE SLIPPERY SLOPE 1 ' 
 
 spectacle of a public body administering relief 
 from the rates and taxes adopting a semi-hostile 
 attitude towards another body also administering 
 relief from public money. The Local Government 
 Board, when appealed to by the Sudbury Guardians 
 for an opinion as to the power of recovery, give 
 a guarded but extremely discouraging answer. 
 It is not surprising that Poor Law relief, under 
 these circumstances, shows no tendency to decrease. 
 It was reported to the writer that, in another 
 Union, old age pensioners have discovered that 
 they can supplement their pensions by obtaining 
 ' continuous outdoor medical relief in kind, and 
 that, in fact, they frequently do so. And so the 
 snowball of pauperism continues to roll onwards, 
 acquiring additional momentum as it travels, and 
 picking up all those who come in its way. 
 
 Finally, by the break up of the Poor Law, 
 we are fast losing the power of gauging our 
 economic position by facts and statistics. So long 
 as the Poor Law was the sole relief authority 
 we could ascertain, by a glance at its statistics, 
 the exact position of the country in regard to the 
 public relief of the poor, and could answer, with 
 some approach to certainty, the vital question as 
 to what proportion of the population lives by its 
 labour, and what proportion by some form of 
 public subsidy. But this is no longer possible. 
 The official statistics now cover only a portion of 
 the ground, because some four or five other bodies, 
 whose finance and accounts are quite separate, now 
 administer relief, whilst there is no attempt to 
 bring either the relief that they administer or the 
 number of people that they relieve into a common 
 account. In former times, the greatest importance 
 was attached to the keeping of accurate statistics 
 under both heads, in order that the nation might 
 at any time take stock of its economic position.
 
 LOSING CHECK OF PAUPERISM 183 
 
 But this is no longer possible. Everything is 
 becoming confused and chaotic, and we are throwing 
 away our last check upon the onrush of pauperism 
 by burying public relief in the statistics of other 
 branches of public administration, and disguising 
 it as education, public health, or the reward of 
 industry.
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PAUPERISM 
 
 " Mankind have nothing to stir them to action but their needs, 
 which it is wisdom to relieve but folly to remove." MANDEVILLE, 
 " Fable of the Bees." 
 
 PAUPERISM is a dismal subject, and many people 
 nowadays are apt to be impatient at the very 
 mention of it : they regard it as an abstraction, 
 a bogey to frighten the timid away from the paths 
 of what is known to politicians under the name of 
 "social reform." Those who have read its past 
 history, and still more those who have seen it in 
 the concrete, and have, over a long series of years, 
 watched its devastating influence upon human 
 character, know that it is the chief reason why 
 many schemes which have been suggested and 
 put in practice for the improvement of the con- 
 dition of the poor have hitherto met with so 
 small a measure of success, or failed altogether. 
 It is for this reason that we must, if we are to 
 make any real progress, face this difficulty from 
 the outset. If we do not face it we must be 
 content to be for ever rolling a stone uphill, as 
 many generations of philanthropists have done in 
 the past, as many philanthropists are doing even 
 now. There is perhaps no question in which 
 natural impulses are so much at variance with 
 the teaching of experience and in which there are 
 so many apparent paradoxes. There is certainly 
 no question in which so much initial patience and 
 humility is required from those who wish to find 
 
 184
 
 MEANING OF THE WORD " PAUPERISM * 185 
 
 the right way, and patience and humility are by 
 no means so common amongst philanthropists as 
 we should expect them to be. At the same time 
 there is no reason to despair. Social questions 
 have been studied more closely in the last thirty 
 years than they have ever been before, and already 
 there are many signs that people in general are 
 becoming much more conscious of their difficulties, 
 and much more ready to recognise that the study 
 of the problem of poverty is a science in itself. 
 It is true that, for the moment, there are many 
 forces, sentimental and political, which are adverse 
 to its full application, but one can but believe that 
 these will gradually disappear as the enlighten- 
 ment of the community upon the subject becomes 
 more complete. 
 
 We have, then, first of all to be clear in our 
 minds as to what we mean by the word "pauperism." 
 Though the Latin word pauper only means a poor 
 person, "pauperism" has acquired by use a quite 
 different signification from poverty. In a healthy 
 community there may be many poor ; there cannot 
 be many paupers. In this country most of the 
 people are poor in that they live upon a wage, 
 weekly or otherwise, and have no accumulated 
 wealth. Yet to-day the great majority of the 
 people are self-supporting. So, too, with other 
 countries. In Norway, nearly all are poor, yet, 
 probably for that very reason, there are few 
 paupers. Pauperism presupposes the means of 
 pauperisation, which can hardly be said to exist in 
 that country, and we find there one of the finest 
 peasant populations in the world, both physically 
 and morally. 
 
 What, then, is pauperism ? The answer is, 
 that it is in its essence a question of character 
 rather than of externals. It is, so to speak, a 
 negation, a loss of something, rather than a positive
 
 186 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PAUPERISM 
 
 quality. Pauperism is associated in the minds of 
 many with vice and crime, and it is true that 
 these are often its ultimate development. But 
 for all that they are not of its essence. Many a 
 pauper is at first neither vicious nor criminal. 
 Many people who are both vicious and criminal 
 
 Iare not paupers. The first step in pauperism is 
 to the average man analogous to the loss of virtue 
 in a woman. He is never quite the same again. 
 Though there are some who have the strength of 
 will to resist its further stages, yet to the many 
 it means the gradual mildew of the spirit, the 
 blunting of energy both physical and moral, and 
 the loss of responsibility and self-control. It is an 
 insidious thing, and attacks human nature on its 
 weakest side, the side of its indolence, and the 
 danger is common to rich and poor. It is the 
 outward expression of the economic law, which is 
 as inexorable as the law of gravitation, that 
 average human nature, like everything in the 
 physical world, follows the line of least resistance, 
 or, in other words, takes life in the easiest way. 
 The pauper is not so much a poor person as a 
 poor creature. There are paupers among the rich 
 as well as among the poor, but they have had 
 at least the opportunities of higher education 
 and different environment. The poor have no 
 such safeguard. The first step downwards, once 
 taken, leads to an abyss which has no bottom. 
 Many of us will remember one of George Eliot's 
 best known characters who "at first had no 
 thoughts that were base, but because he tried to 
 slip away from everything that was unpleasant . . . 
 he came at last to commit some of the basest 
 deeds that make men infamous. . . . He betrayed 
 every trust that he might keep himself safe yet 
 calamity overtook him." Pauperism is the loss 
 of grit, initiative, gumption, self-respect what you
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE 187 
 
 will. Its insidiousness lies in the fact that it 
 appeals to the weakest side of human nature. 
 
 What, then, is the most potent antidote to this 
 tendency which is common to all? It is to be 
 found in one thing and one thing only, namely, 
 in the discipline of life which has been imposed 
 upon all as a corrective of natural indolence. The 
 discipline of life is a subtle force which presents 
 itself to different people in different ways, but which 
 is always a spur to activity either of hand or brain, 
 the alternative to which is stagnation and decay. 
 " Life anywhere will swallow a man unless he rise 
 vigorously and try to swallow it." We often hear 
 of the "idle rich." Why is it that many of them 
 are so? It is because the stimulus of the discipline 
 of life has been removed from them by their riches 
 and they have found no discipline of the will to 
 take its place. As their numbers are comparatively 
 small, they are not, except for the example they set, 
 a national danger. With the poor it is otherwise. 
 They constitute the nation, and the destiny of the 
 nation is bound up with theirs. If we remove from 
 large sections of the population this driving force 
 we remove the mainspring of their activity, and 
 withdraw from under them the prop and stay that 
 prevents them from sinking into the slough of 
 pauperism. For them that discipline consists in 
 the forces of self-preservation, in the maintenance 
 of themselves and those who depend upon them, 
 and in the love of family and home life which is the 
 root and anchor of self-control and self-sacrifice. 
 For them, above all, these virtues, which it is 
 the fashion nowadays to ignore or to deride as 
 impossible, are essential, because when they are 
 lost "calamity overtakes them" and "life swallows 
 them up." We know that such virtues are not 
 impossible, because amongst the non-pauperised 
 population we find them existing as strongly as 
 
 2 C
 
 188 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PAUPERISM 
 
 ever. The struggle is a hard one, especially to 
 those who are on the borderland, but it is by it 
 that character is made. The temptation to take 
 what seems the easier way is ever present. Every 
 unhappy tramp or mendicant has learnt his first 
 lesson in dependence from some dole of charity or 
 of the Poor Law, and "calamity has overtaken him." 
 
 "It is reluctance on the part of the poor man 
 to become a pauper which forms the mighty barrier 
 against the extension of pauperism. . . . There is 
 not a labourer in the country, however well paid he 
 might be, who might not become a pauper at the 
 first moment of his decaying strength or declining 
 wages. . . . To relax the industry by a very little, 
 or to let down to a small and imperceptible extent 
 the economical habits, . . . these are the simple 
 expedients by which, when once the mighty hold 
 of self-dependence is loosened, the daily increasing 
 thousands of a city population may in the shape of 
 famished wives, ragged children, or destitute old 
 men inundate the amplest charity." These words 
 were written by Dr Chalmers more than half a 
 century ago. They are as true now as ever they 
 were. The first step towards pauperism is the 
 crucial one. The virtue has gone out of a man 
 and the inward decay has begun. 
 
 Pauperism, therefore, is a question of character 
 affecting large masses of the people. Till within 
 the last few years it had been a gradually dis- 
 appearing factor in this country. But since, roughly 
 speaking, the beginning of the nineties there has 
 been a reaction. Our great object - lesson in 
 pauperism in England is the old Poor Law, and 
 we may take it for granted that every one has 
 some knowledge of the conditions of those times. 
 It is only necessary to say that it brought this 
 country nearer to ruin than anything before or 
 since, and that before 1834 pauperism was a canker
 
 VARIATIONS IN STATISTICS OF PAUPERISM 189 
 
 which, as was said at the time, was fast consuming 
 the vitals of the nation. 
 
 But we have no need to go back so far for 
 illustrations of the intimate connection between 
 Poor Law administration and pauperism. At the 
 present time, wherever administration is free and 
 easy or, as some would call it, humane there we 
 find a high rate of pauperism ; wherever it is careful 
 and strict, we find a low one. Professor Fawcett's 
 dictum that "you may have as many paupers as 
 you choose to pay for " is no less true to-day than 
 it was seventy years ago. The rise and fall of 
 pauperism over the last century coincides almost 
 exactly with the ebb and flow of administration. 
 Of course there have been crises like the Manchester 
 and Irish famines which have created extraordinary 
 conditions, but in normal times every year's experi- 
 ence has added additional testimony to its truth. 
 The remarkable variations in the pauperism of 
 different Unions at the present time tell the same 
 tale. Why is it, for example, to take the West 
 End of London, that the pauperism of St George's, 
 Hanover Square, is 31.3 per 1000 whilst that 
 of Fulham, a much poorer district, is only 17.7 per 
 1000? Why is it, if we take the Northern 
 district, that pauperism in Islington is 34.7 per 
 1000, whilst in Hackney it is only 27.9? Why 
 is it that in the Eastern district, where there is 
 uniformity of poverty, the pauperism of Poplar is 
 57.6, whilst that of Bethnal Green is only 27.4 and 
 that of Whitechapel and St George's only 33 ? Or, 
 if we compare East with West, why is it that St 
 George's, Hanover Square, though its population 
 is smaller, has more than 300 more paupers than 
 Bethnal Green? There can, of course, be only one 
 answer, namely, that these Unions have adopted 
 different methods of administration. 
 
 The principle applies to the country as well as
 
 190 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PAUPERISM 
 
 to the towns. In such places as Bradfield, Brix- 
 worth, and Atcham, where a strict system at one 
 time prevailed, though they have most of them 
 reverted to less stringent methods, the rate of 
 pauperism is still much lower than in surrounding 
 Unions. Perhaps enough has been said by figures 
 and illustration to show the closeness of the 
 connection between methods of administration and 
 pauperism ; but as many people have a rooted 
 distrust of statistics, which they say "may be made 
 to prove anything," it may be well to submit the 
 question to some further analysis, and to look at it, 
 so to speak, from behind the scenes. Some years 
 ago the Bethnal Green Board appointed a special 
 Committee to consider their own system of out- 
 relief, which was then what is known as a "lax" 
 one, almost anyone who applied being able to get 
 it, though in very small doses. This Committee 
 took the evidence of their relieving officers and 
 examined their books and records. The con- 
 clusions that they came to are of some general 
 interest. In the first place, it was clear that the 
 great majority of the cases were chronic : one 
 relieving officer had had the same cases in his 
 books on and off for over twenty years. Another 
 said that 70 to 80 per cent, of his cases were 
 chronic. Then, again, the habit of applying for 
 relief ran in certain families and in certain streets 
 and localities. In some cases three generations of 
 the same family were upon the books, and there 
 was abundant evidence of hereditary pauperism. 
 It was contagious. "The people on the ground 
 floor apply because the people on the upper floor 
 are having it." In some streets the mere sight of 
 the relieving officer brought in a crop of applica- 
 tions the next day. " Our visits," they said, 
 " manufacture applications." But perhaps this is 
 to elaborate too much what is an obvious proposi-
 
 STATE RELIEF OUTSIDE THE POOR LAW 191 
 
 tion. Of course poor people will apply for what 
 they believe to be their share of a fund which is in 
 their eyes inexhaustible and specially intended for 
 them ; would anyone refrain from increasing his 
 income if he could do so simply by the asking ? 
 But soon the "amplest charity," the most "free 
 and easy " poor law, is inundated and overwhelmed. 
 It has been so in Poplar, West Ham, and other 
 Unions in and about London. It was so again 
 and again in France in Revolutionary and post- 
 Revolutionary periods, when they tried to put into 
 practice the teaching of Rousseau. Sooner or later 
 the reaction comes, the public purse is exhausted, 
 and poor people are left to face the world robbed 
 of their only real resources, namely, those that lie 
 in themselves. Seventy years ago practically the 
 whole population was in the clutches of the Poor 
 Law. Then came the great struggle of 1834, and 
 practical emancipation. Now we are again upon 
 the top of a reaction. Since 1900 the official 
 figures of pauperism have been steadily on the 
 upgrade, and we have now a huge volume of State 
 relief which is outside the Poor Law altogether. 
 Of course the official figures do not measure exactly 
 the number of those who have acquired the pauper 
 spirit. Exceptional crises may from time to time 
 swell the figures with those who are far from 
 being paupers. At all times there are included 
 in them some who cannot rightly be regarded as 
 such. But political economy deals with tendencies, 
 and from that point of view the official figures may 
 fairly be taken as a test. When we find two 
 Unions externally identical, of which the one has 
 double the pauperism of the other, we know that 
 the process of pauperisation has set in, and that 
 large numbers of the poor have been tempted to 
 give up the struggle for life and to surrender their 
 independence. We know also that calamity over-
 
 192 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PAUPERISM 
 
 takes them, and that of all policies this is the most 
 inhuman. 
 
 Such appear, then, to be the main features of the 
 problem of pauperism. Its main antidote hereto- 
 fore has been the discipline of life which has 
 enforced prudence, self-restraint, and self-sacrifice 
 for the sake of others. If this is to be removed 
 something will have to take its place, for pauperism, 
 which is the negative of these virtues, will not suffer 
 itself to be ignored or treated by methods of 
 obscurantism. The alteration now proposed is the 
 discipline of the law with inspector and policeman 
 in the background. We may be permitted to doubt 
 whether it will prove less irksome or equally 
 effective.
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 THE RELATION OF LEGAL RELIEF TO 
 PRIVATE CHARITY 
 
 THE controversy as to the respective functions and merits 
 of public and private relief is no new one; in order to 
 understand it rightly it is necessary to know something 
 of the history of the question, both past and present, and 
 this it will be my endeavour to sketch briefly to-day. 
 The subject has been discussed more than once before at 
 these Conferences. It was my privilege to be present 
 upon one such occasion six years ago, and I was then 
 impressed on the one hand by the enlightened views of 
 many of the speakers, on the other by the fact that there 
 were still a considerable number of Poor Law administrators 
 who failed to recognise the underlying distinction 
 between public and private relief, and were content to 
 deal with the question by rule of thumb. Since then 
 much water has flowed under the bridges. There has 
 been a considerable swing in the pendulum of public 
 opinion, and several important changes in legislation 
 affecting the poor. Many new Guardians have been 
 elected who desire to get at the truth in these matters, 
 and it is for every reason very desirable that the subject 
 should be again discussed from every aspect. 
 
 Though there is at present a tendency to regard the 
 teaching of experience as the enemy of progress, I cannot 
 think that such views will commend themselves to this 
 Conference. On the contrary, all real progress must 
 obviously be based upon experience and upon that 
 
 198
 
 194 APPENDIX I 
 
 wisdom which, like freedom, " broadens down from 
 precedent to precedent." And there is probably no other 
 question which has so much experience behind it, or 
 which has had so much attention bestowed upon it through 
 the ages as this question of the relief of poverty at all 
 times and in all countries. 
 
 It is of some interest, in view of the ferment of 
 opinion that is going on with regard to the subject in the 
 Christian Churches of the present day, to notice that the 
 principle of voluntary almsgiving was strongly embraced 
 in the early Christian Church. On the other hand, in 
 the Jewish Church the principle of compulsory tithe was 
 adopted. St Irenaeus, in comparing the two systems, 
 speaks of the one as " the charity of freemen, the other 
 the charity of slaves." In England the Church accepted 
 the responsibility for the relief of the poor upon a voluntary 
 basis up to the end of the fifteenth century, though it is 
 plain that after the Reformation, and as the Church 
 gradually lost its hold upon the laity, the financial difficulty 
 increased. By an Act of Edward VI. collectors were 
 appointed in every parish, whose duty it was " gently to 
 ask and demand of every man and woman what they of 
 their charity would be contented to give weekly for the 
 relief of the poor " ; and in the event of " froward refusal " 
 the bishops and clergy were "gently to exhort and 
 persuade " such recusants, and, in the last resort, to apply 
 such disciplinary methods as were possible. The final 
 step from moral suasion to legislative coercion was taken 
 in the Elizabethan Poor Laws, which were codified in the 
 great Act of 1601, and the principle of a compulsory levy, 
 to be enforced by distraint and imprisonment, was for the 
 first time adopted. Under that Act the State assumes 
 the whole responsibility for "the relief of the impotent, 
 and the setting to work of those able to work," and 
 voluntary charity obtains no recognition. Undoubtedly 
 the Act appears to cover the whole ground, and it is 
 probable that its authors believed that they had settled 
 the problem of poverty once and for all. It remained
 
 LEGAL RELIEF AND PRIVATE CHARITY 195 
 
 practically unchanged for 230 years, up to the passing of 
 the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. 
 
 Within a few years of its enactment a flood of 
 pamphlets and publications upon the question of poor 
 relief began and continued through the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries. Sir F. Eden gives a list of some 
 300 of these, making all sorts of proposals for the improve- 
 ment of the methods of dealing with the poor, and putting 
 forward a host of schemes many of them almost identical 
 with some of those proposed to-day. Upon three points 
 they are unanimous, viz., as to the increasing misery of 
 the poor, the increasing burden of taxation, and the 
 failure of the existing law. They differ, indeed, as to the 
 causes of the evil, some ascribing it to the law itself, others 
 to the administration of the law. They are marked 
 throughout by a strong vein of humanity, and amongst 
 their writers may be found the names of the best men of 
 the day, whose names are familiar even now to all of us, 
 such as Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Henry 
 Fielding, John Locke, author of the " Essay on the 
 Human Understanding," and these names are sufficient 
 indication that the best brains of two centuries applied 
 themselves to the subject. It is impossible to do more 
 than glance at a few of these pamphlets. In 1622 we 
 have one entitled " Grievous Grones of the poor by a well 
 wisher who wisheth that the poore of England might be 
 so provided for that none need go a begging": in 1646 
 " Stanleyes Remedy wherein is shown that Sodomes sin 
 of idleness is the poverty and misery of this Kingdom " : 
 in 1673 a pamphlet entitled " The grand concern of the 
 nation explained," and which estimates the poor rate at 
 ^"840,000. " This (it says) is employed only to maintain 
 idle persons ; doth great harm rather than good ; makes 
 a world of poor more than there would otherwise have 
 been . . . men and women growing so proud and idle 
 that they will not work, but lie upon the parish where 
 they dwell for maintenance." Sir Matthew Hale says 
 pithily of the Act of Elizabeth : " The plaister is not so 
 
 2 D
 
 196 APPENDIX I 
 
 large as the sore." Dr Davenant in his political essays 
 contends that " the Poor Laws seem only to encourage 
 vice and sloth in the nation." John Locke sums up in 
 1697 the opinion of the time as follows : " The multiplying 
 of the poor and the increase of the poor rate has proceeded 
 neither from scarcity of provisions nor from want of 
 employment since God has blessed these times with 
 plenty ... it can be nothing else but the relaxation of 
 discipline and the corruption of manners." A hundred 
 years later Lord Kames, the well-known Scottish judge, 
 says : "If it should be reported of a foreign nation that 
 the burden of maintaining the idle and profligate is laid 
 upon the frugal and industrious, what should we say of 
 such a nation ? yet this is literally true in England." 
 Finally we have the monumental work of " Eden on the 
 Poor," which is the standard authority for the earlier 
 history of the Poor Law. 
 
 Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
 the utmost dissatisfaction prevailed, but it was not till 
 1782 that the crisis came when, by Gilbert's Act, outdoor 
 relief was made obligatory for all except the sick and 
 impotent. From that time forward the onrush of pauper- 
 ism became fast and furious. The rates, which in 1785 
 were under 2,000,000, by 1817 were nearly 8,000,000. 
 In many country villages practically the whole population 
 was on the rates. In my own, for instance, where there 
 were last year just nine indoor and nine outdoor paupers 
 for the whole year, costing about 200, the old poor books 
 show that in the year 1831 there were 127 separate grants 
 of relief /or a single month, and that for the whole year 
 the expenditure was nearly 1000. Similar conditions 
 prevailed all over the country. Of the deplorable condition 
 of the poor there can be no doubt. It is testified to, 
 flassim, by contemporary writers such as Arthur Young, 
 William Cobbett, and Harriet Martineau. It remained 
 for another generation to find the remedy. 
 
 And so we see that the Elizabethan Poor Law, which 
 had set out with such a comprehensive programme for
 
 LEGAL RELIEF AND PRIVATE CHARITY 197 
 
 " the relief of the impotent and the setting of the able- 
 bodied to work " a programme covering the whole field 
 of the relief of poverty had broken down. And that 
 not because there had been parsimony of expenditure 
 the increase of the rates precludes such a suggestion 
 but because its authors had left out of consideration the 
 elementary law that human nature, like everything in the 
 physical world, follows the line of least resistance, and 
 that so long as the State offers, or appears to offer, the 
 means of subsistence upon easy terms, a large majority of 
 the poorer population will shape their lives accordingly. 
 
 In 1834 came the celebrated Report of the Com- 
 missioners, a document doubtless familiar to every 
 Guardian here. They, like earlier writers, ascribe the 
 evil directly to demoralisation caused by the Poor Law, 
 and they lay down two fundamental principles as essential 
 to the administration of public relief the first, that it 
 should be limited to the relief of destitution, such 
 destitution to be tested by the willingness to accept 
 institutional relief; the second, that the position of the 
 pauper should be "less eligible" than that of the poor 
 workman who supports himself, and has to contribute to 
 the rates and taxes. Outside these limits the relief of 
 the poor was to be left to voluntary charity. After the 
 agitation against the new Poor Law, a long-continued 
 and violent one, had subsided, for the next forty years 
 there was a period of quietude. Outdoor relief to the 
 able-bodied had been abolished, subject to certain limita- 
 tions, and in forty years the workhouses were practically 
 clear of able-bodied men. In the sixties there was fresh 
 reaction against strict administration, and a huge increase 
 of outdoor relief: certain Boards of Guardians in East 
 London and elsewhere were besieged by threatening 
 crowds of applicants, and sat under police protection. 
 There was an enormous increase both in pauperism and 
 expenditure. Once more the public became alarmed, and 
 the Poor Law Board issued the well-known Memorandum 
 of 1869, by which the respective functions of public and
 
 198 APPENDIX I 
 
 private relief were officially defined, and the necessity of 
 bringing about a co-operation between the two agencies 
 was for the first time officially enunciated. " The question 
 arises," it says, "how far it is possible to mark out the 
 separate limits of Poor Law and charity. One of the 
 most recognised principles in our Poor Law is that relief 
 should only be given to the actually destitute, and not in 
 aid of wages, and this lies at the root of our present 
 system of relief. .... Nothing could be more mischievous 
 both to the working classes and the ratepayers than to 
 supplement insufficiency of wages by the grant of public 
 money." Such a policy is fatal, for the further reason that 
 it "allows a belief in a legal claim to public money, in 
 every emergency, to supplant in a further portion of the 
 population the recognition of the necessity for self-reliance 
 and thrift." This latter class can best be dealt with by 
 charitable people, " whose alms could in no case be 
 claimed as a right." It deprecates, accordingly, the 
 supplementation of Poor Law relief by charity, and 
 recommends that charity should confine itself to such 
 cases, and such forms of relief, as cannot properly be 
 given by the Poor Law, each agency assuming the whole 
 responsibility for its own department of the work. As 
 a practical suggestion, it advocates co-operation between 
 Guardians and charitable agencies with a view to the 
 co-ordination of relief work together with the registration 
 of relief in every district, the interchange of lists of those 
 helped, and other means of attaining the objects aimed at. 
 The Circular remains the standing authoritative and 
 official declaration upon the subject before us. I hope 
 that the slight sketch of the circumstances preceding it 
 may be sufficient to indicate the reasons for its issue and 
 the principles upon which it is based. This Circular 
 induced a few Boards of Guardians, the names of which 
 are already familiar to these Conferences, to remodel 
 their methods upon the lines suggested at the time, and 
 a few more have since approximated to it, but the vast 
 majority remained unaffected. Where its recommendations
 
 LEGAL RELIEF AND PRIVATE CHARITY 199 
 
 were adopted a great decrease of pauperism was the 
 immediate result, and where they have been adhered to 
 pauperism has been kept at a low level. But in several 
 cases there has been a reaction. 
 
 Apart from that, it cannot be said that the Circular 
 has had much recognition, even from later Presidents of 
 the Local Government Board, and all the tendency, both 
 legislative and administrative, has been to extend widely 
 the responsibilities of the State in regard to poor relief. 
 Whilst in the last twenty years the Poor Law expenditure 
 has about doubled itself, much of the relief of the poor 
 has been taken outside the Poor Law altogether. Mr 
 Chamberlain's Circular of 1886, by which vestries and 
 borough councils were instructed to find work for the 
 unemployed, was the thin end of the wedge which has 
 opened the way to the Unemployed Workmen Act, and 
 to much that is to come. The State has once more 
 accepted the responsibility for " setting the poor to work," 
 which it took upon itself by the Elizabethan Poor Law, 
 and from which it shook itself free in 1834. The Pro- 
 vision of Meals Act and the Government Old Age 
 Pensions Bill, which is probably in print by this time, 
 are further departures from the principles laid down by 
 the Circular of 1869. 
 
 And now, perhaps, I may be allowed to call your 
 attention to certain principles underlying the whole 
 question, the first of which is the effect that relief has 
 upon character, and the special dangers of State relief. 
 Indiscriminate charity is, of course, an unmixed evil, but 
 it differs from State relief in that it can never be looked 
 upon as a right, that it has definite limits, and that it 
 cannot be used to anything like the same extent as 
 a means of political bribery : if it is so, the person who 
 makes use of it has at least to bear the cost himself, and 
 that alone sets a limit to its extension. But the crucial 
 danger of State relief is that it comes to be looked upon 
 as a right, and as a means of evading the troubles and 
 responsibilities of life, and that it tends to remove life's
 
 200 APPENDIX I 
 
 discipline, by which alone character is made. We had 
 two hundred and thirty years of the old Poor Law, 
 under which State relief was carried to its utmost limits, 
 and at the end of it the ruin of the poor and of the 
 country was nearly complete. The problem of pauperism 
 is, I think, very little understood, and its magnitude 
 insufficiently recognised. It is not a question of people 
 being "deserving or undeserving." Many a pauper is 
 neither vicious nor criminal, whilst many who are both 
 vicious and criminal are not paupers. The question is 
 one which lies deep in human nature. There are pauper 
 rich as well as pauper poor. Pauperism means the 
 deadening of effort, ambition, self-respect, and self-reliance, 
 following on the relaxation of the law of self-preservation. 
 As an old writer says, " Men have nothing to stir them to 
 labour but their wants, which it is wisdom to relieve but 
 folly to cure." The question is an economic one, the 
 corollary of the weakness of average human nature, from 
 which the poor are no more exempt than the rich. It is 
 because it is the uniform experience both in this and other 
 countries that State relief saps the foundations of human 
 effort that many of us regard its extension, in spite of 
 all past history, with the utmost apprehension. 
 
 The next great principle is that State relief is certain 
 eventually to diminish and even to dry up the springs of 
 private charity, and that we must make our election 
 between them. It is sufficiently obvious that people will 
 not do that of their own accord for which they are already 
 taxed. The Unemployed Workmen Act was based 
 upon the voluntary principle ; already voluntary subscrip- 
 tions, in London at least, have dwindled and almost 
 disappeared, and it is plain that if the Act is to be 
 continued the cost must fall entirely on the rates and the 
 Imperial Exchequer. The same will probably take place 
 with regard to the Provision of Meals Act. The burden 
 of the rates is often made the reason for refusal to 
 subscribe to a charity. In France, at the time of the 
 French Revolution and later, charity was proscribed by
 
 LEGAL RELIEF AND PRIVATE CHARITY 201 
 
 law and a project " for the organisation of national relief 
 based upon the rights of man" substituted for it, and 
 private charity practically ceased to exist. Nor did it 
 raise its head again until the "project" broke down owing 
 to national bankruptcy, when it was once more obliged to 
 come to the rescue. But the effect of State relief upon 
 the charity of the public is as dust in the balance 
 compared with that which it has in displacing another 
 kind of charity, which is far more widely diffused and 
 all-pervading. I refer to that natural and unseen charity 
 which is the cement of society, which has no place in 
 advertisement or subscription lists, and which has been 
 well compared to " hidden springs, the existence of which 
 is only divined by the greenness of the turf overhead." 
 Such charity consists in the performance of natural 
 obligations, in the mutual sympathy and kindness and 
 sense of duty of relation to relation, neighbour to 
 neighbour, and friend to friend. Charity of this kind is 
 a repairing force, which operates naturally and almost 
 automatically, which blesses him that gives and him that 
 takes, and which is based upon all that is best in human 
 nature. How great a force it is, is little appreciated by 
 modern social reformers. Yet it is not difficult to dislocate 
 and displace it. Under the old Poor Law it had almost 
 disappeared. " Pauperism," say the Commissioners, " is 
 an engine for disconnecting each member of a family from 
 the others, and of reducing all to a state of domesticated 
 animals, fed, lodged, and provided for by the parish, 
 without mutual dependence or mutual interest." And 
 even to-day no Guardian or worker amongst the poor can 
 fail to know how constantly, when the parish pension 
 comes in at the door, the allowance from relative or friend 
 flies out at the window, and how ceaseless is the struggle 
 to throw off natural responsibilities and duties upon the 
 rates. 
 
 We have, then, to make up our minds upon which 
 principle we shall rely for the remedial relief of poverty, 
 subject always to the condition, upon which all are agreed,
 
 202 APPENDIX I 
 
 that the necessaries of life must be provided for everyone 
 who is in need of them, without regard to the causes of 
 that need. In the first place, voluntary charity has this to 
 commend it that it is contributed by those who can best 
 afford it, and that in most cases, at all events, its motive 
 force is sympathy and goodwill. State relief, on the other 
 hand, is enforced by the blunt methods of the broker's 
 man, and is often exacted from people who are poor 
 themselves, and the fact of compulsion robs it of its virtue. 
 We know that the quality of mercy is not strained, and we 
 are told that it drops " like the gentle dew from heaven." 
 The rates, on the other hand, are forced out under strong 
 pressure, and so far from dropping they have an 
 invariable tendency to rise. Then, again, we may ask 
 whether the resuscitated doctrines of the French Revolu- 
 tion, which form the chief stock-in-trade of the more 
 advanced advocates of State relief, will bear examination 
 from an ethical point of view ; whether, quite apart from 
 the question of pauperisation, they are having a whole- 
 some effect upon those whom they propose to benefit ; or 
 whether, in fact, they are exciting in them most of the 
 passions prohibited by the Decalogue and by Christian 
 teaching. William Cobbett ("Rural Rides," p. 201) says: 
 "Poverty at its worst gives no man a right to view his 
 neighbour with an evil eye, much less to do him a 
 mischief." He was one of the first of the social reformers. 
 From his successors we hear no such sentiments. It is 
 time that we should "clear our minds from cant" upon 
 these questions. Many doctrines of the grossest materialism, 
 and which, one is tempted to add, are purely predatory, 
 are now put forward in the name of Christ by people who 
 frankly tell us that they have no belief in the divinity of 
 Christ, and who perhaps in the same breath are heaping 
 curses upon Christian charity. A French writer of many 
 years ago, replying to similar controversialists, says : 
 " Should we, for the rest, take seriously the admiration 
 that the writers on this side profess for Christianity, or 
 accept the quotations that they borrow from it, as
 
 LEGAL RELIEF AND PRIVATE CHARITY 203 
 
 anything but arguments ad hominem ? They do not hide 
 sufficiently what is at the back of their minds on this 
 point ; they seem to say, ' as for us, we have long ago 
 known how we stand in regard to these antiquated 
 traditions ; but do you, who still believe, listen to their 
 witness in favour of our doctrine.' " But there is another 
 party of whose religious convictions there can be no 
 question, who are also taking a prominent part in the 
 discussion of these questions, but whose attitude is some- 
 what ambiguous. I refer to the Christian Socialists, of 
 whom I hope some may be present to-day to take part in 
 the discussion. The early Christian Socialists Maurice, 
 Kingsley, and others were, so far as I know, not State 
 Socialists at all. Their contention, as I understand it, 
 was that it is the duty of Christians to concern themselves 
 with the material welfare of the masses, a contention with 
 which all will agree ; but they give no hint of action by 
 the State. There can be no doubt, however, that a large 
 section of the Christian Socialists of the present day look 
 mainly to the State for the accomplishment of their 
 objects, and especially for this great object of the relief of 
 poverty. I read the other day in the " Times " a pastoral 
 letter addressed by two eminent bishops, one of them the 
 President of the C.S.U., to their clergy upon the subject of 
 Churchmen's duty towards social questions, a pastoral 
 admirable in tone and sentiment, and one with which 
 every one must be in substantial agreement. But towards 
 the end there was a sentence which made me pause to 
 think whether it did not lend a tone to the whole of the 
 document. It was to this effect: The [clergy are invited 
 to exhort their flocks " to pay their rates cheerfully." 
 Now, cheerfulness is unfortunately a thing that we cannot 
 command, and I am doubtful whether the " gentle 
 exhortations " of bishops and clergy would in that respect 
 be more efficacious in 1908 than they were in the reign of 
 Edward VI. I have never yet met anyone who paid his 
 rates cheerfully. But I will go further, and say that if I 
 lived in certain parts of London, and possibly even else- 
 
 2 E
 
 204 APPENDIX I 
 
 where, I should be justified in a gentle grumble against 
 my rates. Quite lately there has appeared a manifesto, 
 signed by one hundred clergy and ministers whom I may 
 perhaps without disrespect call " whole hoggers," who 
 write as Christian Socialists, and assert that Christian 
 Socialism accepts in its entirety the Socialist programme. 
 It remains to be seen whether they represent the main 
 body of Christian Socialism. It is satisfactory that the 
 issues are gradually clearing themselves. 
 
 But, of course, there is much more which might be 
 said as to the distinction between State relief and 
 private charity. Charity means much more than money- 
 giving. It is often more charitable to give no money at 
 all. Charity implies personal endeavour and self-sacrifice, 
 thought and watchfulness, and a thousand conditions 
 which can never be satisfied by monetary payments. 
 Freewill was the basis of the charity of the early Church, 
 the charity of freemen, not the charity of slaves. Under 
 which banner will the Christian Churches of the twentieth 
 century take their stand ? 
 
 Another feature of unrestricted State relief remains to 
 be noticed. First, the demands upon it increase by a 
 sort of arithmetical progression ; the State purse is 
 supposed to be bottomless, and the number of those who 
 wish to dip into it are without limit and then there 
 comes a breakdown. It was so in Rome : it was so again 
 and again in France during the Revolutionary period and 
 after: it was so in England in 1834. It has been so of 
 late in some parts of London and elsewhere. Either the 
 municipal worm is sucked dry and remains an anaemic 
 and unprofitable corpse, or he turns and rends his 
 persecutors. Then comes a cry for transferring the 
 charges to the Imperial Exchequer : believe me, the 
 Imperial Exchequer is no more bottomless than the 
 municipal purse, and even now the position of our 
 national finances is a grave one. All past experience 
 shows that sooner or later the reaction comes, usually just 
 in time to save irretrievable disaster, and that then the
 
 LEGAL RELIEF AND PRIVATE CHARITY 205 
 
 unhappy people who have learnt to lean upon State relief 
 are left to face the world destitute of all reserves and 
 bereft of their only real resources, namely, those that lie 
 in their own industry and prudence. 
 
 We now come to the question whether the alternative 
 policy contained in the Circular of 1869 is a possible one 
 or no ? I am prepared to be told that such a policy is 
 antiquated and obsolete, and I certainly do not expect 
 that those who talk of " the curse of charity " will subscribe 
 to it. But after all they are, I think, still in a small 
 minority and have not the nation with them : neither do I 
 believe that the wisdom of the ages is concentrated in the 
 year 1908, and that everything that has gone before it 
 must be disregarded. The plain facts are these, that in 
 London, where the Poor Law expenditure is some 
 3,000,000, the income of charities available for the 
 Metropolis is about 8,000,000. That does not, of course, 
 include the personal almsgiving of the community, which 
 must be of enormous volume, nor does it include the still 
 more important factor of that natural charity which I 
 have referred to also as the repairing force of society, and 
 which is the outcome of family and neighbourly sympathy 
 and affection. I have no figures for the great provincial 
 cities, but it is a well-known fact that most of them have 
 large charitable endowments, whilst there is no reason to 
 believe that they are behindhand in the other forms of 
 charity. Is it impossible so to reorganise and reform this 
 j huge volume of charitable relief, which is at present largely 
 j indiscriminate and working upon no settled lines or 
 policy, in such a manner as to make it really effective in 
 dealing with distress which, as the Circular says, "can 
 best be dealt with by charitable people " ? Is it impossible 
 to bring about co-operation between charity and the 
 Poor Law upon the lines indicated ? The answer is that 
 it is not impossible, because it has already been done in 
 several places both in town and country, and the experi- 
 ment has stood the test of thirty years. But has it been 
 attended by special hardships to the poor ? all that can be
 
 200 APPENDIX I 
 
 said is that its opponents, who are neither few nor in- 
 capable of expressing themselves, have never been able 
 to prove it, and that the beneficial effects of the new Poor 
 Law, upon which this policy is based, have never been 
 open to question. And from which districts do we hear 
 the loudest cries of distress and destitution ? It is 
 precisely from those districts where its recommendations 
 have been uniformly set at naught and defied. The 
 present time is an opportune one for considering the 
 whole question de novo, because lately a number of " guilds 
 of help " and the like have sprung up all over England. 
 If these guilds of help can succeed in drawing together 
 the charitable forces of their district and making them 
 really effective, and if they will work with the Guardians 
 as recommended by the Circular, the battle will be more 
 than half won. A word of caution is perhaps necessary : 
 the relief of distress is coming more and more to be 
 recognised as a scientific problem which can only be 
 solved by the combination of study with practical work ; 
 and if these guilds of help are to make any real progress, 
 if they are not to be for ever rolling a stone uphill, they 
 must qualify themselves for their duties by preliminary 
 training ; otherwise they will only make the position worse 
 than it was before. In country districts the conditions 
 are different from those in towns, and the question of 
 bringing about co-operation between charity and the 
 Poor Law assumes a rather different aspect, yet even 
 there the experience of several Unions shows that it is 
 not impossible. All experience, moreover, shows that a 
 careful administration of the Poor Law gives such a 
 stimulus to the friendly society movement that the 
 problem is reduced within much narrower limits, and, 
 speaking as one born and bred in the country myself, I 
 believe that the hard cases might without difficulty be 
 met by private charity. Even now, and especially in 
 places where the Poor Law is carefully administered, 
 many employers of labour either pension their old 
 employees who have served them faithfully and well,
 
 LEGAL RELIEF AND PRIVATE CHARITY 207 
 
 or provide for them light and nominal work by, as 
 Mr Charles Booth says, " a kindly social usage." On the 
 other hand, when a large amount of outdoor relief is 
 given, they often, as a matter of course, send them off for 
 the usual parish half-a-crown. Though there may be 
 difficulties in some districts, I cannot believe but that in 
 many it would be possible to carry out the principles 
 of the Circular much more generally than is now the 
 case. 
 
 Finally, we have the question of the effect that the 
 enormous increase in the burden of public relief is likely 
 to have upon the working classes themselves. Mr Morley 
 has told us that " the burden of taxation, however 
 disguised, falls at last most heavily upon the shoulders 
 of the industrial classes." We have heard lately of the 
 removal of Messrs Yarrow's works from London owing 
 to the incidence of the rates ; whether that was the real 
 cause or not it is unnecessary to ask, but it is sufficiently 
 obvious that industry will tend to leave districts where it 
 is heavily burdened, and we may ask whether the large 
 amount of unemployment prevailing, especially in those 
 districts where the burden of taxation is heaviest, is not 
 due to some extent to this cause. Then, again, there is 
 the increase in the cost of living, and especially of house- 
 room, which is the direct result of heavy taxation. It has 
 of late been denied that this falls upon the occupier. It 
 may at once be granted that in the long run, when the 
 demand for houses declines, it falls upon the landlord, but 
 it is equally undeniable that the landlord will shift the 
 burden on to the occupier as long as he is able to do 
 so. There have already been many cases in which the 
 increased rates have been added to the rents. Speaking 
 generally, heavy taxation cannot fail to hamper the 
 industry by which the working classes are supported, and 
 to increase the cost of living. 
 
 I will now try to summarise and make clear the points 
 that I wish to bring before the Conference. The first of 
 them is that unrestricted State relief has had a trial of
 
 208 APPENDIX I 
 
 two hundred and thirty years in this country, and that, so 
 far from relieving poverty and improving the condition of 
 the poor, it nearly ruined both the poor and the country. 
 The plaister has never been as large as the sore. I have 
 endeavoured to show that the underlying cause of this is 
 to be found in the fact that the authors of the Elizabethan 
 Poor Law left out of consideration the factor of human 
 nature : in support of my contention, I have cited the 
 authority of some of the wisest thinkers over two 
 centuries. I could have cited many more if time had 
 allowed. Next I have tried to show the gradually growing 
 conviction, which found expression in the new Poor Law, 
 that there must be some restriction or element of 
 deterrence in public relief which comes to be looked 
 upon as a right, as an alternative to a general pauperism. 
 
 In discussing the Circular of 1869, which is, in fact, 
 a restatement of the position adopted by the Com- 
 missioners of 1834, I have endeavoured to show the 
 respective characteristics of State relief enforced by 
 distraint and imprisonment, and of voluntary charity, 
 the burden of which is borne by those best able to afford 
 and which has the virtue of spontaneity. I have urged, 
 also, that State relief is destructive of voluntaryism, and 
 that the latter is of altogether different quality, and more 
 in accordance with the teaching of Christianity. I have 
 also tried to show that the policy advocated by the 
 Circular of 1869 is a possible one. 
 
 Finally, I have contended that State relief is, as 
 Carlyle said, "a broken reed to lean upon, if ever there 
 was one, and one which does but run into the lamed right 
 hand," not only because it lames the right hand, though of 
 that there is abundant proof, but because it breaks down 
 owing to exhaustion of the exchequer, whether local or 
 imperial, and certain reaction ; meanwhile, the burden of 
 increasing taxation falls most heavily upon the working 
 classes themselves, by handicapping the sources of their 
 subsistence. 
 
 These are the points which I wish to place before the
 
 LEGAL RELIEF AND PRIVATE CHARITY 209 
 
 Conference. I hope that they may be fully discussed and 
 categorically answered, and that those who disagree with 
 what I have said will face the issues fairly and squarely. 
 Let me suggest that the whole question remains as it was 
 in 1673 the "Grand Concern of the Nation."
 
 APPENDIX II 
 
 SOME RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 
 OF POOR RELIEF 
 
 A FEW years ago it was possible to ascertain by a 
 glance at the statistics of the Local Government Board 
 the exact position of the country in regard to the public 
 relief of the poor, and to answer with certainty the vital 
 question as to what proportion of the poorer population 
 lives by its labour, and what proportion lives by some sort 
 of State subsidy. There was then practically no form of 
 public relief which was not included in those statistics, and 
 the greatest importance was attached to their accurate 
 keeping in order that the nation might, at any time, take 
 stock of the position by the light of evidence which was 
 both clear and comprehensive. But this is no longer 
 possible. The official statistics of pauperism now cover 
 only a portion of the ground. The movement known as 
 " the break-up of the Poor Law " has set in with increasing 
 rapidity within the last few years, and to-day some four 
 or five different bodies administer public relief where there 
 was one before. These bodies work almost entirely inde- 
 pendently of one another and overlap in many directions. 
 Their finance and accounts are, of course, quite separate, 
 and no attempt is made to bring the relief that they 
 administer into a common account, although in fact they 
 distribute as much relief as the Poor Law itself. We are 
 therefore in the position that we have at present two Poor 
 Laws, the one of which is guided by certain principles 
 based upon past experience, and keeps careful statistics 
 210
 
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF POOR RELIEF 211 
 
 both of its expenditure and of the number of people dealt 
 with, whilst the other is guided by no such principles and 
 its statistics are confused with those of other branches of 
 administration. 
 
 The principal Acts by means of which this " break-up " 
 has been effected are the Unemployed Workmen Act of 
 1905, the Provision of Meals Act of 1906, the Old Age 
 Pensions AcLof 1908, and the (Education) Administrative 
 Provisions Act of 1907. An appreciable amount of relief is 
 also administered by Borough Councils under various Acts 
 dealing with public health. The Home Office has been 
 making excursions in the same direction through its 
 Reformatory and Industrial Schools, and the late Home 
 Secretary even proposed to give to the police the duty of 
 seeing to the clothing of ragged children in London, as is 
 already done in several important provincial towns. One 
 effect of this break-up of the Poor Law has been that the 
 total public expenditure for the relief of the poor has in 
 the last twenty-five years risen from about 8,000,000 to 
 approximately 30,000,000. The last Annual Report of 
 the Local Government Board shows that Poor Law expendi- 
 ture was 15,000,000, whilst about 12,000,000 was spent 
 under the Old Age Pensions Act, and 183, 500 under the 
 Unemployed Workmen Act. To this must be added an, at 
 present, unascertained sum expended under the Provision 
 of Meals Act, whilst a fresh movement, of which it is 
 impossible to foresee the ultimate results, has been started 
 for the provision of medical relief to school children under 
 the (Education) Administrative Provision Act of 1907. No 
 one appears to have the least idea as to what the cost of the 
 Insurance Act is likely to be. 
 
 Meanwhile the whole tone of public opinion upon 
 questions of poor relief appears to have changed. At one 
 time it favoured thrift and self-reliance, and self-support 
 was held to be more creditable than dependence upon 
 public funds. Now all this is altered. Old age pensioners, 
 many at least of whom might have provided for their own 
 old age by reasonable prudence in their earlier years, are 
 
 2 F
 
 212 APPENDIX II 
 
 designated without distinction as the " veterans of labour." 
 Since the removal of the pauper disqualification a good 
 many people who have been in receipt of parochial relief 
 for years have become these veterans of labour, and have 
 obtained, or are qualifying for, an old age pension. The 
 able-bodied unemployed are now promised " honourable " 
 maintenance. We are asked to abolish the last "stigma" 
 of the Poor Law by doing away with the word " pauper." 
 The electoral disqualification has been removed in the case 
 of outdoor medical relief. Schemes of Poor Law reform 
 are in the air, which all tend to make the receipt of relief 
 more honourable and more acceptable. 
 
 The object of this paper is to examine the relations of 
 these various forms of public relief to one another, and to 
 watch their general tendency. We will take them in order 
 under their several heads : 
 
 The Unemployed Workmen Act, 1905. 
 This Act was the direct outcome of Mr Chamberlain's 
 Circular of 1886, by which local bodies were instructed 
 to give work, outside the Poor Law, to the better class 
 of workman " ordinarily in work and temporarily un- 
 employed." The Circular, intended for a special occasion, 
 was issued again and again by his successors at the Local 
 Government Board, and for twenty years vestries and 
 other local bodies were occupied in trying to make work 
 for the unemployed. It is of special importance because 
 it made the first breach in the unity of the Poor Law. 
 The work given was quite inadequate, often only amount- 
 ing to one or two days a week, and it was found to 
 interfere with the work of those ordinarily employed by 
 the local authorities. Meanwhile a generation was 
 brought up to look to the vestries for employment- 
 relief, and crowds gathered, winter after winter, round 
 the offices of the local authorities, demanding it. 
 Ultimately the position became intolerable, and in 1905 
 the Unemployed Workmen Act was passed as an attempt 
 to regularise this relief, and to liberate the local authorities
 
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF POOR RELIEF 213 
 
 from the pressure. It has undoubtedly had this last 
 effect, but it has only transferred the difficulty elsewhere. 
 The Central Unemployed Body has since 1905 issued 
 five reports, and these reports show : 
 
 (1) That the vast majority of those applying have been 
 casual labourers and certainly not those for whom the Act 
 was intended ; 
 
 (2) That the work provided has done nothing to 
 permanently improve the position of those who have 
 received it, and that the same people apply year after 
 year; 
 
 (3) That it has been impossible to provide work for 
 more than a very small proportion of those who apply. 
 
 Though, by the Unemployed Workmen Act, the 
 period for which work is given has been extended from 
 the odd days previously given to a maximum period 
 of sixteen weeks, it is none the less a form of casual 
 employment which the casual labourer comes to look 
 upon as part of his normal means of subsistence. The 
 last Annual Report of the Central Body shows that there 
 were 51-3 per cent of recurrent applications. The same 
 people are also being assisted at other times, in a large 
 proportion of cases, by the Poor Law, or their children 
 are being fed by the Education Authority. In a return 
 for a single district which was presented to the Royal 
 Commission on the Poor Law it was shown that of 437 
 cases assisted by the Distress Committee, 234 were already 
 known to the Guardians, and 81 again resorted to the 
 Poor Law. These figures may be taken as fairly typical 
 of the conditions prevailing elsewhere. It was pointed out 
 when the Unemployed Workmen Act was under considera- 
 tion that its effect would probably be to increase and per- 
 petuate the evils of casual labour. In fact, it has established 
 23 schools of casual labour in London and nearly 150 in 
 the whole country. When the Act was passed the hope 
 was held out that the work given would be provided by 
 voluntary subscription. Mr Long, addressing a meeting 
 at the Local Government Board shortly before the Act
 
 214 APPENDIX II 
 
 was passed, expressly stated that under no circumstances 
 could a Government grant be made for the purpose. But 
 very soon, as is always the case under similar conditions, 
 voluntaryism was driven from the field, and a year or two 
 later Mr Burns had to promise a grant of 200,000. 
 Again, the Act, like Mr Chamberlain's Circular, was 
 intended for times of exceptional distress. It has now 
 become the normal procedure of the winter months. 
 
 The Provision of Meals Act, 1906. 
 
 Here again the hope was held out that the meals 
 would be provided by voluntary subscription, and much 
 opposition was disarmed thereby ; but permissive power 
 was given to charge them upon the rates. For two years 
 the L. C. C, which had a small and precarious " Municipal 
 Reform " majority, relied upon voluntary associations such 
 as the " London School Dinners Association," but in 
 December, 1908, Socialist pressure became too strong, 
 and the cost was thrown upon the rates. Since then the 
 average number of children fed weekly has gone up from 
 29,000 to 42,000 and the number of meals provided from 
 74,000 to 203,000. * There is now a strong agitation to 
 feed the children during the school holidays. But, further, 
 the hope was held out that it would be possible to recover 
 a large part of the cost from neglectful parents. The 
 expenditure last year was 88,000, and the amount 
 recovered was 510. This is of special interest, because 
 now there are large schemes of Poor Law reform in the 
 air which are based upon the principle of "charge and 
 recovery." We may form some opinion from these figures 
 as to what the prospects would be if they were carried 
 into effect. 
 
 (Education) Administrative Provisions Act, 1907. 
 
 This Act provided, for the first time, for the medical 
 inspection of all children in public elementary schools. 
 1 Ann. Report of L. C. C., 1910, vol. iv., p. 38.
 
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF POOR RELIEF 215 
 
 i 
 
 Previously only abnormal children had been so inspected. 
 An immediate result was the increase of the medical staff 
 of the Education Committee from twenty-seven full or 
 part time doctors, and thirty-two school nurses, to one 
 hundred and thirteen doctors and eighty-nine nurses. But 
 the Act gives the power "to make arrangements for 
 attending to the health and physical condition of the 
 children," and inspection inevitably led at once to the 
 provision of treatment for children found to be physically 
 ailing. The precedents of the Unemployed Workmen 
 Act and of the Provision of Meals Act have been closely 
 followed, in that the L. C. C. are attempting in the first 
 instance to provide treatment through voluntary charity, 
 and have entered into arrangements with the great 
 hospitals upon the basis of a contribution by the public 
 body in respect of the children treated. But there is 
 already strong pressure for the establishment of rate- 
 supported school clinics, and it remains to be seen how 
 long this pressure can be resisted. Praiseworthy attempts 
 are being made to throw the responsibility for this treat- 
 ment upon the parents and to recover part of the cost, 
 but the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that the 
 children receive treatment rests with the public authority, 
 whether the parents pay or whether they do not. The 
 School Care Committees bear the chief burden of the 
 work "the responsibility for securing that appropriate 
 action is taken in every case devolves upon them." l They 
 have to classify the cases according to their nature, and 
 to assess the parents' payments under the Act of 1909. 
 " Considerable difficulties have arisen in connection with 
 this part of the work, and steps are being taken to 
 introduce a method of assessment less complicated than 
 that originally introduced." 2 This method, which has 
 now been decided on, provides for a maximum payment 
 of is. and a minimum of id. In 1910, though the scheme 
 had hardly yet begun, the cost of this medical inspection 
 and treatment amounted to 26,880, whilst the amount 
 
 1 Ann. Report of L. C. C., 1910, vol. iv., p. 43. 2 Ibid., p. 43.
 
 216 APPENDIX II 
 
 recovered was 329. There are many who prophesy that 
 the minimum charge of id. will soon become the 
 maximum. It is significant, moreover, that already 
 "arrangements are being made for remitting the charge 
 in necessitous cases," 1 whilst in another place we find 
 that no hard-and-fast rule for determining necessity has 
 been adopted by the Council." 2 The Council are thus 
 already face to face with the old difficulty of a test. But 
 as yet they hardly appear conscious that there is such 
 a difficulty, either in regard to the means of the parents 
 or to the actual needs of the child. " There is (they say) 
 no absolute standard of what is, and what is not, healthy 
 nutrition. Necessitous children are not necessarily ill- 
 nourished, at the time of application for aid, though they 
 would become so if relief were withheld" z The italics 
 are ours. 
 
 The difficulty of collecting the small sums required 
 under the assessment is enormous. A story is told of a 
 collector who climbed twelve times to the top floor of 
 some model dwellings to collect one penny, and sooner 
 than attempt it a thirteenth time, paid it himself. It 
 appears from all this that we are within sight of free 
 medical treatment in all cases where the parents are 
 unable or unwilling to pay. 
 
 It is estimated that some 30,000 children were satis- 
 factorily treated under the above arrangements in 1910. 
 The parents are not altogether satisfied, as they consider 
 in some cases that they are deprived of the free treatment 
 at hospitals to which they have been accustomed, and 
 they resent the X-ray treatment for ringworm, and the 
 provision of spectacles which they believe prejudice their 
 children's chances of getting work. A large extension 
 of the system is foreshadowed in regard to dental treat- 
 ment. " It is evident that the needs of London will have 
 to be met by special provision for the work."* In regard 
 to medical treatment generally there appears to be no 
 
 1 Ann. Report of L. C. C., 1910, vol. iv., p. 48. 3 Ibid., p. 35. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 35. * Ibid., p. 48.
 
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF POOR RELIEF 217 
 
 system of co-operation with the Poor Law, and yet in 
 1911 no less than 111,000 outdoor medical orders were 
 issued in London, many of which were undoubtedly for 
 children of school age. Is it not time that the matter 
 should be considered from this point of view ? 
 
 The Education Officer commences his report thus : 
 " Formerly (he says) education was in the main confined 
 to (i) the growth of character ; (2) the growth of the mind. 
 Now education looks increasingly at the social problems 
 that present themselves for solution in the case of the 
 individual child, the problem of physical deterioration, of 
 under-feeding, of impoverished homes and unsuitable 
 employment The State has come to see that it is not 
 enough to impart knowledge, but that it must also see that 
 the child is capable of assimilating that knowledge and 
 that his environment is such that it will not entirely undo 
 the effect of the school training." This is a startling 
 definition of the scope of education as coming from a 
 body such as the L. C. C. ; the new development is referred 
 to euphemistically as the " widening " of education ; in 
 fact, it may easily be made to cover the entire State 
 maintenance of children. 
 
 The Old Age Pensions Act, 1908, and its Effect upon 
 the Poor Law. 
 
 The Old Age Pensions Act came into force on 1st 
 January 1909, and the pauper disqualification was removed 
 on 1st January 1911. The Local Government Board have 
 published a return (Cd. 5612) showing the number of 
 paupers transferred to the pension list in the month of 
 January, 1911. The transfer was practically complete 
 by the end of the third week. The table on the next 
 page shows the number of indoor and outdoor paupers 
 remaining in each London Union on 2ist January 1911, 
 and the number of these who were transferred to the 
 pension list during the month. This will enable us to 
 form some opinion as to the situation at that time.
 
 218 
 
 APPENDIX II 
 
 STATEMENT of the Number of Persons in Receipt of Relief on 
 Saturday, 2 ist January 1911, and the Number of Paupers 
 transferred to the Pension List during January. 
 
 Union or Parish. 
 
 Popula- 
 tion. 
 
 Paupers 
 not Transferred. 
 
 Paupers 
 Transferred. 
 
 Census, 
 1911. 
 
 Indoar. 
 
 Outdoor. 
 
 Indoor. 
 
 Outdoor. 
 
 West District 
 Paddington . 
 Kensington . 
 Hammersmith 
 Fulham .... 
 Chelsea . 
 St George's . 
 Westminster . 
 
 Total for West District . 
 
 North. District- 
 Si Marylebone 
 Hampstead . 
 St Pancras 
 Islington 
 Hackney 
 
 Total for North District 
 
 Central District 
 St Giles and St George . 
 Strand .... 
 Holborn 
 City of London 
 
 Total for Central District 
 
 East District 
 Shoreditch 
 Bethnal Green 
 Whitechapel . 
 St George-in-the-East . 
 Stepney 
 Mile End Old Town 
 Poplar Borough 
 
 Total for East District . 
 
 South District 
 Southwark 
 Bermondsey . 
 Lambeth 
 Wandsworth . 
 Camberwell . 
 Greenwich 
 Lewisham 
 Woolwich 
 
 Total for South District 
 Total for London . 
 
 143,976 
 176,628 
 112,239 
 137,289 
 73,842 
 128,256 
 33,o8l 
 
 1,995 
 2,631 
 i,348 
 1,677 
 1,630 
 2,705 
 693 
 
 378 
 173 
 848 
 316 
 136 
 488 
 88 
 
 15 
 48 
 10 
 
 41 
 13 
 
 35 
 5 
 
 131 
 114 
 
 236 
 109 
 
 134 
 208 
 21 
 
 805,311 
 
 12,379 
 
 2,427 
 
 167 
 
 953 
 
 133,301 
 81,942 
 235.317 
 334,991 
 270,519 
 
 3,446 
 57o 
 4,387 
 5,i" 
 3,687 
 
 316 
 128 
 1,336 
 4,913 
 1,994 
 
 36 
 6 
 
 53 
 92 
 
 39 
 
 157 
 54 
 408 
 1,286 
 587 
 
 1,056,070 
 
 17,201 
 
 8,587 
 
 226 
 
 2,292 
 
 31,436 
 21,674 
 128,691 
 27,664 
 
 965 
 i,293 
 3,8oo 
 836 
 
 in 
 96 
 
 1,222 
 130 
 
 ii 
 H 
 40 
 4 
 
 45 
 38 
 463 
 
 55 
 
 209,465 
 
 6,894 
 
 1,559 
 
 69 
 
 601 
 
 118,637 
 129,680 
 78,768 
 49,068 
 
 57,937 
 112,827 
 168,822 
 
 2,717 
 2,682 
 1,722 
 1,231 
 i,833 
 1,792 
 4,169 
 
 680 
 
 198 
 
 22 
 18 
 146 
 
 794 
 3,633 
 
 27 
 
 59 
 13 
 13 
 29 
 30 
 33 
 
 237 
 149 
 i 
 o 
 84 
 309 
 984 
 
 715,739 
 
 16,146 
 
 5,491 
 
 205 
 
 1,764 
 
 206,180 
 130,760 
 301,895 
 400,941 
 
 259,339 
 189,034 
 134,721 
 131,086 
 
 5,281 
 3,189 
 4,330 
 4,778 
 4,093 
 3,132 
 
 1,434 
 1,665 
 
 2,030 
 2,048 
 1,888 
 1,312 
 3,672 
 1,468 
 1,325 
 1,018 
 
 52 
 
 21 
 
 77 
 58 
 
 21 
 
 47 
 ii 
 
 12 
 
 499 
 632 
 
 787 
 616 
 1,036 
 556 
 322 
 197 
 
 1,749,956 
 
 27,902 
 
 14,671 
 
 309 
 
 4,655 
 
 4,536,541 
 
 80,822 
 
 32,825 
 
 1,168 
 
 10,265 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF POOR RELIEF 219 
 
 The table shows that 1168 indoor and 10,265 outdoor 
 paupers were so transferred, whilst there still remained 
 80,822 indoor paupers and 32,825 outdoor; that is to 
 say, practically the whole of the indoor paupers and 
 two-thirds of the outdoor. Still the official figures of 
 outdoor pauperism naturally showed at once a large 
 decrease, though this decrease loses its significance because 
 we know that these 11,000 paupers have only been trans- 
 ferred to another form of relief. But a fresh tendency 
 at once revealed itself. It is pointed out in the half- 
 yearly return of pauperism for 1st January 1911, that 
 already there were 3554 more people under 70 in receipt 
 of relief than on 1st January 1910, and this tendency 
 continues. A recent return for the Lambeth Union 
 shows that at the date of the return there were about 
 200 more outdoor poor under 70 than at the corresponding 
 period of the previous year, and this was ascribed primarily 
 to the operation of the Old Age Pensions Act. Nor is 
 it difficult to understand the reason : Guardians who are 
 prone to give out-relief, finding that the people over 
 seventy have been taken off the rates, are by no means 
 loth to fill their places with younger people. Moreover, 
 there is always now the almost irresistible plea that people 
 should be kept out of the workhouse for a year or two 
 until the old age pension becomes due. 
 
 Truly in all this we see the irony of fate. We were 
 told that old age pensions would empty our workhouses 
 and save an enormous expenditure upon Poor Law relief. 
 Mr Charles Booth assured us that it would be possible 
 to do away with out-relief altogether. We were told, 
 moreover, that the grant of a pension at seventy would 
 be a strong incentive to self-maintenance until that age 
 was reached ; and now we find our workhouses nearly 
 as full as ever, whilst the places of those transferred from 
 outdoor relief to the pension list are being filled by those 
 under seventy. So far from the pension being an induce- 
 ment to self-maintenance in earlier years, the fact that a 
 pension is due shortly is made a reason for asking for 
 
 2 G
 
 220 APPENDIX II 
 
 out-relief in the interim. And so relief is made to breed 
 relief. But a further irony of fate remains to be recorded. 
 When the Old Age Pensions Act was passed the greatest 
 stress was laid upon the condition that old age pensioners 
 or the " veterans of labour " should be entirely dissociated 
 from all contact with the Poor Law. So much was this 
 the case that the officers of excise were called upon to 
 undertake the administration, and the very name of the 
 relieving officer was anathema. But, in fact, a very large 
 proportion of the pensioners continue to receive Poor Law 
 relief, in many cases simultaneously with the receipt of 
 their old age pension. In at least one London Union 
 careful statistics have been kept since the Old Age Pensions 
 Act came into operation, with the following result : " 240 
 pensioners have received relief from the Guardians, and 
 of this number 136 came into the workhouse or infirmary, 
 twenty-nine received both indoor and outdoor medical 
 relief, and seventy-five outdoor medical relief only. 
 Many of these cases were relieved for unbroken periods, 
 varying from six to twelve months. Several have been 
 continuously receiving relief since taking their pension. 
 In all these cases, except in six, when the pensioners 
 came into the workhouse, they continued to receive their 
 pension. One pensioner who had been admitted to the 
 infirmary on five occasions stated that one reason for 
 wishing to be admitted was in order to save money against 
 his discharge. Some pensioners allowed their pensions to 
 accumulate, whilst others allowed a relative or friend to 
 draw the pension. Notwithstanding the Chancellor's 
 statement that Guardians could get an officer nominated 
 to receive the pension, every obstacle has been placed 
 in their way by the Pension Authority, who apparently 
 look upon the Guardians as a hostile authority. This 
 lack of co-operation is most unfortunate. In one case 
 a pensioner was admitted to the infirmary suffering from 
 senile debility and in a verminous condition. The 
 Relieving Officer found that he had been living with 
 a woman much younger than himself, who retained
 
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF POOR RELIEF 221 
 
 the pension book for her use. He reported the case 
 to the Pension Officer, who said that it was ' no business 
 of his."' It is clear from reports received from all over 
 the country that the conditions prevailing in this Union 
 are by no means exceptional. l 
 
 A return of the L.C.C. for the first quarter of 1911 
 showed that there were 60,500 pensioners in London at 
 that date. This represents at a moderate estimate an 
 addition of half a million to the cost of outdoor relief in 
 the metropolis. The total out-relief for all classes in 1910 
 was only 307,231. 
 
 Certain other Forms of Relief outside the Poor Law. 
 
 But there still remains an appreciable amount of 
 public relief administered by bodies other than Boards 
 of Guardians. For example, many Borough Councils 
 provide sanatorium relief. Some outside London have 
 their own sanatoria. The L.C.C., in addition to the out- 
 door relief and medical treatment of school-children, 
 maintain a large number of defective children in residential 
 homes, where they are provided with board and lodging, 
 of the cost of which the parents bear a very small 
 proportion. Again, they spend a large sum last year 
 ,128,000 in scholarships, or maintenance allowance for 
 the children of poor parents, which cannot be ignored 
 when we are considering the question of public expenditure 
 upon relief. Neither can we leave out of consideration 
 the Insurance Act, which came into operation in July, and 
 which to the extent of " ninepence for fourpence " is 
 admittedly eleemosynary. It is clear that this measure, 
 whatever its advantages, must result in a large subsidy to 
 the wages of the working classes. 
 
 1 NOTE. Cf. a recent report by the Committee of the Central Poor 
 Law Conference and a report by Mr Rutherglen, Superintendent Reliev- 
 ing Officer to the Wandsworth Board of Guardians, October 1912.
 
 222 APPENDIX II 
 
 Summary of the Position in regard to London. 
 
 On ist January 1912 the total number of paupers in 
 London, excluding lunatics and casuals, was 109,481. But 
 to this 109,481 we must now add (say) 60,000 old age 
 pensioners, an indefinite number of able-bodied men 
 receiving relief on that day under the Unemployed 
 Workmen Act, a weekly average of 40,000 children 
 receiving meals under the Provision of Meals Act, an 
 indefinite number of children receiving medical relief 
 under the (Education) Administrative Provisions Act, and 
 an indefinite number of people receiving public relief 
 outside the Poor Law in other ways above indicated. 
 These figures have now to be collected from some 
 half-a-dozen different reports. 
 
 We have seen that as the result of the removal of 
 the pauper disqualification there was a large transfer of 
 outdoor paupers to the pension lists and corresponding 
 reduction of pauperism ; but that the present tendency 
 is to fill the places of those transferred to the pension 
 list with outdoor paupers under seventy. This tendency 
 became especially marked in the third week of the Lady 
 Day quarter of this year. If it continues we shall before 
 long have as many outdoor paupers as before the dis- 
 qualification was removed, and the old age pensioners and 
 others into the bargain. It has been shown also that 
 many pensioners are receiving Poor Law relief as well. 
 In one Union it is reported that pensioners have 
 discovered that they can supplement their pensions, which 
 are notoriously inadequate, by continuous outdoor medical 
 relief and nourishment, and that they do so systematically. 
 Many others enter Poor Law infirmaries and receive their 
 pensions as well, so that ratepayers and taxpayers pay 
 for them twice over. Again, last year nearly 5000 able- 
 bodied men received jobs of work from the Central 
 Unemployed Body. But we have to consider the effect of 
 the Act not only upon those who receive work, but also 
 upon those who are encouraged to apply to the Distress
 
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF POOR RELIEF 223 
 
 Committees, and we find that there were 25,268 applica- 
 tions, of which 5 1 per cent, were recurrent, that is to say, 
 that the applicants had applied in former years. Only 
 about one in five get work, and that of a casual nature. 
 It is plain that many of them gravitate between Distress 
 Committees and the Poor Law and various charities, 
 whilst their children are fed at the schools. The general 
 public is probably unaware of the wretched and precarious 
 existence that is led by these unhappy victims of State 
 bounty. Jobs of work, school dinners and the like, are in 
 reality subsidies to the casual labourer, who is able to 
 produce children much faster than the State can maintain 
 them. 
 
 And so we have in London at the present time a 
 lamentable confusion of relief. So far from one form of 
 relief being the substitute for another, relief leads to more 
 relief, and there is constant and continuous increase. 
 There is little or no co-operation between the administering 
 bodies, and no reasoned plan for dealing with the problem 
 of poverty. Everything is piecemeal and chaotic. And 
 as the result we have an ever-growing proletariat popu- 
 lation, chiefly composed of casual labourers, who are 
 maintained in turn (and sometimes simultaneously) by 
 Poor Law Guardians, Distress Committees, Education and 
 Health Authorities, and other public bodies. By the 
 admission of everybody casual labour is one of the most 
 crying evils of the day, and we meet it by establishing 
 centres of casual labour all over the country. What is 
 worst of all, perhaps, is that we are fast losing the power 
 of taking stock of our position, because we bury public 
 relief in the statistics of various branches of public 
 administration and disguise it as education, public health, 
 or the reward of industry. 
 
 We shall never get back to a healthier position until 
 the public realise that the problem of public relief is the 
 most difficult and critical that any nation has to deal with, 
 and is one which requires the undivided and concentrated 
 attention of the community as a separate branch of
 
 224 APPENDIX II 
 
 administration. We have had many lessons in the past, 
 and the question has engaged the attention of our best 
 thinkers since the passing of the Act of Elizabeth. It is 
 said now that the conditions have changed, and it is quite 
 true that industry is far more complex than it was a 
 hundred years ago. But the underlying problem is one 
 of human nature, which remains the same as it has always 
 been, and the magnitude and complexity of modern 
 industrialism render the position far more dangerous than 
 it has ever been before. 
 
 December 1912. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT (1914). 
 
 A good deal of water has passed under the bridges 
 since the foregoing article was written. The National 
 Insurance Act has come into force, and the benefits paid 
 under it, whether in respect of sickness or of unemploy- 
 ment, have now to be added to the resources available for 
 poor people in times of distress. Let us recapitulate these 
 resources : 
 
 (1) First there is the Poor Law (1601), with its work- 
 houses, infirmaries, residential schools, and outdoor relief. 
 In London we have in addition the numerous institutions 
 of the Metropolitan Asylums Board. 
 
 (2) Next in order of time comes the Unemployed 
 Workmen Act (1905), with its network of Distress Com- 
 mittees throughout the country, its Labour Colony at 
 Hollesley Bay, and its system of allowances to the families 
 of the men for whom it provides -work. 
 
 (3) The Provision of Meals Act (1906) and the 
 (Education) Administrative Provisions Act (1907) provide 
 food and medical treatment for school children through 
 the Education Authorities. 
 
 (4) The Old Age Pensions Act (1908) provides old age 
 pensions for people over 70. 
 
 (5) The National Insurance Act provides benefits for
 
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF POOR RELIEF 225 
 
 practically all people between 16 and 70 who come within 
 the income-tax limit. 
 
 (6) There are also certain other forms of direct public 
 relief. In many cases Borough Councils provide sanatorium 
 relief, and give, from time to time, a considerable amount 
 of employment relief. It may not be irrelevant to point 
 out that nearly two millions of money has been returned 
 to the pockets of the poorer classes by the abolition of 
 school fees. 
 
 There is practically no co-ordination of, or co-operation 
 between, these agencies. In the case of old age pensions 
 co-operation is, as we have already seen, expressly vetoed. 
 There have been a few sporadic attempts at co-operation 
 in certain directions, but, generally speaking, it is safe to 
 say that most of these agencies are in the dark as to what 
 the others are doing, and that all the tendencies are 
 towards isolated, rather than towards co-operative, 
 action. 
 
 The natural and inevitable result is a huge mass of 
 overlapping relief, which is administered as chance may 
 direct. Even where these agencies are aware of each 
 other's action, there is no plan of action for the permanent 
 benefit of the people relieved. Indeed, it is not uncommon 
 for relief by one agency to defeat the object of the relief 
 given by another agency. It often happens that Guardians 
 who are trying to get children away from bad home 
 surroundings into the Poor Law schools find themselves 
 powerless, because meals are being given at the elementary 
 school. Moreover, the most unscrupulous and importunate 
 beggars get most, whilst the most self-respecting people 
 get least, even though their need may be greater. Fraud 
 and deceit are encouraged, and the relief given is 
 frequently misapplied. Meanwhile, the sum total of 
 expenditure steadily increases, and the worse forms of 
 poverty remain untouched. 
 
 The most extensive evidence of overlapping between 
 the Old Age Pensions Act and the Poor Law is furnished 
 by a recent report of the Central Committee of the Poor
 
 226 APPENDIX II 
 
 Law Conference, 1 which is based upon information received 
 from about 130 Unions in town and country, to which 
 those who desire further information must be referred. 
 Further corroboration is afforded by a remarkable 
 memorandum recently presented to his Board by the 
 Superintendent Relieving Officer of the Wandsworth 
 Union. The memorandum is too long for quotation here, 
 but the substance of it is contained in a paper upon 
 " Old Age Pensions and the Poor Law," which may be 
 obtained from Mr W. G. Lewis, publisher to the Central 
 Poor Law Conference. 
 
 It is not only difficult, but impossible, for any 
 individual to obtain comprehensive evidence upon a 
 subject where the field of inquiry is so wide. But the 
 following particulars of a limited number of concrete cases 
 which have been dealt with quite recently in a single 
 Union may serve to illustrate some of the points above 
 mentioned, such, for instance, as the multiplicity of the 
 public relief agencies that are at work upon individual 
 cases of distress, the inadequacy of each form of relief 
 taken separately, and the not infrequent misapplication of 
 the relief given. The cases are grouped under two 
 headings : 
 
 (1) The overlapping of Old Age Pensions with the 
 Poor Law. 
 
 (2) The overlapping of the Insurance Act with the 
 Poor Law. 
 
 The cases given under the latter head cover a period 
 of three months only. It may be pointed out with regard 
 to the overlapping pension relief that, in the great 
 majority of cases, the pensions continue to be paid either 
 to the pensioners or their relatives, the amount recovered 
 by the Guardians being practically nil. The same applies 
 in the main to benefits received under the National 
 Insurance Act. 
 
 Another striking case came before the Guardians of 
 1 Published by W. G. Lewis, 100 South Hill Park, Hampstead.
 
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF POOR RELIEF 227 
 
 the same Union as lately as i8th November, in which 
 the father, an insured person, was in the infirmary at 
 a cost of 253. a week, the wife was receiving sick benefit 
 at los. a week, and the children were being fed at the 
 
 Overlapping of Old Age Pensions and the Poor Law, 
 
 Case- 
 paper. 
 
 Period. 
 
 Days in Infirmary. 
 
 Observations. 
 
 25798 
 
 Oct. 1913 
 
 Since 2oth Oct. 
 
 Still there. 
 
 2349 
 
 Oct. 1913 
 
 22 days 
 
 
 18328 
 
 Feb. 1913 
 
 10 
 
 Also had two Dispensary 
 
 
 
 
 Orders. 
 
 25106 
 
 April 1913 
 
 64 , 
 
 
 20520 
 
 August 1913 
 
 46 
 
 Two admissions. 
 
 25530 
 
 Sept. 1913 
 
 
 Also had three Dispensary 
 
 
 
 
 Orders. 
 
 15349 
 
 August 1913 
 
 7 
 
 
 6184 
 
 Sept. 1913 
 
 8 
 
 Also had two Dispensary 
 
 
 
 
 Orders. 
 
 15227 
 
 Feb. 1913 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 Sept. 1913 
 
 21 
 
 
 25448 
 
 July 1913 
 
 44 .1 
 
 
 
 Oct. 1913 
 
 Admitted 4th Oct. 
 
 Still there. 
 
 3549 
 
 Nov. 1912 
 
 II days^j . 
 
 
 3714 
 
 Oct. 1913 
 Sept. 1913 
 
 " " ' house 
 49 ,, J 
 
 
 CASES OF SPECIAL INTEREST. 
 
 86 
 
 Infirmary 
 
 States " daughter Martha took her 
 
 
 21/4/13 to 15/5/13 
 
 pension all the while she was in 
 
 
 
 the infirmary." 
 
 20OO 
 
 Infirmary 
 
 "O.A.P. 55., rent 33. Does a little 
 
 
 20/9/12 to i/n/12 
 
 spinning when well enough." 
 
 
 28/7/13 to 12/9/13 
 
 " Friends assist with food." 
 
 
 Workhouse 
 
 " Applies for admission ; destitute. 
 
 
 15/10/13, still there 
 
 Cannot manage on Old Age 
 
 
 15/10/13 
 
 Pension." 
 
 23738 
 
 Woman in Infirmary 
 
 Both man and wife Old Age Pen- 
 
 
 I2/2/I2 to I2/3/I2 
 
 sioners, but they live apart. Man 
 
 
 3/9/13. still there 
 
 takes both pensions whilst wife is 
 
 
 
 in infirmary. 
 
 I2O 
 
 Woman in Infirmary 
 
 Both Old Age Pensioners. Man takes 
 
 
 
 pension when wife away. 
 
 25628 
 
 Infirmary, 29/9/13 
 
 Still in infirmary. Son John before 
 
 
 
 Board on 7th October 1913, and 
 
 
 
 "excused." He has since been 
 
 
 
 taking the pension "to pay the 
 
 
 
 rent," but from the report of the 
 
 
 
 R.O. it would appear that the 
 
 
 
 pauper did not pay rent. 
 
 2 H
 
 228 
 
 APPENDIX II 
 
 Overlapping of National Health Insurance and the Poor Law, 
 
 Case- 
 paper 
 Number 
 
 Period. 1918. 
 
 Particulars. 
 
 18364 
 
 23575 
 
 35463 
 35112 
 
 20645 
 
 June to October 
 
 October 
 
 July and October 
 May to October 
 
 July to August 
 
 3890 
 
 September 
 
 2534 
 
 18458 
 
 25601 
 
 19295 
 
 May to July 
 
 24/7/13 to 30/7/13 
 7th to 2 ist Oct 
 
 September 
 October 
 
 Man in infirmary. Wife and five chil- 
 dren receiving los. weekly from 
 N.H.I., and 7s. weekly outdoor relief. 
 Man now (13/11/13) in infirmary, 
 children in Poor Law Schools, and 
 wife apart. 
 
 Man in infirmary. Wife receiving los. 
 weekly from N.H.I., and four chil- 
 dren being fed at school. 
 
 Man in workhouse (mental wards). 
 Wife receiving zos. from N.H.I. 
 
 Man phthisical. Ill May to Oct., los. 
 weekly from N.H.I. Out-relief, food ; 
 35. 6d., four weeks (August). Man 
 in infirmary 27th May to 1st July. 
 Now at Sanatorium. 
 
 Man sick, 17/7/13. Wife applies for 
 parish doctor because the panel doctor 
 has a notice exhibited in his surgery 
 that he would only see panel patients 
 at their homes on alternate days, and 
 man had suddenly become worse. 
 2ist July to 23rd August out-relief, 
 393. 3d. on account of sickness of 
 man, and sickness benefit not yet 
 available. 
 
 Widow and four children chargeable at 
 intervals since 1900. 3rd September, 
 woman applies for parish doctor. She 
 is an insured person, but not entitled 
 to panel doctor because the sickness 
 is the result of an accident. 13/9/13, 
 woman reported to be receiving 7s. 6d. 
 weekly sickness benefit 
 
 gth June, man admitted to infirmary. 
 No Insurance benefit. " Card three 
 stamps short." Out-relief m kind, 
 seven weeks. 
 
 Out-relief. Man sick, and Insurance 
 benefit not sufficient. 
 
 Has had six weeks' benefit at los. week 
 and 303. maternity benefit. Benefit 
 exhausted and out-relief granted. 
 
 Man in infirmary, 24/9/13, 8th to nth 
 Oct. Out-reh'ef to wife and four 
 children because Insurance benefit not 
 yet received. 
 
 Widow. Has been relieved indoor and 
 outdoor for four years past, at in- 
 tervals. Out-relief 4th to i?th Oct. 
 14/10/13, applies for relief, under 
 panel doctor, because no Insurance 
 benefit yet.
 
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF POOR RELIEF 229 
 
 schools. Since this was written, several similar cases 
 have come before the writer in his capacity as Chairman 
 of a Board of Guardians. 
 
 There have been several recent cases in the same 
 Union in which women have come into the lying-in wards 
 for their confinement, where, of course, they received 
 every medical care and attention, and where they are 
 encouraged to stay till they are entirely convalescent, and 
 have then gone out and claimed maternity benefit either 
 themselves or through their husbands before they were 
 really fit to go. It should be noted that, where the 
 husband is an insured person, he usually regards the 
 maternity benefit as his by right. 
 
 It must be remembered that all the above-mentioned 
 cases have occurred within a few months in a single 
 London Union, and that there are some 640 odd Unions 
 in England and Wales only, where the same conditions 
 prevail. Some information, though not so detailed, has 
 been obtained. from certain other parts of London, and 
 this information seems to point in the same direction. 
 One Relieving Officer writes : " I have had in several 
 instances to supplement inadequate sickness benefit. 
 Several persons have applied, not being satisfied with 
 their panel doctor. Single women have been admitted to 
 the lying-in wards and have obtained maternity benefit 
 after leaving." Another Relieving Officer from the same 
 Union writes : " I have had to supplement unemployment 
 benefit." In another case sanatorium benefit was provided 
 by the Insurance Committee, and four of the children 
 were taken into the parish schoola 
 
 The Superintendent Relieving Officer of a third Union 
 gives the following information : 
 
 " On making inquiries into the matter of the National 
 Health Insurance, I find we have given nearly 700 
 certificates to enable inmates of our infirmary and lying-in 
 wards to draw their benefits under this Act. In very few 
 cases, certainly less than a dozen, have the Guardians 
 recovered anything towards their maintenance. Married
 
 230 APPENDIX II 
 
 men have sent their wives into the workhouse for their 
 confinement and then applied for a certificate to obtain 
 the maternity benefit. I also find that certificates have 
 been given to several single women for the same purpose, 
 but I am unable to say for certain whether they have 
 obtained the benefit. The same thing also applies to 
 single persons, without dependents, who have been in 
 our infirmary. Cases needing sanatorium treatment are 
 always referred back to the Commissioners, but we have 
 two cases who are receiving home treatment and the 
 family is in receipt of relief. In one case a man, after 
 waiting nine weeks for admission, was sent for, receiving 
 only two hours' notice, but, as he was a widower with 
 three children, he had to wait a further two days while 
 arrangements were made to take his children into the 
 workhouse, where they remained from February to July 
 without payment. The father returned in May and went 
 to work. In August he re-married, and we have now 
 received another application from him for his admission to 
 the infirmary and his children to the workhouse, as his 
 wife has gone off and left him. He has been told to make 
 another application for sanatorium treatment." 
 
 He adds : 
 
 " The giving of 700 certificates must have entailed an 
 enormous amount of labour on the infirmary staff, and 
 when you consider that, in addition, over 500 reports 
 were made for the Pension Authority, it can hardly be 
 said that the Acts have decreased our labour." 
 
 The fact that 700 certificates under the Insurance Act 
 have been given in a year in a single Union gives some 
 indication of the extent of the overlapping between the 
 Insurance Act and the Poor Law. 
 
 It will be noted that in all these Unions there have 
 been many cases in which women, either married or 
 single, have come into the lying-in wards for their confine- 
 ment, and have subsequently claimed maternity benefit 
 after their discharge. This is clearly contrary to the 
 intention of the Act, which contemplated that the 
 maternity benefit would be used to provide nourishment
 
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF POOR RELIEF 231 
 
 and proper treatment for the woman during her confine- 
 ment; whereas, in these cases, the Guardians have 
 provided all that is required. Some light is thrown upon 
 the ultimate destination of the maternity benefit in many 
 cases by a letter written to " The Times " in July last by 
 Miss Margaret Bondfield, the well-known woman trade 
 unionist leader, who cites the following cases : 
 
 " A woman having been confined, her husband went to 
 claim the maternity benefit to which he was entitled. On 
 the way back he met some friends, and they decided to go 
 and have a drink. After some time, as the husband did 
 not return, the wife got some one to go and look for him. 
 He was found in the public house with only is. $d. left in 
 his pocket, all that remained from the maternity benefit. 
 
 " A man went away with another woman on receipt of 
 the benefit. 
 
 " A man returned home drunk with only 145. 
 
 " A man of respectable appearance changed a sovereign 
 at a public-house. When asked how he came by it he 
 said, ' Oh ! I've been to see Lloyd George.'" 
 
 A Guardian of a very important extrametropolitan 
 Union informed the writer, quite recently, that the Local 
 Government Board are at the present moment criticising 
 the action of his Board because, in spite of recent social 
 legislation, there has been up to now no sort of pro- 
 portionate diminution in the amount of outdoor relief 
 granted by them. His explanation was that recent social 
 legislation has rather increased than decreased the demand 
 for relief. 
 
 It is unnecessary to labour the point as to the over- 
 lapping between the Unemployed Workmen Act and the 
 Poor Law in view of the return, already referred to, which 
 was presented to the Royal Commission on the Poor Law, 
 but evidence upon the subject continues to accumulate, 
 and a large proportion of the able-bodied men dealt with 
 by the Guardians have at some time or other received 
 relief under it Quite recently in a certain Union a 
 woman whose husband was found to be in Hollesley Bay,
 
 232 APPENDIX II 
 
 and who was therefore in receipt of an allowance during 
 his absence, applied for outdoor relief, and it is quite 
 possible that without that constant vigilance which is by 
 no means universal, duplicated relief might be granted in 
 such cases. It would appear that in many places there is 
 not systematic co-operation between Distress Committees 
 and the Poor Law. 
 
 Several illustrations have been given of cases in which 
 it has been found necessary to supplement benefits under 
 the Insurance Act by Poor Law relief, and this tendency 
 will probably continue. It is noteworthy that it was 
 extremely rare in old days for any member of a friendly 
 society to apply for parish relief, and no one can fail to 
 remark the lowering of the standard of self-reliance under 
 the new order of things. 
 
 But more than that, an opinion has been freely ex- 
 pressed that there will be a tendency for panel doctors to 
 order into the infirmary their longer and more trouble- 
 some cases. Not long ago a panel doctor in Chelsea 
 advised a patient to apply for admission to the infirmary, 
 not because he was destitute it was admitted that the 
 relatives were in a fairly comfortable position but because 
 in his opinion the care of the patient was too great a 
 strain upon them. The Guardians refused, but were 
 eventually severely censured by the coroner. 
 
 An interesting illustration of overlapping between 
 Part II. of the Insurance Act and the Unemployed 
 Workmen Act came recently to the notice of the writer. 
 It is interesting because it indicates a sequence of events 
 which certainly would not have been anticipated by the 
 promotors of either of these Acts, and because it illustrates 
 the failure of two public agencies permanently to improve 
 the condition of the person assisted. In the case in 
 question, a builder's labourer, out of work, had applied to 
 the Distress Committee and was admitted for the pre- 
 scribed period to Hollesley Bay colony. He came out 
 when his time expired in December last. Being still 
 without work he applied for unemployed benefit in
 
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF POOR RELIEF 233 
 
 January and received an allowance for some weeks. 
 When that was exhausted he was still out of work and 
 applied to a charitable agency for assistance, and through 
 their intervention he was emigrated to a colony, where 
 we may hope that he has once more become self-supporting. 
 
 School dinners and school medical treatment are a 
 fertile source of overlapping, with the Poor Law and 
 many other relief agencies, both public and private. 
 The nature and extent of the overlapping varies, of 
 course, with the vigilance of the agencies concerned. 
 But such vigilance is not very fashionable ; indeed it is 
 frequently condemned as " inquisitorial," and the dice are 
 heavily loaded against careful administration. 
 
 It would be possible to multiply illustrations of over- 
 lapping between the ever-increasing number of public 
 relief agencies to almost any extent. But it is hardly 
 necessary to labour the point. It stands to reason that 
 if we multiply relief agencies without establishing any 
 systematic co-operation between them, overlapping will 
 increase in proportion. The confusion at present is 
 almost indescribable. 
 
 Since the first part of this paper was written there 
 has been a fresh development which is of better augury 
 for the future. Last June the President of the Local 
 Government Board presented to Parliament an im- 
 portant return dealing with the total amount of direct 
 " public beneficiary assistance," and promised to repeat 
 this return in future years. The return is for England 
 and Wales only, and therefore not complete ; moreover, 
 it only contains the details of the expenditure and not 
 the numbers of people assisted. Still, it is a step in the 
 right direction, and goes some way towards meeting the 
 evils pointed out in the earlier part of this paper. 
 
 The return includes expenditure upon (i) The relief 
 of the poor; (2) The Unemployed Workmen Act, 1905; 
 (3) Hospitals provided by local authorities other than 
 Poor Law infirmaries ; (4) Education (Provision of Meals) 
 Act, 1906; (5) Medical inspection and treatment of school
 
 234 APPENDIX II 
 
 children ; (6) Other expenses of elementary and higher 
 education ; (7) Old age pensions for England and Wales, 
 1910-11. 
 
 The return covers a period of twenty years from 1890-91 
 to 1910-11, and shows that expenditure in England and 
 Wales upon " direct beneficiary assistance " has grown in 
 that time from ^14,250,000 to 5 1,896,000. We have 
 now to add to this 7,500,000 for the first year of the 
 National Insurance Act, but this last item is for the whole 
 country. So long as we have a regular return of this kind, 
 completed and brought up to date, the public, at least, 
 cannot say that they are acting in the dark and that this 
 huge and growing mortgage uppn the industry of the 
 country has been imposed without their knowledge and 
 consent. We are chiefly indebted for this return to the 
 wise importunity of Mr Geoffrey Drage, who pointed out 
 in a letter to " The Times " that this is in no sense a party 
 question, and in fact the return was asked for by members 
 on both sides of the House. Mr Drage, however, points 
 out that these figures do not reveal the whole truth. 
 
 " When (he says) we have got these figures completed 
 for direct beneficiary assistance we can then turn to in- 
 direct assistance such as that involved in cheap railway 
 and tram fares, labour exchanges, public baths and wash- 
 houses, etc. Even so we shall leave out the vast ex- 
 penditure on public health and sanitation, factory and 
 workshop and mine inspection, which appears to me to be 
 more in the category of what I should term sanitary 
 police." We may perhaps now add to " indirect beneficiary 
 assistance" the provision by the State and municipal 
 authorities of housing accommodation at less than an 
 economic rent. 
 
 But the return is of course not complete unless it 
 includes the number of people assisted as well as the total 
 of the expenditure. For this is an even more important 
 question from an economic point of view. There is at 
 present a tendency to live in a fool's paradise. The 
 official returns of pauperism have of late shown moderate
 
 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF POOR RELIEF 235 
 
 decreases, upon the strength oi which certain writers in 
 the Press and certain prominent politicians have shown 
 a tendency towards complacency, and even towards 
 exultation. But, as has been already stated, the official 
 statistics no longer cover the ground. When we say that 
 pauperism has decreased we are juggling with words, 
 because the actual burden of pauperism and the actual 
 number of de facto paupers is far larger than it has ever 
 been before in the history of the country. 
 
 Such being the existing conditions, what is the 
 remedy? Some of us would consider that the best and 
 most obvious remedy is to be found in the recommenda- 
 tion of the Majority Report of the Royal Commission 
 that all public assistance should be brought under one 
 authority. But if this is impossible in the present state of 
 public opinion, then we must look elsewhere for a remedy. 
 Hitherto the course of legislation has followed the lines of 
 the Minority Report rather than those of the Majority. 
 It has extended public relief in most of the directions 
 indicated by the Minority, and has carried into effect 
 many of their recommendations. But one of these 
 recommendations the only one for introducing some sort 
 of co-ordination and control into this chaos namely, the 
 suggested registration of all forms of public relief, has 
 been ignored altogether. It is rather significant that no 
 one of the signatories of that report has, as we might have 
 been entitled to expect, raised any sort of protest against 
 the omission. If we are to have the policy of the 
 Minority, we must have it as a whole and not in part. It 
 is always an easy and a popular step to extend public 
 relief. It is quite otherwise when it is proposed to 
 establish any sort of control. Mr Charles Booth recog- 
 nised this long ago when he proposed a scheme of 
 universal pensions, because he recognised the impractica- 
 bility of the then proposed limitations. But under the 
 guidance of the authors of the Minority Report we have 
 travelled far beyond old age pensions, and now practically 
 anyone who comes within the income-tax limit is qualified 
 
 2 I
 
 236 APPENDIX II 
 
 for some form of State endowment, either for themselves 
 or for their dependents. The onus is surely upon those 
 who have led us into this labyrinth to lead us out. 
 Perhaps even now, at the eleventh hour, they will come 
 forward and press for the initiation of a scheme of 
 registration which formed originally an integral part of 
 their proposals, and for a system of organised co-operation. 
 The first practical step appears then to be to press for 
 a searching and judicial inquiry into existing conditions, 
 an inquiry from which politicians and theorists alike 
 should be rigorously excluded. Disorganised voluntary 
 charity is an evil, but disorganised State charity is a far 
 worse one, because it is on a much greater scale and is 
 much less capable of control. Surely the time has come 
 when public-spirited men of both parties should agree to 
 exclude these questions from the sphere of party politics, 
 and to put a stop once and for all to this legislative chaos 
 which is supplementing wages, increasing the cost of 
 living, pauperising the poor, and perpetuating poverty. 
 Modern free traders may be reminded once more of the 
 words of Cobden, which indicate a very different social 
 policy : 
 
 " Mine," he says, " is that masculine sort of charity 
 which would inculcate in the minds of the working classes 
 the love of independence, the privilege of self-respect, the 
 disdain of being patronised or petted, the desire to 
 accumulate, and the ambition to rise." 
 
 The Prime Minister recently used these words : 
 
 " I do not think there is any doctrine more fatal to the 
 root principle of democratic government than that it 
 should consist in the constant amelioration, at great 
 expense to the community, of the social conditions of the 
 less-favoured class in the country at the sole and exclusive 
 expense of other classes " (" Times," I2th July). 
 
 They may be commended to the attention of the 
 democracy of this country. 
 
 PRINTED BT OLIVER AND BOYD, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND.
 
 BOOKS ON SOCIOLOGY 
 
 SOCIAL WORK IN LONDON, 1869-1912 
 
 A HISTORY OF THE CHARITY ORGANISATION SOCIETY. 
 By HELEN BOSANQUET, LL.D. " The history of these efforts has now 
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 in any language like it, and when all is said it remains one of the most 
 striking additions recently made to the political library." MR. J. L. 
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 By S. GRUMBACH. Translated, Abbreviated, and Introduced by 
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