LEGAL PROVISION FOR THE POOR.
'1.1TERE has been no announcement by the Ministers of any specific plan thr the amenihnent of the Poor-laws All that the nation has been told is, that the Government has a pleasure in pelt°, which is to produce great results; and afibrd that relief to the agricultural interest, which a reduction of taxation, even though that reduction should extend to the abolition of the duty on malt, or five millions a year, would never bring. If the Poor-rates can be reduced by five millions annually, we agree with Sir Ronsair PEEL, that it wordd be much wiser to endeavour to obtain relief in that quarter, than by reducing the duty on malt ; which would soon be added to the rent of barley land. But there is evidently considerable scepticism as to whether the burden of the Poor-rates can be alleviated in any great degree. The poor, it is said, will continue to increase and multiply as usual : there they are, and we must maintain them. This lazy despondency is contemptible. The question being one of extreme difficulty, must be grappled with resolutely, though with caution. There is no doubt, that of the multitudes of paupers whom we maintain, merely because they are "there," a large pottion could be made to maintaiu themselves at home; a still larger perhaps would find profitable employdent abroad, were emigration conducted, as in one instance at least we trust it soon will be, on rational and well-constructed plans.
The Government is perfectly justified in anticipating extensive benefit to the country from a real, not merely theoretical, amendment of the Poor-law system. Though we have no certain means of knowing what the Government plans are, it is reasonable to suppose that they will resemble those indicated in the recently published Report of the Poor-Law Commissioners. In this view, the Report becomes a very important document, and deserving of much consideration.
In the last Number of the Spectator we called attention to some of the leading remedies which are proposed in the Report for the evils of the present system; and contrasted that system in some of its modes of operation with the more economical plans adopted by our French neighbours for the relief of the really indigent and afflicted. We have since found time to give the Report a mere attentive perusal ; and have likewise read some of the strictures upon it which have appeared in the newspapers. Among these, a writer in the courier is rather severe upon the Commissioners. He does not indeed say, with Mr. Coanwrr, that they are as practically ignorant of the subject as bishops, barristers, and newspaper reporters must necessarily be ; but he charges them with
neglecting an important part of their duty— with dwelling merely upon the abuses of the institutions, and with writing like partisans instead of calm inquirers after truth. Some of these animadversions are not ill-founded. The first charge is made out against the Commissioners in the following passage.
" Instead of confining themselves to an exposition of the actual administration of the Poor-laws, the Commissioners ought, we think, to have clearly traced the successive changes made in the laws, and the various alterations in thew mode of management, and have pointed out the exact practical consequences of each. There are abundant materials for framing an historical analysis of this sort ; and had it been executed with due care, and in a fair unpreJadiced spirit, it would have been most valuable, and would have thrown ten times more light on the sources of the existing evils, and the best means of obviating them, than will ever be derived from the ill-digested reports of individuals sent into the country to hunt for evidence. It needed not the appointment of Commissioners to establish the fact that gross abuses existed in the administration of the Poor-laws : the principal object ought to have been to show how these abuses originated, because such knowledge is indispensable to those who undertake their reform."
It is going too far to charge the Commissioners with being thoroughgoing partisans. There is a bias however : and truly we
do not wonder that the system of compulsory relief should have found little favour in their eyes. Their inquiries produced such a mass of abuses for their inspection, that the beauties of the system were hardly visible, if indeed such exist. The tendency of the Report is certainly to the abolition of compulsory relief: all the facts and reasonings adduced bear in that direction. So strong, however, is the hold which the present system has laid upon the country, that its amendment, not abolition, is all that even these " thoroughgoing partisans," these Commissioners, who think a compulsory provision for the poor "productive only of mischief," have dared to recommend in direct terms. The question, therefore, of its abolition or continuance, is not fairly before us. The best means for rendering it less onerous, and more efTectual for its intended purpose, are the points to be considered.
The first great remedial measure of the Commissioners, is the appointment of a Central Board to control the administration of tile Poor-laws, with such assistant Commissioners as may be found
requisite. To this recommendation the Courier decidedly objects ; seeing nothing better in it than a means of jobbing, and of pro viding places for a few individuals. It would be hazardous to contradict the Courier on this head—to say that there would be no jobbing in the appointments to seats at the Board : we dare say there would be,—since even Lord ALTHORP now repudiates the idea of carrying on the Government without patronage. But it is easy to say of any scheme for amending a faulty institution— "No, that will never do:" is any thing better proposed ? Yes, our contemporary sees no difficulty in the matter. He admits, that " the most fruitful source of the abuses that have grown out of the English Poor-laws, has been the defective constitution of the parochial tribunals, and the interference of the Justices :" but he, notwithstanding, stickles for consigning the management of the Poor-laws principally to "people of property." This is our contemporary's grand panacea. Only let the rich have the care of the poor, and all will be well. For this end, he would altogether exclude all persons not possessed of" a considerable amount of property "—however active, well-informed, and benevolent—from theVestries. How any person can have lived in England till he arrived at man's estate, and seen the operation of the Corn-laws, the Gamelaws, the Criminal Code, and ninety-nine out of a hundred of the statutes at large, and yet argue in favour of the exclusive claim of men of" considerable property" to manage the Poor-laws—to expend the money of the great mass of the population as seemeth to them most wise and fitting—strikes us as being marvellous in no slight degree. We have abundant proof of the baneful consequences of the interference of the rich in the administration of the Poor-laws. Some circumstances are stated in this very Report, which go to confirm all that we know or have heard on this subject. To say that because the rich and the powerful are interested in a discreet management of the Poor-laws, therefore that they will manage them discreetly, is mere childishness; as the annals of British legislation, and the present state of the lauded interest, sufficiently prove. It is the interest of all men to be prudent, and honest, and kind to inferiors; but are they so? In pages 9 and 10 of the Report, there is an account of the gains made by men of property by building a vast number of small cottages for paupers, the rents of which are regularly paid by the parish. This is one of the worst abuses of the Poor-laws, and is particularly felt in Wales ; but the system is profitable to the men of' influence and property in the neighbourhood, and therefore is persevered in. At pages 117 and 118, will be found evidence of the manner in which an iniquitous labour-rate has been forced upon a parish by the combination of a few large occupiers and proprietors. The Commissioners say, , it may appear strange that labour-rates should have been so extensively adopted, as they inflict serious injury upon the largest portion of the rate-payirs : the explanation is, that large farmers are benefited; and in an agricultural parish, they command a majority in the Vestry. In order " to prevent such tribunals "—that is to say, Vestries composed exclusively of the rich—" from being over rigorous. and denying relief when it ought to be granted," the courier proposes that an appeal should be made, "not to the Justices, not to any Central Board, but to the Judges at Westminster,. or on Circuit!" Think of a pauper bringing an action in the Court of King's Bench, against a Vestry composed exclusively of the rich men of his parish 7—retaining counsel—ScaaLarr and FOLLETT, we suppose; and running up a bill of 250/. at his solicitors! What
can be more absurd and whimsical than such a notion? Yet we find it seriously 'imposed in a grave lecture on the Poor-laws. The Courier strongly objects to the important recommendation of the Commissioners, to make it illegal to grant relief in any case, or under any circumstances, to any able-bodied claimant, except in a workhouse.
" A hundred circumstances may throw a deserving man out of employment, and force him to solicit relief; and if the parish authorities, who are acquainted with all the iemliasities of his case, consider that such relief may be best afforded at his own house, where is the sense, to say nothing of the humanity, of interfering to deny them the power so to relieve him?"
There is force in this objection : but, great as the hardship may be, it is questionable whether a discretionary power on the part of the parish authorities to select whom they please as proper objects of out-door relief, is not attended with evils of so very serious a nature as to render its abolition indispensable, if any permanent and extensive relief is to arise from a revision of the system. The exclusion from out-door relief does not apply, be it remarked, to the sick or infirm, but to the able-bodied. Now, in this country, it very seldom happens that a man in possession of health and vigour is not able to earn as much as his parish allowance under a good system would amount to.
" But, (the Courier says) admitting all other objections Were disposed of, the principle in question would be wholly inapplicable in town parishes. Suppose any thing occurred to throw a few thousand hands out of employment at Manchester or Glasgow, is there any one so wrong-headed as to propose Withholding relief from such persons except in a workhouse ? The notion is toe absurd to deserve notice. A few individuals in an agricultural parish might be treated in the way now mentioned ; but the best mill in Manchester would not ire worth 51. were an attempt made to enforce such a principle in it."
In such a case as this,—which does not often occur, for we have seen that the thousands of .tcorketen, not paupers, have generally been provided, from one source or another, with means of subsistence when thrown out of employ by their own act or that of their master,—but in such an extreme case as the one supposed, we should certainly invest the Central Board with the power to deviate from the established practice, and order relief to be atforded to the suflbrers out of doors. It would not probably be required for any very long period together ; especially if the " men of considerable property" should be compelled to abandon their Cornlaw monopoly.
In the foregoing remarks, we do not wish to be considered, in the absence of the great mass of the evidence, as expressing a decided opinion in favour of the suggestions of the Commissioners. But we do think that our contemporary has failed in offering any more feasible plans. We fear be is not altogether the practical man he would have us take him for. Ile seems quite as much of a theorist on this subject as Dr. CHALMERS, Whose "shallow declamatory harangues" he despises.
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