Geoffrey Drage and Franklin Henry Hooper

“ It appeared from the evidence that the change made in the character and habits of the poor by once receiving public relief is quite remarkable. They are demoralized ever afterwards. “The disease is hereditary,” it was contended, “and when once a family has applied for relief they are pressed down for ever.” The receipt of relief by a man has been compared in its results to the loss of virtue in a woman. They are never the same again. ”

“ Lastly, to make it clear that all this vast expenditure from the rates and taxes, however carefully disguised, falls in the long run most heavily on the working-classes, by wasting the fund from which come new enterprises and increased wages on myriads of officials who make the poor man's life a burden to him.
(G. Dr.) United States.—Owing to the fact that the United States is still a new country with a comparatively small number of poor, the need in its communities for public assistance in the relief of poverty and attendant ills has been much less urgent than in European countries. ”

“ The administration of the Poor Law proceeded for 230 years with variations of leniency and severity till 1785, when a period of excessive expenditure set in, which in some cases swallowed up the whole of the annual rateable value of the land and reduced the nation to the verge of bankruptcy, leaving the population in a state of complete demoralization. In 20 years from 1783 the Poor Law expenditure had more than doubled itself, and in 1817 it had reached the enormous total of £7,871,811 for a population of about 11,000,000. ”

“ There is a constant complaint of the apathy and slight attendance at debates on economy, and the late Speaker of the House of Commons pointed out that since 1900 there has been a great change in the attitude of the House towards economy and that now the advocates of economy “do not get a look in.” The Chancellor of the Exchequer frankly said in March 1920 that with such items as old-age pensions, a national unemployment scheme and a national housing scheme, it was impossible to offer a blunt uncompromising refusal to proposals for new expenditure. ”

“ Between 1873 and 1883 the percentage of those in receipt of direct public assistance was slightly over 3% of the population, the lowest point reached being 2.9 in 1878 and 1879. In the meanwhile the working-classes had not only recovered their self-respect and self-reliance but had through their own organization, the trade unions, the friendly societies, the coöperative societies and the building societies, provided a complete answer to all the difficulties of the Labour problem. ”

“ It should be said, moreover, that in most cities free treatment was not given unless the recipient was unable to pay, and that in any case the community was only protecting itself by promoting the health of its individual members. The same question was involved in the establishment of sanatoriums in many parts of the United States for the treatment of tuberculosis and other communicable diseases, both aiding the sufferer and safeguarding the public from him, as had been done in the case of the insane for many years. ”

“ Hospitalization came to be expected as a right, regardless of the ability of the patient to pay the cost of treatment. Thus the American public was being taught to feel that the state or county or city was bound to provide certain kinds of public assistance which had been regarded as outside the scope of state subsidies.
Of the newer proposals for public assistance none gained more rapid headway than that for mothers' allowances or pensions. The first such law was- passed by Missouri in 1911, and granted allowances to widows with children and to deserted mothers ”

“ Thus many cities maintained a large staff of physicians and nurses whose duty it was to visit schools and even households, giving advice and treatment free. From the private practitioner's point of view this work was an encroachment on his legitimate sources of income, but free medical treatment in the case of school-children, for example, is merely an incident of free education, for the ability to receive education is in large degree dependent on physical fitness. ”

“ Old-age pensioners have from the first received medical relief from the Poor Law, and now, if necessitous, are entitled to receive other relief as well. The separation of the local administration from that of the Poor Law for political reasons has had unsatisfactory results, apart from the extra expense. ”

“ It is characteristic of the American point of view, however, that this welfare movement concerned itself less with the lowest forms of poverty or with the most helpless layer of the dependent than with improving the conditions of life among wage-earners in general. ”

“ This wonderful development of self-help embraced all skilled labour and was gradually taking hold of the unskilled, giving the English workingman a knowledge of business and a training in self-government such as the working-man in no other non-English speaking country possessed in anything like the same degree, if at all. ”

“ The commissioners state that pauperism seems to be an engine for the purpose of disconnecting each member of the family from all others: of reducing all to the state of domesticated animals fed, lodged and provided for by the parish without mutual dependence or mutual interest. ”

“ In Athens the payment of citizens for attendance at the public assemblies and religious ceremonies known as the theoric fund, exercised a corrupting influence on the democracy from the time of Pericles, and Aristotle lays down the general proposition: “Demagogues distribute surplus revenue to the poor. ”

“ Legislation for mothers' allowances, no doubt, tends to create a demand for old-age pensions, but up to 1921 no state had yet undertaken this form of subsidy. Taxes for mothers' allowances were mostly levied and administered by the county governments.
Another form of public assistance which grew rapidly in the decade 1910-20 was that connected with the health of children, particularly those attending school. ”

“ In many poorer districts, where the educational progress of the children was found to be retarded by under-nourishment, it became customary for the school authorities to provide a daily luncheon, which was served either free or at a nominal price. ”

“ The politicians saw capital in the working-man as a voter. In 1886 the first breach was made in the Poor Law system by the institution of municipal distress committees which withdrew the unemployed to a certain extent from the workhouse test. In 1890 the fees for elementary education were remitted, that the poor might have more wherewith to pay for the food and clothing of their children, but it was not till the beginning of the 20th century that, to use Aristotle's expression, more holes were made in the cask. ”

“ It was stated as long ago as 1912 that overcoats, underclothing and food were given under sanatorium benefit, thus relieving public health and Poor Law funds, and sanatorium benefit was only a rechristened form of outdoor relief. As to the Poor Law, it may be observed in passing that its expense increased between the years 1911 and 1919 from £15,000,000 to £18,000,000 for England and Wales alone, and as old-age pensioners left the workhouse their places were filled by those under 70 years of age. ”

“ Now it looks increasingly at the social problems which 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. ”

“ Their coöperative societies provided them with the necessaries of life of excellent quality at little over cost price; their building societies provided them with the means to acquire their own houses. ”