RELIEF OF THE POOR IN LONDON.
[TO THE EDTTOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
Sta,—I entirely agree with what has been urged in your columns, both by yourself and by correspondents, as to the necessity of organizing the confused attempts to relieve distress which are now playing across one another over the whole field of London poverty. It is not easy to exaggerate the moral mischiefs which have been done by the well-meant activity of benevolent persons in London during the last few years. But the policy of combining charitable with legal relief into one system, plausible as it is, and practicable as it has proved elsewhere, seems to me a mistaken one here. In London, and probably everywhere in England, the freedom which allows the poorer people to come and go and live exactly as they please, and the absence of social bonds and of a regulative public opinion in the poorest class, together with other special conditions, make a rigorous system necessary if pauperism is not to be fostered ; and it is therefore desirable that legal and charitable systems should be kept distinct, in order that the Poor Law may exhibit the rigour, whilst voluntary relief gives scope for discretionary liberality.
It is of no use to disguise from ourselves that hardness is necessary in dealing with pauperism. Upon the plan which I advocate, the benevolent must have the hardness to hand over those whom they have no hope of benefiting to the Poor Law. But having done this, they may disembarrass themselves of the responsibility, which no amateur benevolence is strong enough to bear, of treating the pauper class rigorously. The Poor-Law system ought to be stern, and not to make exceptions. Such an administration will involve much that is painful ; but we must choose the one thing or the other, a stern Poor-Law system or increased pauperism. It would be a comfort if, as many people suppose, we could apply the rigour to the able-bodied only, and be safely indulgent to the infirm. But what does this mean? It means that we encourage the working-class to throw their sick and aged upon the rates. This result cannot be avoided. And I fear that this practice is a growing one. It is sad to say it, but I suppose there is no country in Europe in which working people cast off their parents as they are now doing with us. I meet with new instances every day. In this parish there are many hundreds of aged persons supported by the rates and by charity, who have grown-up children—some have five or more, married and unmarried—who never think of " succouring" their parents in any substantial manner, and who probably seldom come near them. Nothing, I repeat, but genuine painful hardness, even in the relief of disabled persons, can be opposed to the temptation which acts so strongly upon the working poor to leave their aged and sick to be cared for by the parish. If the Poor-Law system is to be uniform,—and every experienced person will say that the attempt to deal variously with applicants according to character would cause more evils than it would cure, —we must remember that its scale must be adapted to a class peculiarly beset by temptation and little exercised in resisting it.
Throughout all its parts therefore,—or, if I would make an exception, it would be in its treatment of orphan children,—I hold that legal relief should be kept strictly to the minimum that is compatible with decent humanity. And in order that the system may be both uniform and inexorable, I am unwillingly convinced that the bureaucratic element ought to be the strongest in the working of the Poor Law. Voluntary relief might be administered on different principles. The aim constantly kept before it should be to save people from falling into pauperism or to help them out of it. The actual effect of an immense proportion of what is given is to foster pauperism, with its attendant fraud and idleness. Benevolence of the common kind should be constantly saying to itself, " I have relieved my own feelings, and I have given momentary pleasure to a fellow-creature, but I have probably promoted vice." This will not be remedied until a conviction is forced into the heart of society that the relief of distress is a difficult and delicate task, requiring experience, good sense, and self-denial. Surely this is true, and if so, it is obvious that the task should not be rashly meddled with by anybody. With such a conviction prevailing we might reasonably hope to see committees or boards organized, to cover particular districts, and to attempt for those districts whatever seems attainable by voluntary alms. There is a large field for such efforts in the work of aiding liberally those who are suffering from illness or accidents, of pensioning those who have none to help them when disabled, and of supplementing with caution in select cases or in exceptional emergencies the relief given by the parish. There would be a constant danger of transgressing these or the like prudent limits ; but those who have gained the right experience by looking steadily to the results of their giving will be continually receiving warnings of the danger. The best example of a permanent institution, such as I think a relief board should be, is perhaps to be found at Bath, in what is called the Monmouth Street Society.
" Charity, " to those who are in the daily habit of watching its effects on the morality of the poor, is like a wild creature let loose upon the products of costly industry, and using its strength in sheer lawlessness to do widespread and disheartening damage. It needs to be caught and tamed and made to work in harness. It may then do some useful service ; but it must never hope to play more than a small and humble part in the improvement of society. It is much easier for it to do harm than
good.—I am, Sir, &c., J. LL. DAVIES.
P.S.—Allow me to recommend to those interested in the subject a very wise and plain-spoken sermon on " East London Pauperism" (James Parker and Co.) by the Rev. Brooke Lambert, Vicar of St. Mark's, Whitechapel.
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