THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2476, 15 April 1909, Page 2

THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY

TASK OF THE POOR LAW COMMISSIONERS ENDED.

A MONUMENTAL REPORT

(London Correspondent of the “Dunedin Star.”) LONDON. Feb. 19.

After three years of exhaustive inquiry the Poor Law Commission issued its majority and minority’ reports this week. They constitute the most important pronouncement on the Poor Law reform that has been made in this country for three-quarters of a century. The reform of the Poor Law in England is,at least fifty years overdue, but it remained for this Royal Commission, appointed in December* 1905, to make the most comprehensive and authoritative inquiry that has ever yet been made in regard to the treatment of poverty. The Royal Commission held 209 meetings, examined 452 witnesses, obtained evidence from 900 other persons, and from a number of special investigators who inquired into particular matters. Opinions on points of administration have been received from 1500 bodies directly and indirectly concerned with the work of administering the Poor Law. A hundred workhouses and workhouse infirmaries have been visited,, and a month was spent by the members in Scotland, where they' obtained the systems for caring for the poor as far away as the Western Hebrides. Their*' army, of trained investigators examined on the spot the relation of industrial and sanitary conditions to pauperism; the effects of employment given to the unemployed since 1886 as a means of relieving distress; the effects of out-door relief on wages; the results on applicants of a refusal of Boards to give them out-relief; the question of boy labor, and the results of administering indoor and out-door medical relief. Statistical inquiries made by the Commission included a census of all paupers on March 31, 1906. and the nature of the disease from which every sick pauper was suffering. The aid of the Churches of England, Wales, and Scotland was sought in order to ascertain the extent of poverty in each parish, and how far it was relieved by existing agencies. The Poor Law system of nearly every country, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada were examined, and since last October an exhaustive examination into the subject of unemployment has been conducted, reports having been obtained from every Distress Committee. The Blue Boo'k, in which the reports have been already published, is a mighty tome, extending to 2000 pages. The evidence and statistics will occupy, it is estimated, another forty volumes. THE COMMISSIONERS. Every member of this great Commission is a recognised authority in some branch of social economics. Lo('d George Hamilton, the * chairman,<• whose parliamentary career extended frim 1868 to 1903, has served- at the head of the Board of Education, and also as chairman of the Dofidon School Board. The Hon. Charles Booth is famous for his monumental work in “The Life and Labor of "the Poor in London.” Mrs. Sydney Webb, a member of the Fabian Society Executive, is joint author with her 'husband of a number of standard works on trade unionism, local government, and industrial democracy. The Rev. H. Russell Wakefield is chairman of the (Unemployed) Body for London, and has devoted many years of bis life to work among the poor. Air. C. S. Loch is secretary of the Charity Society, and has thirtyfour years’ experience of the study of problems of poverty. Other of the Commissioners who have had practical experience in the work of administering the Poor Laws are Mr. Bentham, Mr. Francis Chandler, Dr. Downes (the chief of the Poor Law Medical Department of the Local Government Board), and the Rev. T. Ga go Gardiner. Then there is Mr. George Lansbury, Labor Socialist member of the Poplar Board of Guardians, once a member of Mr. Walter Long’s London Unemployed Committee, and now prominent on the (Unemployed) Body for London. Mr. Handcock Nunn has devoted the greater part of the last twentyfive years to the study of the unemployed question. The Rev. L. R. Phelps, a distinguished economist, follow, and tutor of Oriel College, Oxford ; Professor Smart, of Glasgow’; and Airs. Bosanquet, of St. Andrews, were also members of this remarkable Commission. THE BREAKDOWN OF-THE POOR LAW.

Two reports have been issued by the Commission —a majority and a minority. The latter bears the signature, of Mrs. Sidney Webb, the Rev. llussell Wakefield, Mr. George Lansburv, and Mr. Francis Chandler, and was drawn up by Mrs. Webb. It is a remarkably able document, based, not only upon the evidence laid before the Commission, but also upon a searching and independent investigation, carried out under Mrs. Webb’s private direction throughout the length and breadth of the land. It proposed a radically different solution, but it is at one* with the majority report in its condemnation of the existing system. While the minority report goes some distance side by side with that of the majority, there is a broad difference of principle in handling the problems which have resulted from the breakdown of the Poor Law. As to that break-down both majority and minority arc agreed, and both recommend : A discontinuance of the term ‘•Poor Law” with its unpleasant associations. The use of the phrase “public assistance” instead of “Poor Law relief.” . ■ i A complete change in the present; constitution of workhouses. The provision of special accommodation for the sick, the aged, the mentally feeble, and the young. Closer co-operation between public assistance and private charity. A national scheme of labor exchanges. Labor colonies for the workless, with places of detention, with suitable labor for the “won’t woi'ks:” Relief works as at present organised are condemned. as demoralising by both parties on the Commission. HOARD OF. GUARDIANS CGN-V DEM NED. Both reports condemn the existing system ol Boards of Guardians, in connection with which so many scandals have been brought to light in the past year or two. It is probable that the Boards of Guardians and their workhouses will not long survive the publication of these reports, and few will, regret their disappearance. They have , > r”-(. f ] rtterly inadequate to the needs of the situation. It is with regal'd to the authority

that shall replace the Guardians that the two reports widely differ. The minority on the Commission wish to break up the Poor Law altogether, and to transfer piecemeal to the local authorities already in existence the various functions of the old Board of Guardians. That is to say,' in any one county area the children would be transferred to the Education Committee of the County Council, the sick and infants to the Health Committee, the mentally defective of all ages to the Asylum Committee, and the aged in receipt of pensions to the Pension Com-' mittee. This proposal has its attractive features, but is open to the objection that it would turn all these various committees of the county and borough councils into relief authorities, and gravely hamper them in their ordinary work. The majority of the Royal Commissioners contend that what is needed is “a disinterested authority, practised at looking at all sides of a question, and able to call in skilled assistance.” They therefore propose to enlarge the unit of the administrative area from the union to that of the county and borough and to set up in each a public assistance authority, which shall be a statutory committee of the county or borough council, with public assistance committees working under their direction. These authorities and committees would have skilled permanent officers to guide their policy under Local Government Hoard direction, and thus obtain, for the first time, a real uniformity of Treatment. The < Commissioners are strong oir the point that the authorities and committees should not - be chosen by public election. They propose that half the members of the public assistance authorities should be appointed by the councils from outside. Committees representing various local charities will work in conjunction with these public authorities, in order, if possible, to avoid the waste and overlapping at present associated with charitable aid. TO ABOLISH THE MIXED WORKHOUSE. Both reports, condemn the. general mixed workhouse, in. which are herded tramps, idiots, aged people, children, and able-bodied paupers. To complete the abolition of this kind of workhouse is unanimously recommended. No children should bo loft in the workhouses. The institutions should _be specialised, and the inmates' classified according to their conduct and character. The aged should be placed in public homes sot apart for the purpose, the able-bodied in labor colonies, where they may be braced up and toned to a higher level, and the wastrels packed oft to a detention colony, and given the stern option of working or starving. For unemployment the majority report recommends home assistance lor temporarily unemployed of good char* actor, and labor colonies, so as to avoid, as far as possible, the terrible demoralisation that attends the man who has :-.o hang around with no work to do. The detention colonies for men who can work but do not want to are regarded as an absolutely essential feature of any scheme dealing with unemployment. .. The Commission also recommends that there be no disqualification or any sort of medical relief. THE CURSE OF BOY LABOR. The main causes of unemployment are held to be: (1) casual labor and (2) boy labor. Casual labor is described as dangerous to the social life of tno community and disastrous to the casual worker and his family. The Commissioners insist that all available means should be taken to regularise employment, and that the Board of Trade officers might be sent to ports to confer as to means of reducing intermittent employment to small dimensions. Even more serious is the disposition of boys to plunge, into remunerative labor, wliich leaves them of no value in the labor market when boyhood is passed. Between 70 and 80 per cent, of boys leaving the elementary schools go into unskilled labor occupations. To avoid, as far as possible, this terrible wastage the majority recommend:

■That boys should be kept at school until the age of fifteen. That', exemption below this age should be granted only to boys leaving to learn -a- skilled trade; That there should be improved facilities for technical education for boys after they leave school. That the Board of Education should provide a different curriculum at the elementary schools, whose atmosphere now is uncongenial to the career of manual labor. There is also a declaration that “some of us believe in a universal system of a short military training.” The minority urge that no young person under eighteen should he employed for more than thirty hours per week, and that all young persons* so employed should be required te attend for-. thirty hours per week at suitable trade schools, to be maintained by the London educational authorities. The hours of duty of railway, tramway and omnibus workers should be reduced, it not to forty-eight, at any rate to not more than sixty in any one week as a maximum.