Chapter V.: Poor Laws’ Amendment Act.

The Poor Law Commissioners have not treated the public fairly in their Reports. They have given a partial, and, in many instances, an exaggerated representation of the working of the poor laws; they have pointed out their evils, but not described their countervailing advantages. Instead of mainly confining their exposition to a few agricultural parishes, which have been in the hands of the parsons and squirearchy, why did they not advert to the state of the poor in the great towns of the kingdom, in Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, &c. where they would have found fine examples of administering the national charity with economy and intelligence, realizing all the benefits that the admirers of a compulsory assessment for the relief of indigence could desire?

Secondly, why did not they advert to the decline of pauperism during the ten years from 1820 (the period of improvement under Sturges Bourne’s Acts) to 1830? It is a fact that, during the period mentioned, the poor-rates have not increased in so fast a ratio as the population; that there has been a relative decline of pauperism; and in the period prior to 1820, the increase was occasioned, in a much greater degree, by the increase of law charges than an additional expenditure on the poor. In some of the principal parishes there have been great and successful efforts made to effect a diminution in the poor expenditure; it has been so in the principal parishes of the metropolis, and at Leeds, Liverpool, and other places.

Thirdly, why did not the Commissioners bring down the history of the poor and the poor laws to the present time, instead of stopping at the reign of Elizabeth? Had they done so, they would have found that all their more important suggestions have been already tried; that the project for incorporating parishes has been tried; that for refusing relief to able-bodied poor, except in a workhouse; and for attaching wages for advances previously made to paupers out of the rates. Mention may be found of all these plans, and their failure or abandonment, in Eden’s History of the Poor and Wade’s History of the Middle and Working Classes. But a notice of them might have weakened their case, and lessened the confidence of the public in any schemes founded upon them.

In the reports of the Commissioners there is a singular want of comprehensiveness of view—a disregard of general principles—and an absence of correct information on the character and condition of the labouring classes. Their plans of amendment are founded chiefly on experiments made in the parishes of Southwell, Cookham, Bingham, and Swallowfield.

These are their pattern parishes, according to which all other parishes ought to conform in their parochial administration. But with what propriety can these places be adduced as examples for the entire kingdom? Their population is diminutive; they are entirely agricultural; and have been in the hands of zealous individuals, who by great personal sacrifices, and enforcing a strict system of parochial relief, succeeded in lessening the amount of pauperism, most probably at the expense of the adjoining districts. But are such insulated and peculiar examples sufficient to warrant the extension of similar principles of management to the entire country? Certainly not. With as much reason Mr. Owen might seek to establish his co-operative parallelograms throughout England, from the success of his individual experiment at New Lanark. Of the disregard of general principles by the Commissioners, and of their reckless determination to make out a case, the pattern parishes afford an illustration. The system pursued in these parishes was that of non-relief, except in the workhouse. The effect of this no doubt was, in part, as intended to be, to compel the able bodied to accept work on any terms, and in any sort of employment, rather than forego personal freedom in a poor-house. But strange to say, this forced increase of competition for work had, according to the Commissioners’ representations, the effect of raising its price! An effect so paradoxical, so contrary to the best established principles of economical science, evinces a zeal in behalf of the anti-pauper system, that reminds us of those nostrums of sovereign efficacy which cure the most opposite disorders.

It seems not less contrary to general principles to anticipate, for a lengthened period, a reduction of parish expenditure by the operation of the Poor Law Act. The poor-laws are administered by the rate-payers, who are locally and personally acquainted with the state of their parishes, and directly interested in checking abuses and a lavish expenditure. Will the Central Board sitting in London, or the Assistant Commissioners, in their occasional visitations, act under greater motives to to economy, or bring greater local and practical information to their task; and if they do not, what benefits are we to anticipate from their parochial superintendence? It strikes us that, after a time, (for we will give credit for demonstrations of zeal at the beginning,) the superintendence exercised by them over paupers will be like that exercised by the lord chancellor, in right of his office, over public charities, or of the bishops over some of our collegiate foundations; it will exist in name, but have no practical or executive efficiency.

Both the Commissioners and the late Ministers committed a great mistake in confounding the present state of society with the age of Queen Elizabeth. Lord Althorp, during the debates in the House of Commons, repeatedly declared that the main object of the Poor-Law Bill was to bring back the administration of the poor laws to the legitimate purposes of their first institution. Now the two great objects embraced by the 43d of Elizabeth are to relieve the impotent, and to set to work the able-bodied. The act of Elizabeth was chiefly an act for the enforcement of industry, intended to meet the mass of vagrancy that grew out of the abolition of the religious houses, and the transition from slave to free labour. But mark the difference of the two periods. Such a monstrous anomaly as an able-bodied man willing to labour, but unable to get employment, was unknown in the time of lord Burleigh; the great difficulty then was to overcome the propensity to idleness and vagabondage, not to find remunerative labour. At present the case is reversed; there is no lack of industry in the country, but of profitable employment. Yet the framers of the Poor Act have overlooked this fundamental distinction. They have prescribed a remedy more applicable to the age of Elizabeth than of William the Fourth. They seem to think that the main source of pauperism now as then is idleness, and as a corrective of this, have propounded their grand panacea for subjecting all the able-bodied poor to the ordeal of a workhouse.

Here we think they have committed a grievous error. There is, we apprehend, a permanent redundancy of labour; there are more people than can be employed on the terms they have been accustomed to be employed, and to compel them, by any legislative machinery, to be employed on lower terms, we hold to be highly impolitic—impolitic as not tending to the improvement, but the moral and physical degradation of the community.

That there is a redundancy of labour, the low wages which have been long paid in some of the agricultural parishes are conclusive proof. For this evil the workhouse project is no remedy. It opens no new source of employment, it only provides a sort of Bridewell punishment for an offence which is not the predominant vice of the age.

We have not yet brought before the reader our main objection to this new-fangled scheme. A great deal has been urged on the irresponsible powers vested in the Central Board. We should care little for this if we thought they would be exercised for a salutary purpose. Irresponsible power is not so dangerous in subordinate bodies as in the state. In the former, if it becomes an oppressive nuisance it may be promptly abated; in the latter it may rise above control.

What we most strongly object to the Poor Law project is its tendency to deteriorate, not to better the condition of the people. If such be its real tendency—and that it is such, we will by and by show—then we say that no benefit which can possibly arise from it would compensate for the social injury it will inflict. No economic savings in poor rates would be an equivalent for a permanent deterioration in the diet, clothing, and lodging of the mass of the community. Pauperism is a great evil, but there may be greater. The general insecurity of property and persons would be greater. A pauper is a bad member of society, but a beggar, a thief, an assassin, or incendiary is worse. By rigid persecution we may get rid of pauperism, but by converting pauperism into mendicity, or criminality, or into Irish or Russian helotism, we effect a social change certainly, but no improvement in the condition of society.

That some or all the evils to which we allude may result from a rigid enforcement of the New Act, we will speedily demonstrate.

The leading principle upon which it is founded is that the condition of no pauper shall be as eligible as that of the independent labourer; and for carrying out this principle, it is proposed relief shall only be given in a workhouse. Such a plan every body knows to be impracticable, and that to erect and maintain workhouses for all the paupers in the kingdom would, in lieu of diminishing, quadruple the poor assessment. We have heard, indeed, some of the strenuous advocates of the measure slily insinuate that it is really not intended to make any great addition to the number of workhouses, but to introduce such discipline there, to render them places of so much discomfort that the poor shall be deterred from seeking parish aid at all. This is the real secret we believe, but let us see the influence the working of such a system will have on the future state of the labouring population.

The state of the pauper it is assumed shall be inferior to that of the free labourer, however bad that may be. If the wages of the independent labourer are so low that he is compelled to live on potatoes and salt fish, to clothe himself in the coarsest garments, to sleep on straw, to live in a cabin, and labour sixteen hours a day—bad as all this may be, something worse shall be provided—‘a lower deep’ still awaits the unfortunate wretch who is compelled to resort to the parish for assistance. Although he may be already as poor in comfort and as degraded in condition as the Russian serf or the Irish cotter, a still worse fate awaits him in a workhouse. Now, we crave attention to the effects of this system on the price of labour and the condition of the labouring classes. Rather than accept relief in a workhouse on such onerous conditions—what will not the working man do?—he will submit to work for any wages, however small the pittance, to feed on any garbage, to live in any hovel; in a word, to be screwed down to a level with the most miserable peasantry in Europe. And is this a consummation to be wished? Is this an enlightened mode of raising the character of the people and improving the condition of society? The greatest calamity that can befal the working people is the submitting to an inferior standard of living. This is the opinion of every writer of authority. From the writings of Ricardo, Malthus, Macculloch, Torrens, and lord Brougham himself, we might quote passages without number to show the hopeless degradation of a people who once submit to a low standard of diet, clothing, and lodging. Physical discomfort precludes all hope and desire of personal independence, moral and intellectual improvement. Yet this is the vital principle of the Poor Law project—it is its sole talisman of reform—a lower scale of relief for the pauper as a preliminary to a lower scale of living for the independent labourer; it is, in short, a screw for lowering wages and abridging the comforts of the poor.

The discipline of the workhouse is to be such as to be held in terrorem of all paupers. Applications for relief are to be discouraged by hard labour, coarse fare, degrading attire, and other contrivances of pain and ignominy. Pauperism for the first time is to be made a crime; it is to be a crime in any man to be in want and unemployed; and the workhouse is to be converted into a house of correction for his reception—with this difference—that in the former he will have to work harder and fare worse; so that in future it will be the interest of every man to be a criminal rather than a pauper—to steal rather than resort to the parish for assistance. What enlightened principles of legislation to confound misfortune with delinquency; what benevolent projects of the Whigs for bettering the state of society! How consistent, too, is their philanthropy, for while they are mitigating the punishments for housebreaking and forgery, they are devising new punishments for that which never since the world began was deemed an offence at all, but an object of commiseration!

The pretexts on which the workhouse ordeal is introduced, are to get rid of the abuses of the allowance system and the impositions of the able-bodied poor. That evils have arisen from both sources is indisputable. They afford strong reason for improving the administration of the poor laws, but none for acting unjustly. If parishes have been imposed upon, apply a test, establish a tribunal for separating the pauper from necessity from the worthless vagabond, but do not confound the innocent with the guilty by subjecting both to indiscriminate punishment.

Looking at the workhouse scheme in another point of view, it appears only an adoption of the plan of the Dutch pauper colonies. The object of these is to find work and economically maintain the indigent. This has been objected to by Dr. Chalmers and others as having no tendency to eradicate the seeds of pauperism, only permanently to create a new and degraded caste in society. Such is precisely the tendency of workhouses; it shuts out a section of society from community of right and feeling with their fellow-men; it permanently degrades them without either instructing them or warning others to avoid a similar fate.

Such, then, is our chief objection to the Poor Law Act,—if vigorously carried through in the spirit in which it has been framed, it will operate as a powerful engine of social degradation. It will effect no reform in the habits, character, or condition of the poor, but will merely compel them to accept lower wages and accommodate themselves to a lower standard of living. If such be really the result—if it will really tend to the moral and physical degradation of the people—no accompanying advantages can countervail its evil tendency, and the Whigs have inflicted a greater national calamity by its introduction than can be counterbalanced by all the public improvements they have effected.

We see little to object to in the establishment of a Central Board of Commissioners acting on sound views; the magnitude of our pauper administration requires the superintendence of an exclusive tribunal, whose functions shall be to suggest improvements and enforce uniformity of practice: but we object to the principles on which they propose to proceed. They seem to have mistaken the disease and the tendency of their own remedies. Of the rashness of their conclusions, the suggestions adopted for the reform of the Bastardy Laws are a pertinent example. A few instances had occurred of lewd women having more bastards than one, for which they received the parish allowance; hence it was concluded a general trade was carried on in bastardy, and, as a preventive, the burden of maintaining an illegitimate child has been thrown entirely on the mother. The ordinary parish allowance for a bastard in the metropolis is eighteen-pence weekly; it is not more—most likely less—in the country;—can any one suppose such a pittance holds out a bounty to incontinence? But see how many principles have been outraged by the new law! First, it violates one of the most general maxims of jurisprudence, namely, that which imposes on both parents, equally, the obligation to maintain their offspring whether legitimate or not. Secondly, it violates natural justice; for, if incontinence be an offence at all, it is equally so in both parties, and equally ought the punishment to be apportioned. Lastly, it is monstrous and inhuman to throw the entire burden on the weaker, and, in our opinion, more venial transgressor.

Notwithstanding these obvious objections to this strange innovation on pre-established principles and feelings, it is urged that the alteration is expedient, that it will work well in practice. We deny it. It will impose no additional restraint on females, while it will give greater license to the low and profligate of our own sex, who may now spawn away with impunity at the parish expense. That it will not impose further restraint on women, one observation will suffice. If the destitution and pains of child-birth, coupled with the shame of public exposure—the dread of which, in the present state of moral feeling, often leads to frightful crimes—fail to curb female indiscretion—how can it be supposed that superadding thereto the mere pecuniary penalty of the maintenance of the child can have any such tendency? It is a poor, hasty, and impotent piece of legislation, bottomed on gross ignorance of society and human nature; and the worst of it is, that its evil consequences may eat long and far into the core of domestic life before they become manifest to the public eye.

The alterations in the Settlement Laws are good as far as they go, but why such piece-meal legislation? Were the Whigs afraid to take too large a slice from the fat emoluments of lawyers? Litigation arising out of settlement claims has been the fruitful source of parish expense, and it is to this and similar defects in the Poor-Laws themselves rather than the increase of pauperism that the oppression of poor-rates may be traced. Residence seems the only fair ground of eligibility to parish relief. The law about removals and the distinctions kept up about each parish keeping only its own poor are absolutely ridiculous when applied to a community living under the same institutions and government.

By the new act the Whigs have dealt a harsh measure to the poor, and stripped them of their most valued rights. First, in case of want, they have lost their old and undeniable claim to parish aid. They have no general right of appeal from an unjust or hardhearted overseer to the magistrate; nor can the magistrate order relief except in special and extreme cases.

Secondly, by the introduction of a plurality of votes—by giving votes both to owners and occupiers—and by allowing the former to vote by proxy, it is sought to vest the management of the poor and the administration of the poor-laws in a rich and absentee proprietary.

It has always been represented as a pre-eminent advantage of the poor-laws that they created community of interest between the several classes of society—that neither prosperity nor adversity could visit one without effecting a corresponding influence on the other—and that the rich were identified with the poor themselves in every circumstance influencing their condition. Such ties will be weakened, if not dissolved, by the operation of the poor-act;—first, by the interference of non-resident landlords and their agents in parish affairs; and, secondly, by the interference of the Poor-Law Commissioners, who, partly assuming the powers, will also assume the responsibilities formerly borne by the middle ranks, and who will thereby feel relieved from that concern hitherto felt in the welfare of their poorer neighbours.

But this may turn out an exaggerated apprehension. Our own opinion is that the Commissioners’ operations will be chiefly limited to the rural districts. Indeed, the entire scheme may be chiefly intended as another mode of affording relief to the agricultural interest at the general expense of the community. Under the auspices of the squires, the farmers, and parsons, flagrant abuses had crept into the administration of the poor-laws, and the plan may be to supply their remissness and incapacity by the establishment of a corps of commissioners, secretaries, messengers, and so forth, payable out of the general revenue of the empire!

But we must hasten to conclude. Both in the general Report of the Commissioners and in the act of parliament founded upon it, grievous errors have been committed. In neither is there much benevolence or science; nor do they evince an intimate acquaintance with the history or causes of pauperism, nor a practical knowledge of the habits and state of the people. In the chief remedies suggested, we recognize only a revival of an old system—a new attempt to apply the barbarous machinery of despotism;—do not seek to instruct, reform, and make the poor wise to their true interests,—that is too troublesome a task; adopt the olden process—punish! punish!—punish!—degrade, torture, and incarcerate, and if they do not submit quietly, at least they will assume some other shape than the detested one of a burden on their richer neighbours. For one vicious system another vicious system is substituted; it is not a social reform, but a transmutation of social evil!

But though the main provisions of the Poor-Law Act are bad—for we concede there are good points in it—our comfort is that it is only a sort of paper constitution, and, like other paper constitutions, its practical working will be controlled by the action of public opinion. Fortunately there exists in this country a standard of humanity and love of justice—more omnipotent than the boasted laws—that will not long suffer any wrong without a remedy. For this guarantee of the rights of all we are not indebted to a sinecure Church, nor a “bread-tax fed” Aristocracy; but to an ever-watchful Press. Further we have a guarantee against extensive mischief in the intelligence of the Commissioners themselves. It is obvious they cannot act without the concurrence of the rate-payers by whom the funds raised for the poor are paid and disbursed. Any thing like a general collision with popular feeling would at once terminate their official career. For their own sakes therefore they will proceed cautiously. They will promulgate their “rules, orders, and regulations;”—if opposed, impracticable, or mischievous, they will cease to meddle, their duties will become nominal, and chiefly exist, like those of the mob of commissioners appointed by the Whig ministry, in the receipt of their salaries.

So that after all there is “balm in Gilead!” The ominous thunder cloud may pass over without consuming, or even seriously scotching the pauper world: but no thanks to the framers of this savage and aristocratic law.