THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY AND POOR: LAW REFORM
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—The Minister of Health is shortly to promulgate a scheme for a new Poor Law. It is therefore important that as many people as possible should be thinking about the best type of administration for this important branch of the public service.
The work is very difficult, is of a kind which should obviously be kept as far as possible from anything like.party feeling or mob pressure, and is eminently unsuitable for people without ripe experience. At the same time • it is desirable that the administration should command confidence, and that the machinery to be set up should be of the kind preferred by the public, if such can be discovered. The great majority of the population now receives assistance from public funds in one form or another, and has therefore a varied experience of different types of administration. Taking their experience in London in chronological order : the baby before and after birth is aided either by servants of voluntary associations or of the local sanitary authority ; the school child is aided by servants of the County Authority and by voluntary workers who are appointed by that authority to serve on its Care Committees or its School Managers ; should the child fall a victim to tubercle he is succoured by a mixed committee of persons elected to the local sanitary authority and voluntary workers appointed to the Committee ; the task of guiding him into industry after he leaves school is entrusted to a committee appointed by the Minister of Labour ; his recreation is arranged by voluntary workers to some extent organized by an officer paid from public funds but controlled by a voluntary com- mittee ; after sixteen he receives National Health Insurance benefit from the servants of a commercial company ; and unemployment benefit from a Committee appointed by the Minister of Health ; should he catch a fever he is looked after by an indirectly elected body, the Metropolitan Asylums Board ; should he be run over in the street he is succoured almost cer- tainly by a purely voluntary institution, the voluntary hos- pital ; should he have been injured in the War he is cared for by an appointed committee ; should he become deranged he is cared for by a committee of the County Authority ; should he be mentally defective he comes under a voluntary association financed by two national authorities and managed by a nominated committee ; in old age his pension depends upon the decision of an excise officer, an appointed committee and the Ministry of Health ; but if, in the course of his pilgrimage, he has the misfortune to run short of the necessaries of life, it is to a committee of his neighbours, perhaps personal acquaintances whom he has helRed to put into office by his own votes, the directly elected Guardians of the Poor, that he goes for succour.
It is impossible to imagine that if the beneficiaries found one of these numerous arrangements greatly preferable to another they would not by now have made their preference known ; and in particular had their choice fallen upon the last named type a committee of their local acquaintance elected by themselves—they would have been loud in their demand to have all their assistance managed on similar lines. Yet no one can pretend that they have expressed any such preference or made any such demand. It is common knowledge that this authority, the Board of Guardians, is unpopular, and is the only one of the whole set which is frequently mobbed. Further, of all the elected authorities in this country, it is the one which brings the fewest—and grotesquely few—voters to the poll, despite the direct pecuniary reward held out to the indi- vidual voter, and the persistent efforts made to awaken his enthusiasm by evoking his cupidity.
A review of these simple and familiar facts makes it obvious that no principle of democracy commits the country to a directly elected local committee for the administration of Public Assistance, but that, on the contrary, popular pre- ference inclines strongly against the very machinery which most people seem to assume in a fatalistic spirit to be inevitable for that purpose.
The directly elected authority does not usually answer the
description with which we set out ; to secure such a personnel as we have indicated, wide powers of selection in an appointing authority are necessary. Nor is it only a question of securing a body of ripe experience free from party excitement and unin- fluenced by mobs. To-day a great volume of scientific research is available for the guidance of committees engaged upon such tasks as public assistance. The ballot box possesses no magic charm enabling it to search out persons capable of under- standing and applying science. Furthermore, the multiplicity of agencies enumerated above make it obvious that one of the first requirements in a Public Assistance Authority is a know- ledge and understanding of other agencies and a readiness to co-operate cordially with them. Selection can find, or, after a process of weeding out, finally find, members having the co-operative spirit. The ballot box never can. On the Contrary, direct election tends to give to those elected a strong sense of being a law unto themselves and an attitude of exclusion, if not hostility, to all other agencies whatever.
Not less than 2,500 years of recorded experience warns us of the difficulty of administering outdoor relief in such a manner as to prevent its having highly detrimental results. It is obvious that the persons controlling it should be chosen with the utmost possible care, and should do their work as far removed as may be from political pressure and excitement. Similar work on a large scale is being done to-day by appointed committees, selected for the work either by Government departments or by local authorities themselves elected to perform a huge round of duties other than those of any one of the committees they appoint. So far as can be ascertained, this is taking place with full popular approval. Opposition. to its extension to outdoor relief will doubtless be noisy, but it will only come actually from very small coteries and caucuses,. eager to retain or secure this terribly simple means of buying political power , and on every sane principle of democracy it can and ought to be disregarded.—I am, Sir, &c., J. C. PRINGLE, ' [No institution in the country has so great a right as the Charity Organization Society to express ,its opinion on the reform of the Poor Law. We entirely agree with Mr. Pringle's lucid argument. Certain Boards of Guardians have become among the most dangerous elements in the country. Without the legal power to levy rates they indirectly do succeed in levying rates that strangle and demoralize. They have turned themselves into little Soviets, and, as we have said before, if we do not destroy them they will certainly destroy us.— En. Spectator.] _ _ _ _
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