The Price of Pauperism • [This article and those to
folk*, based on researchrs largely unknown to the public, present an aspect of soeial reform too little considered to-day. Mr. Moore in his three succeeding articles will write on the-Pauper and the Slum, the Survival Value of the Unfit, and the Sterilization and Segregation of Defectives. - ED. Spectator.] mUCH alarm has been caused during the last few months by the publication of certain Blue Books showing the appalling cost of our "pauper army," /49,500,000—more than we pay, as it has-been pointed out, for the Army, owe of the most efficient fighting units • in the world.
The situation is not quite as bad as the figures and the phrase "pauper army" make it appear. A part of the cost is not that of pauperism in the true sense of the- word, but of unemployment, and is due to the general and coal strikes, other industrial difficulties, and to the political dishonesty of certain Boards of Guardians. These are - special, remediable circumstances which, we can reasonably hope, will sooner or later improve.
The real cost of pauperism to-day (taking the average of the years 1920-25) is just over £35,000,000. Even- this is an appalling sum in comparison with the average of £15,000,000 for the years 191144. The swift and enormous rise again- suggests that unemployment is the cause. But altered money values and a higher standard of living among paupers are chiefly responsible. The cost to the nation for each pauper in 1914 was a fraction under £20. In 1920-25 it hovered around /30.
The numbers and proportions of paupers are the important figures. In the three years immediately pre- ceding the War the number of paupers relieved averaged just Under 800,000. In 1924-25 this had risen to 1,200;000, a rise (per 10,000 of the population) from 222- to .870. These calculations are rough but substantially accurate. But even the year 1924-25 was not one of conspicuous industrial activity, whereas those just before ' the War were. Again, therefore, how much of that rise is due to a genuine lack of employment ? According to Professor Carr-Saunders and Mr. D. Caradog Jones, most of it is. These writers state* that the proportion of persons in receipt of relief " for causes other than unem- .ployment " is substantially the same to-day as it was before the War—between 218 and 245 per 10,000 of the Population. - But " unemployed " to-day is a term .which .covers 'multitude of sins. Regarded with just suspicion before the War, it is now almost- universally put forward *arid- accepted as an adequate excuse for destitution. It embraces alike. the 'first-class worker who cannot find -a job of any kind, the man who can only do one particular form of work, the man who can work and won't, and the man who is so inefficient that no employer will entrust him with the simplest form of job. It is, in short, impos- sible to estimate how many of the last two classes ought really to come under the head of" in receipt of relief for other causes than unemployment." We shall under- estimate the total which should be included 'under that head if we put it at one million, or over 2-5 .per cent, of the population.
This is the minimum percentage of permanent destitu- tion due to other causes than exceptional industrial dis- location, and it is a minimum which has tended to rise rather than to fall during the last 10-15_ years, despite the undoubted rise in the standard of living of the lowest.- paid classes during the period and the enormous efforts made to spread as many nets as possible between the unfortunate and the Poor Law. _ Workmen's Compensation, Unemployment Insurance (including " uncovenanted benek "),Health Insurance,ph Old Age Pensions, Widows' and Or- sna' Pensions— these are all forms of specialized relief which should leave only the smallest number of persons dependent on that residuary legatee, the Poor Law. The latter, as it is, supports between two and three per cent, of the population.
_ The ,causes which drive these unfortunate people to what should be regarded as the last ignominy are there- fore of interest. They are—taking the latest reliable figures before the General Strike—sickness, accident, Or bodily infirmity, 832,000; mental infirmity, 130,000; ill-health of a dependent, 5,000; other causes (including widowhood and orphanhood), 486,000. The grand total is 953,000 persons, or 2'45 per cent. of the population. Without knowing the exact figures, one can be tolerably certain that the number reduced to destitution by accident is negligible. Sickness and bodily and mental infirmity are therefore responsible for the condition of 462,000 paupers, practically one-third of the total number relieved. These persons stand together in a class by themselves, sharply marked off from the rest Of the population as being constitutionally incapable of maintaining themselves without help in the easiest con- ditions of life the world has yet known. Those who accept relief on account of the ill-health of a dependent should really be classed with them.
It is unfortunate that the official records do not set out in greater detail those "other causes" of destitution. Widows and orphans account for less than half and the remainder must for the present continue unknown. One wonders, though, whether they, too, would not show some kinship with the infirm were the records analysed.
Meanwhile, however, the widows and orphans offer an interesting point. Theirs are essentially bad luck cases, comparable to the genuine unemployment of a good workman in times of industrial depression. In recognition of this the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Act was passed and came into force in January, 1926. The effect was immediate. By the following January the numbers of such persons in receipt of Poor Relief had fallen by 88,000. This is the only one of our many Social services which has appreciably lowered thevolume- of pauperism, and it is the only one which has assisted. the genuinely unlucky as distinct from the constitutionally inadequate.
But constitutional inadequacy must be largely re- sponsible even for the widows and orphans supported hy. the State. Accidents do not make many widows,* and one may well ask what sort of a man he is that dies early leaving no provision for his widow. The part played by constitutional inadequacy in the making of orphans is stilt more important. It must be a very sickly father who dies before his children are of wage-earning age, and they, poer things, are therefore very liab/oLto inherit his sickly qualities. The child who has lost both parents. inherits an,even poorer resistance to disease, and must probably look forward to a life-time's dependence, more or less, on the Guardians. • I have said enough to indicate that the burden of pauperism is not, except for superficial fluctuations,, either a political or an industrial problem It is a human. and a biological problem, one which now costs the Stato. anything between thirty and thirty-five millions a year-in, Poor Relief alone. -to this figure, as I shall later show; rhe Socicd-Sf.-uclure of England and Wales: . -e4 Still fattier who are iackeither.insiired oiadeqiiately colispetisittek - must be added the four millions spent under the Lunacy and Mental Deficiency Acts, a goodly proportioa of the cost of crime, and an incalculable amount of the money so freely spent on housing and public health.
But serious as is the financial aspect and still more serious as it is likely to, become in the near future, it is not so serious as the human aspect. The number of persons relieved for causes other than unemployment has continued to rise steadily, despite the Widows' and Orphans' PdnSions Act, even since 1924. We already know that ours is a " C3 " nation. Do we wish it to become a pauper nation ? The rising numbers of the mentally and physically infirm or ineffective is surely a graver presage. of national deterioration than cocktails, short skirts, divorce, or even Communism !
ELDON MOORE.
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