THE ABOLITION OF THE POOR LAW.
[To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—It is to be hoped that the public will take Dr. Addison at his word, and that the Report on "Transfer of Functions of the Poor Law Authorities in England and Wales " will receive " the widest publicity and the fullest discussion," for the administration of Public Assistance will become a matter of vital importance in the hard times that must come after the war.
The Committee complain justly that one feature of the existing chaos in regard to Public Assistance is the "conflicting principles of administration," but although they set out in some detail proposals for a new administrative machinery to supplant the Poor Law, and whilst they make it clear that with the Poor Law and its machinery should go also the principles upon which Poor Law relief in the past has been administered, they do not lay down any explicit principle upon which Public Assistance should be administered in the future. A careful study of the Report, however, reveals their intention. It is this : "Eligibility " (for all forms of Public Assistance) is to be "dependent on the pecuni- ary need of the person or family concerned." This phrase would seem to show that the Committee contemplate a time when any " person or family " whose income falls below a certain level shall have the right to claim " assistance in money or kind or otherwise, wholly or partly provided out of rates and taxes." " Economic circumstances " alone are to be inquired into. Character, clearly, is to be ignored when an applicant seeks to have some need "provided out of rates and taxes." The Com- mittee will tolerate no " policy of deterrence "; but they offer no alternative encouragement or incentive to thrift. In plain English, their principle means the public supplementation of wages. It has been tried before with disastrous results, and unless
some safeguard is introduced the results will be not less disastrous
if it is tried again.—I am, Sir, &c., L. F. Maas. Somewhere in France.
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