Poor Laws

“ I might rest the whole argument on the propriety of destroying the poor laws, on this singular instance of the baneful effects of the laboring poor transferring the care of providing for themselves to others. So destructive is the principle that it operates an entire change in the national character. ”

“ No doubt, however, its good effects will be but slowly perceived, and I fear there is much disappointment in store for the millions of poor labourers, who expect to have abundance of food and clothing the moment the Bill becomes a law. Poor creatures, their state is most deplorable and haunts me day and night. The very best of Poor Laws must be quite insufficient. Indeed, wherever there is a necessity for a Poor Law at all there must be something wrong, I think; for if each proprietor, farmer and clergyman did his duty there would be no misery, and if they do not, no Poor Law can prevent it. ”

“ Grant that the poor-laws are just; grant that every necessitous creature has a right to demand relief from some parish or other; grant that the law has most effectually provided that every man shall be protected against the effects of hunger and of cold; grant these, and then the law which compels the man without house or land to take up arms and risk his life in defence of the country, is a perfectly just law ”

“ The principal object of these receptacles seems to have been not to accommodate the needy, but to deter them from applying for relief: as a preliminary every domestic comfort was to be sacrificed—their little property seized for the benefit of the parish—every hope of returning to their own fireside extinguished. Who can view these mansions of misery without horror? This springs from that radical error in the administration of the poor laws which confounds vice and virtue, and equally entitles both to relief. To guard against the idle and the profligate the unfortunate are the victims. ”

“ Commentaries on the Laws of England, he says, “the law not only regards life and member, and protects every man in the enjoyment of them, but also furnishes him with every thing necessary for their support. For there is no man so indigent or wretched, but he may demand a supply sufficient for all the necessaries of life from the more opulent part of the community, by means of the several statutes enacted for the relief of the poor; a humane provision dictated by the principles of society.” ”

“ As you have done me the honour to refer more than once to my work on Population, and to express your conviction of the truth of its fundamental principles, I trust you will pardon the liberty I take in offering to you a few remarks, which an attentive perusal of your bill on the Poor Laws has suggested. ”

“ Putting all idea of the abolition of the Poor Laws out of the question, let us consider the general principles on which they ought to be improved. And here we are quite agreed, that the great object should be, to elevate as much as possible the general character of the lower classes of the community, and to draw a more marked line between the dependent and independent labourer. ”

“ Again, however, I observe, and with this I conclude, that we have nothing to do but to adhere to the poor-laws which we have; that the poor have nothing to do, but to apply to the overseer, or to appeal from him to the magistrate; that the magistrate has nothing to do but duly to enforce the law; and that the government has nothing to do, in order to secure the peace of the country, amidst all the difficulties that are approaching, great and numerous as they are; that it has nothing to do, but to enjoin on the magistrates to do their duty according to our excellent law ”

“ The poor laws have in themselves the essence of revolution, for if you once establish the right of the poor man to any portion of the property of the rich, you admit a precedent so far dangerous, that the poor may eventually decide for themselves what portion it may be that they may be pleased to take ”

“ To write an essay on the law and the poor in relation to the relief of distress would be to traverse the whole ground of this famous report, but for my own part I only want to call attention to an institution typical of all the faults and errors of the Poor Law—the workhouse.
For if the rich have by their laws made a mess of the alehouse, what about the other public-house—the workhouse? When you have no money to enable you to take your ease at your inn the only other hostelry open for you and your wife and children is the Poor House. ”

“ I have dwelt on this subject at some length because in most of the chapters of this book my complaint has been that the laws are insufficient to help the poor, because they have in past days been enacted by the rich, and are still being administered by the rich, without knowledge of, and sympathy for, the best interests of the poor. ”

“ Nearly all the law relating to the poor will be found to be defective to our modern sympathies, just because it is a patching up of the ancient cruel pagan law of past ages and does not break bravely away from the old superstitious uses and close for ever the volumes of laws that were made in the days when liberty and equality and fraternity were words of anarchy and rebellion. ”

“ To make the advantages of a system of Poor Laws counterbalance its disadvantages, it seems to be necessary that they should be so confined in their operation, as not to depress the wages of labour below what is sufficient for the support of the average number of children that might be expected from each marriage. ”

“ But those who are convinced of its truth, may, with the most anxious desire of extending the comforts and elevating the condition of the lower classes of society, rationally express their apprehensions, that the attempt to sanction by law a right which in the nature of things cannot be adequately gratified, may terminate in disappointment, irritation, and aggravated poverty. ”

“ And besides the Indecency of shewing a Disregard to the Laws in being, nothing surely can be more improper than to suffer the Idleness of the Poor, the Cause of so much Evil to the Society, to go entirely unpunished.
And yet should the Magistrate do his Duty as he is required, will the Intent and Purpose of the Legislature be answered? The Parliament was, indeed, too wise to punish Idleness barely by Confinement. Labour is the true and proper Punishment of Idleness, for the same Reason which the excellent Dr. Swift gives why Death is the proper Punishment of Cowardice. ”

“ And I still think that if we weigh on the one hand the great quantity of subjection and dependence which the poor laws create, together with the kind of relief which they afford, against the greater degree of freedom and the higher wages which would be the necessary consequence of their abolition, it will be difficult to believe that the mass of comfort and happiness would not be greater on the latter supposition, although the few that were then in distress would have no other resource than voluntary charity. ”

“ Thus, instead of a sudden realisation of benefit the people found themselves worse off than ever, lower wages, new and oppressive poor-laws, no voice in the law-making, and quite at the mercy, wherever they possessed the limited franchise, of the will of their masters. ”

“ Although the criminal law has in the main been fairly administered and equally enforced against rich [Pg 199] and poor there are certain classes of laws which have often, no doubt from worthy motives, been used as engines of oppression against the poor. ”

“ It would still be true however that the Poor Laws even in such a state would have a tendency to depress the independent labourer, to weaken in some degree the springs of industry and good conduct, and to put virtue and vice more on a level than they would be in the natural course of things ”

“ Do they not abridge the scanty means of the poor in the free use of their bare-cropt commons? And do they not transfer those means to others who do not want them, and who, without the aid of new laws could never have enjoyed them? ”

“ In the first place, there has been reform of the poor laws. So corrupt had this system become, that a distinct caste had well nigh sprung into permanent existence, families having been known to subsist in idleness for five generations solely by means of skilful appropriation of public and private charities.
The law giving to paupers the preference in all cases where any public work was to be done, operated badly. Good workmen might starve for want of work: by declaring themselves paupers they obtained employment. ”

“ The laws of the country are, therefore, ineffectual and abortive, because they are made by the rich for the poor, by the wise for the ignorant, by the respectable and exalted in station for the very scum and refuse of the community. ”

“ The laws to-day are defences of the foolish rich against the ignorant and hungry poor. The laws to-day, like the laws of the past, make more criminals than they punish. The laws keep the people ignorant and poor, and the rich idle and vicious. ”

“ But though to banish poverty from society be a task which, if not absolutely impossible, is clearly beyond the power of legislative regulations; yet the slightest glance at the state of different countries will indicate such important variations in the pressure of this evil, as to give us the best grounded hopes of being able to lighten a burden which we cannot remove. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When a harsh and parsimonious law was substituted for one which was excellent in itself, but had been long and sadly misused; when poverty was first virtually pronounced criminal, and punished by statute; when the vices of the past, and the follies of rich magistrates, were visited upon the present generation, and upon the heads of the poor; when those whom God had joined together were put asunder by legislation, and when a deputy parliament, irresponsible directly to the people, was created to make laws and regulations for those who are denied a voice in the senate, or a vote at an election ”

“ It is further germane to the improvement of the poor that a reform of the law in points in which it is confessedly at variance with laws designed by the Creator for the good of the human race should be made. ”

“ At length this state of things became changed: men entered into society; they made laws to restrain individuals from following, in certain cases, the dictates of their own will; they protected the weak against the strong; the laws secured men in possession of lands, houses, and goods, that were called THEIRS; the words MINE and THINE, which mean my own and thy own, were invented to designate what we now call a property in things. The law necessarily made it criminal in one man to take [Pg 11] away, or to injure, the property of another man. ”

“ The following extract from these laws shows, that the moment civil society began to exist, that moment the law took care that people should not be starved to death. That moment it took care, that provision should be made for the destitute, or that, in cases of extreme necessity, men were to preserve themselves from death by taking from those who had to spare. ”

“ The extreme severity of the law shows how grievous the burdens for the maintenance of the poor were felt, and that it was deemed necessary to check the evil by attaching degradation to pauperism. The humanity of later times has removed it from the statute book: the extent of the evil had long rendered the enforcing it impracticable. The act is so strong a proof of the rapid diffusion of the mischievous effects of the system, that I cannot omit reciting a part of it to the House. ”

“ I shall only add, the Necessity of it, in order to execute the Intention of the Legislature, in compelling the Idle to work; for is it not the same Thing to have the Liberty of working or not at your own Pleasure, and to have the absolute Nomination of the Price at which you will work? The Idleness of the common People in this Town is, indeed, greatly to be attributed to this Liberty; most of these, if they cannot exact an exorbitant Price for their Labour, will remain idle. ”

“ Such is the Law that relates immediately to the Maintenance of the impotent Poor; a Law so very ample in its Provision, so strongly fortified with enforcing Powers, and so cautiously limited with all proper Restraints, that, at first Sight, it appears sufficiently adequate to every purpose for which it was intended, but Experience hath convinced us of the contrary.
And here I am well aware of the delicate Dilemma to which I may seem reduced; since how shall I presume to suppose any Defects in a Law, which the Legislature seems to have laboured with such incessant Diligence? ”

“ To remedy the frequent distresses of the common people, the poor laws of England have been instituted; but it is to be feared, that though they may have alleviated a little the intensity of individual misfortune, they have spread the general evil over a much larger surface. ”