Later in the evening an attempt was made to let
in the paupers, and to allow the Pensions Committees to supple- ment out-relief given by the Guardians so as to bring up the incomes of persons over seventy in receipt of outdoor relief to 5s. a week. Though the Government resisted this, we are bound to say that such resistance was, from their point of view, quite incompatible with logic or justice. Consider for a moment what the Government are in effect doing. They say that the receipt of poor relief by a person over seventy, though that person may be in a position to give all the proofs of good conduct in his or her past life which a Pension Committee might ask for, is to dis- qualify for a pension. Those, however, who have kept free from poor relief hitherto are to be rewarded by being made State, as contrasted with local, paupers. Unless there is something wicked in taking relief from the rates, while there is something virtuous in taking it from the Imperial Exchequer, how can this course be defended ? It really looks as if the Government had become infected by some meta- physical distinction between rates and taxes such as that upon which "passive resistance" was based.
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