Poor Law Commission

“ We do not pretend to advise whether the District Boards of Lunacy, with the new duties with regard to the feeble-minded, and the complete disconnection of all their work from the Poor Law recommended by the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded, as well as by ourselves, should or should not be modified in constitution ”

“ The last hundred years will be memorable as an era of almost miraculous advance in all that concerns material progress. And yet we have to admit, as the Report of the Poor Law Commission shows, that so far as pauperism and destitution are concerned our attempts at cure and prevention have completely failed. ”

“ It is to be hoped that the deliberations of that commission will lead not only to the adaptation of the poor law to modern social conditions, but to the discovery of efficient methods of dealing with what may be called incipient pauperism, or pauperism in the making, of distinguishing between professional paupers and the widely different classes that are from time to time in need of relief owing to fluctuating economic conditions, sickness, immaturity, or senile decay, and of ensuring that there shall no longer be death or disease due to actual starvation amongst us. ”

“ William Hall seemed himself to realize this, for he affirmed that poverty—a very comprehensive term, covering a multitude of evils—is ultimately responsible for the unsatisfactory physique of our people. Luxury has its degenerates as well as poverty, but poverty is the wholesale degenerator, and it is, therefore, I am sure, with immense satisfaction that all we who are interested in the public health have heard that it is the intention of the government to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into the working of the poor law. ”

“ We have looked over these four annual Poor-Law Reports with a variety of reflections; with no thought that our Poor-Law Commissioners are the inhuman men their enemies accuse them of being; with a feeling of thankfulness rather that there do exist men of that structure too; with a persuasion deeper and deeper that Nature, who makes nothing to no purpose, has not made either them or their Poor-Law Amendment Act in vain. ”

“ It should be said that (with an exception to be hereafter noted in the case of women) the Central Authority stood rigidly on the position taken up by the 1834 Report that no regard was to be paid to character, in judging applications for relief. "If a person," said the Poor Law Commissioners in 1840, "be in a state of destitution, such person is to [28] be relieved, without reference to the moral character of such person. Relief from the poor rates can only lawfully be given in cases where persons are destitute of the means of support. ”

“ What is more remarkable is to find even able subordinates of the Poor Law Commissioners talking as if they took this view. "It appears to me," wrote Sir Francis Head in 1835, "that we have no discretion allowed to us to deliberate whether the workhouse system is good or bad. Our Poor Law Amendment Act is physic which the legislature, in the character of physician, has prescribed to remedy an acknowledged evil. ”

“ In the case of persons partially disabled, and able to earn only partial maintenance, the Poor Law Commissioners recommended that they "should be entirely supported by the guardians"—not, be it noted, by being admitted to the workhouse—but either by their being "set to work by the guardians in such manner as may be suitable to their condition," or else by their being prohibited from doing any work on their own account. ”

“ The Majority Commissioners hold, on the assumption that every case of pauperism implies a moral defect, that there should be, in each locality, one Authority and only one Authority to deal with persons requiring maintenance from public funds. They, therefore, recommend the establishment of a new "Destitution Authority" to deal only with persons who are destitute, and only when they are destitute; and for such persons to provide, from birth to burial, in distinctively Poor Law Institutions, or under distinctively Poor Law officials, all that is required. ”

“ Every rule order or regulation directed to, or affecting more than one union, is to be deemed a general rule.
Sections 16, 17, 18.—The rules orders and regulations of the Poor Law Commissioners are to continue in force until varied or rescinded by the commissioners appointed under this Act, whose authority is in all cases to be substituted for the former, and is to have like force and effect in Ireland. Acts under seal not to be valid, unless signed by two of the commissioners, or by the chief commissioner, or in his absence by the assistant-commissioner. ”

“ With respect to the relief of the aged and infirm, of orphans, helpless widows with young children, and destitute persons in general, it is stated that there is a difference of opinion—some of the commissioners “think the necessary funds should be provided in part by the public through a national rate, and in part by private associations, which, aided by the public, should be authorized to establish mendicity-houses and almshouses, and to administer relief to the indigent at their own dwellings, subject however to the superintendence and control of the Poor Law Commissioners ”

“ Now there is a great deal that might be done to make the law less harsh to the poor without any very elaborate legislation, and certainly without any of those absurd inquiries and commissions which are the stones the latter-day lawgivers throw at the poor when they ask for the bread of justice. ”

“ If we paid the homage to poverty that is given to wealth we might reasonably expect to find these people content to be poor; but while there is no likelihood of that being done, we may as well face the fact that our social inequalities result in the commission of crimes against property among a proportion of those who have a chance of helping themselves thereby. ”

“ Court knows where it stands, but that is a far more easy statute to construe than anything the parliamentary draftsman turns out to-day. If we could get a short statute of one clause, “Thou shalt not cheat,” with an appropriate schedule containing a tariff of fines and imprisonment, I think magistrates could do a good deal to cleanse the cities of a great many low ruffians who make their living by swindling the poor and make the law as it stands their attorney to collect the spoils. ”

“ Moreover, the Minority Commissioners hold that if the community restricts itself to relieving persons at the crisis of their destitution, and this is a necessary condition of any Poor Law, or of the action of any Destitution Authority, whatever its name, the community cannot, without grave financial danger, and still graver danger to character, depart from the principles of 1834. ”

“ In their case, it is clear, their retention in the class "pauper," and their relegation to the Poor Law Authority, is advocated, not for their own good. They are, it is suggested, to be accorded a treatment other than that which the State would otherwise afford to them—that is to say, they are to suffer the stigma of pauperism—merely in order "by expectation and example" to [354] deter other persons from taking advantage in their old age of the maintenance which the State affords. ”

“ On the other hand, the fact that universal provision of some services to all persons, whether destitute or not, has been adopted by Parliament, has led to a duplication and confusions of functions between the old Poor Law Authority and the new Preventive Authorities. This daily-increasing overlap and duplication can only be ended by either stripping the new Preventive Authorities of functions entrusted to them within the last few years by Parliament—which is plainly impossible—or by abolishing the Poor Law. ”

“ And nowadays when we open the Courts to new applicants, and turn over great schemes of workmen’s compensation to judges to deal with, we want judges to work them who are in touch with the needs and lives of the working class, not necessarily folk who want to exalt the poor on to unreal pedestals and clothe them with impossible virtues, but people who know how near their faults and virtues are to those of the rest of mankind. ”

“ In the remote country places more than anywhere is the stipendiary a necessity. Meanwhile, why should not direct representatives of the agricultural labourer be placed upon the bench if we are not to abolish Dogberry altogether?
While these words are being written, an effort is being made with a Criminal Administration Bill to do away with some of the abuses of the police court. The imprisonment of people for non-payment of fines is really imprisonment for poverty, and the scandal of it is at last officially recognised and the necessity of reform admitted. ”

“ In the same way, the Central Authority sanctions, even if it does not overtly encourage, the bestowal of elaborate and costly care and supervision in the launching into life of some sections of Poor Law children—going even so far as occasionally to sanction premiums, residential homes, or a "rate in aid" of their insufficient earnings as apprentices in skilled trades. ”

“ A device for suing in forma pauperis working only in London, such as is set up by the new rules, cannot be of much avail in tackling the problem of placing legal advice and assistance at the call of the poor.
I wish some experiments of a voluntary nature could be made of a more extended character than the poor man’s lawyer societies that are attached [Pg 186] to University settlements, and do good work in advising the poor. It is really in Court that a poor man wants assistance. ”

“ A century and a half has worked wonderful reforms for us in the world of police and police courts, but one cannot honestly say that nothing remains to be done. Direct bribery is no doubt abolished, justice is fearlessly administered, but there are still traditional methods of imposing fines and imprisonment which cause the poor to think that carriage folk go more easily along the turnpikes of the law than those humble ones who travel perforce on foot. ”

“ I am not alone in thinking that the time is fast coming when the inconvenience of having as the registrar of a Court a solicitor in private practice paid by fees on the number of plaints will be so fully recognised that the country will demand a sweeping alteration in the system. The abolition of imprisonment for debt will give the Courts time to entertain jurisdiction for divorce and other matters where the poor are entitled to the same legal favour as the rich. ”

“ In criminal cases something is already done and a beginning is being made on the civil side in the High Court to give the poor legal aid. These reforms do not amount to very much as yet, but they are the first steps towards remedying Piers Plowman’s grievances and, considering that it is less than six hundred years since that excellent visionary made his moan over the law and the poor, and the drawback poverty has in the procedure of the Courts, there seems to have been no very unusual delay in Government taking the matter up. ”

“ Not only must this be done, but if we are to bring ourselves abreast of what already exists in foreign countries we must do a great deal towards cheapening the procedure even of the County Court for those who are poor. ”

“ But I should like to see imprisonment kept entirely for evil-doers, and that side of the police court work which consists in rate collecting and semi-civil proceedings transferred elsewhere. At present many are sent to gaol in the police court for the crime of poverty. In the cases of non-payment of rates or of orders on parents to pay subscriptions to industrial homes it seems a very bad policy to send a poor man to prison. It takes a man from [Pg 221] work, it does not produce money, and it throws a family into the workhouse. ”

“ In another place it is stated that the Poor Law Board had only been induced to permit the homes temporarily on the understanding that they were self-supporting—a contention hardly consistent with that of their illegality—whereas the boys who went out to work proved to cost something to the rates, though admittedly less than they would have cost in the workhouse. ”

“ Of course any improvement in the management of our Poor Law must involve an improvement in the Poor Law Board itself. As a Board it is a mere delusion. It never meets. The members in addition to the President, viz. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Home Secretary, the Lord Privy Seal, and the President of the Council, are mere dummies as far as Poor Law administration is concerned. ”

“ And as day by day the poor have more laws made to guide them into the way of righteousness, and more statutes are passed with the intention of making the life of the poor healthier, brighter, and better, and as, moreover, in this imperfect world the servants of the Evil One are always prowling round to cheat the poor of their rights, it would seem to follow that if Law Courts and litigation are to be the order of the day we must each of us have a panel lawyer to whom we can go when we want an injunction and our habeas corpus is not up to the mark. ”

“ Paupers who have been warned in vain concerning bad conduct and idleness shall be proceeded against without favour, by the power of magistrates, and be punished accordingly.
The poor institutions can claim repayment from those hypocrites who, although they possess private means, embezzle and grasp at the gifts and assistance which are only intended for true poverty, which shall be fully repaid. The poor institutions can make the same claim from those persons who have renounced their duty of supporting those relations whom they are obliged to support, either by law or by contract. ”