THE MANUFACTURE OF PAUPERS.* V. — SHELTERS AND REFUGES.
IT is from that section of the unemployed—by far the largest section, we fear—which is more anxious to find excuses for not working than to find work that our charitable shelters and refuges draw the larger number of their inmates, thereby helping to maintain that section, and to obstruct any satisfactory solution of the problem of genuine unemployment. In this
Pi The articles in this series are contributed by different writers,—each an expert in his own subject. Hence, though the general aim and purpose are the same, a difference in point of view may occasionally be visible. and there may also be occasional overlapping. It has been thought better not to suppress the individualism thus apparent in the articles, nor to attempt the production of a rigid uniformity by editorial omissions, alterations, and additions. An essential harmony produced by the adoption of common principles, and by the desire to awaken the public to the evils caused by the manufacture of paupers, is, however, visible throughout the series. Next week's article will deal with " The Attractiveness of Poor Law Institutions."— En. Spectator.]
indirect fashion, shelters and refuges may be said with truth to manufacture paupers. But the direct influence they exercise, on the lives of their inmates, is still less satis- factory, although, in spite of this fact, it is not difficult to see how the genesis of such institutions in the present day was entirely- natural and well-intentioned. Each of us must have had experience of the man who knocks at our door after six o'clock on a cold winter's evening, stating that he has been on the tramp all day looking fruitlessly for work, and begging for the price of a night's lodging. We probably credit his story, and give him our pity and a shilling. Then we muse vaguely that it would be a good plan to have places to which men in such sore straits could be sent; and these vague musings, gradually taking shape, result in the movement to provide, here a free refuge, and there a shelter where for a light task bed and board can be easily secured. It is worthy of note in passing that many of the supporters of these institutions are entirely ignorant of the provision the State makes (in England) for homeless wayfarers in its casual wards, while others condemn the latter's regulations about the task of work to be performed, because they are under the belief that the homeless way- farer is always pressing eagerly forward after a job which the shortest detention may cause him to lose, a belief which will not bear investigation. According to trustwort by authority, there is accommodation in Loudon shelters for about three thousand three hundred persons (the Metro- politan casual wards accommodate about nineteen hundred) ; and when one thinks of the quota that the other large towns could add, and remembers that if it is not always fully taxed, yet at times it is much increased, one can hardly escape the painful conviction that we have here a serious social evil with which we are not grappling as strenuously as we ought. It cannot be good either for the community or for these unfortunate men or women them- selves that they should be huddled together night after night in practically free lodging with nothing to lose, no stake in their country's welfare, subject to none of the restraining influences which the possession of even the poorest home carries with it. For it is, of course, a mistake to suppose that the inmates of shelters are only there for a night or two. On the contrary, it is extraordinarily difficult, except in the case of young lads, to chance upon an inmate who is not an habitu6 of such places, slowly making the round, with periodic changes to the casual ward or the common lodging-house, or possibly for a short time to a house or lodging of his own. No one can pretend that the tendency of such a manner of life is not demoralising ; nor are the inside conditions of the ordinary shelter likely to counteract this demoralisation. For example, the standard of cleanliness is admittedly low ; the com- pulsory bathing and disinfecting of clothes of the casual ward cannot be enforced in the same rigid way ; the colour of the bedding would often seem to suggest that it, had been chosen with a view to hide dirt rather than to reveal it; the atmosphere of the dormitories is apt to become overheated and impure. Thus, without making exaggerated statements as to the proportion of criminal or really ill-doing men who frequent shelters, it is obvious that if even a few of such men are thrown together under these indifferent material conditions with a number of men of weak character or poor physique and in varying degrees of destitution, the moral effect cannot be purifying or invigorating, but very much the reverse. Even if those in charge are of the right sort—earnest, devoted men—how can one reasonably expect their influence to be felt under such hampering conditions?
Further, a shelter life is demoralising, not only for those who are accustomed to it, but because its seems to have a considerable power of attracting new recruits. It is true this statement is often challenged. " Wherein," people ask, "can the attraction of such a life possibly lie? 'I And no doubt there is little or none to the man who holds a fairly assured position in the labour world. But it must not be forgotten that there are many hundreds who pick up a livelihood by doing casual jobs, and who are not at all reluctant to foregothe effort of even such light work if without it they can secure any sort of bed and board. Many of those casual workers live in common lodging- houses, where they pay a fair price for the accommodation they receive, yet a price within even their small resourocs. But if a shelter be opened in the neighbourhood of a common lodging-house, the latter will be half emptied, many inen preferring to receive the necessaries of life free or for a merely nominal price, and have an extra six- pence or shilling each evening to spend on its pleasures.
This fact, which has been observed in Manchester and elsewhere, was pointed out by several witnesses before the recent Departmental Committee on Vagrancy.
Moreover, if the report goes abroad (as somehow it always does) that shelters, or free meals, abound in any particular town or district of a town, numbers will flock in from other places to avail themselves of these—mercies(?) Thus, when a new shelter is opened and speedily filled, and its advocates exclaim : " Surely this proves the need for it !" all that in reality has been proved is that a supply of charity invariably creates an adequate demand, aud that the shelter can, and does, undersell both the common lodging-house and the casual ward. A man in the habit of using shelters, casual wards, and very occasionally common lodging-houses, once proudly remarked to the writer that he Anew his town so well he didn't need to pay for the roof above him, or the food he ate, more than three months out of the twelve." Surely that is the quintessence of the spirit of pauperism, whether the relief that man secured came through the Poor Law or through charity. But who is responsible for this manufacturing of paupers ? The pity is that those who help to start or main- tain shelters, refuges, or night asylums do not always take practical steps to test their usefulness. This they could do by requiring that the men applying for admission be care- fully and sympathetically questioned, and then, as far as is possible, their stories promptly inquired into ; and, better still, by having a systematic attempt made to follow up each man when he leaves, in order to know what becomes of him. This would not, of course, be an easy thing to do, and apparently no shelter attempts it in any thorough fashion, not even those which, in so far as they keep their men for considerable times, and insist upon their doing some work in return for bed and board, approach more nearly to labour colonies. (There are several of such " industrial shelters," e.g., in Scotland, where it must be remembered the Poor Law makes no provision for the relief of the able- bodied, and where there are in consequence no casual wards.) Yet obviously this is the only real test by which those who promote these institutions can obtain trustworthy information as to whether they are tending to breed good citizens, or are simply manufacturing paupers. Unhappily, not only one's fears, but one's common-sense, suggest that the latter result is the more probable, And if so, what justification can we plead for thus aiding and abetting those poor persons to become " chronics," by removing the one spur, necessity, which might urge them to work for their daily bread, and so in a manner maintain their independence, while at the same time we supply no new motive-power to help them to lead a better life ? If the shelters are really to create citizens, not paupers, their promoters must do two things. They must segregate, classify their inmates, break the mass up into units, and get to know somethinc, of these units and of their past history. Then they must arrange some scheme of co- operation between their respective institutions, so that their work may be complementary and not overlapping. Secondly, the one night's, or the one week's, or even the one month's stay must be abolished ; if a man has come down so far that he needs to take refuge in a shelter at all, he will not be started afresh on the upward path in one night, one week, or one month. In other words, shelters must become industrial or labour colonies. Further, those persons whom there seems no hope of improving under such conditions should be left to the Poor Law authorities to deal with as they think right. The State, moreover, is the proper source from which bona. fide travellers in search of work, but destitute of the wherewithal to pay their way, may get necessary food and shelter without being unduly detained to work for it. A carefully devised system of " way-tickets " could be made to meet their needs.
In conclusion, if it be urged that it is practically impossible to work shelters and refuges in such a fashion as that just indicated, because it would involve too great labour and trouble, one would respectfully submit that while this argument may be an explanation, it is not an excuse for the present state of things. If we interfere at all in the lives of the poor, we are morally responsible for making our interference beneficent and not hurtful ; and if we give a free breakfast or a free bed, and stop there, we are inevitably harming and not helping. An investigation into the results of shelters and refuges would do more than anything else to strengthen the fast-growing belief that the time has come for some official regulation of charitable enterprise. With all the goodwill in the world, one section of the community is nevertheless not entitled to open an institution for another section's use if it can be clearly proved, as we believe it can in this instance,`that only harm, direct and indirect; will thereby accrue to the whole body politic.
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