Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress. : Appendix Volume VIII. Minutes of evidence (123rd to 138th days) with appendix. This volume contains the oral and written evidence of witnesses relating chiefly to the subject of "unemployment."

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress.
Date:
1910
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress. : Appendix Volume VIII. Minutes of evidence (123rd to 138th days) with appendix. This volume contains the oral and written evidence of witnesses relating chiefly to the subject of "unemployment.". Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    19/674 (page 3)
    o offer of the Avorkhouse. As a matter of fact, that i3olicy, as the Commission is 'aware, has never been carried out in its entirety. The Commission of 1834 had rural pauperism principally in their minds ; since then, the centre of gravity of the problem has entirely changed, and it is now urban pauperism which we have mainly to consider. In populous districts it has never from the beginning been found practicable to deal with the able- bodied poor merely by the offer of the workhouse ; and I do not think it was possible even to insist on the alternative of the stoneyard instead of the workhouse —public opinion would not have permitted it. But over and above that, in tlie judgment of those who were responsible for the Act, it would not only have been impossible to adopt a strict policy of that kind — it would have been inexpedient and undesirable. Rightly or wronglj', we came to the Aiieijuate dis-conclusion that classification must be and ought to be, :;riniiiiation some form or another, applied to the case of the able- uroblem^ bodied poor, as it had already been applied to other classes of destitute persons. We might have tried to give effect to our policy through the Poor Law guardians more or less on the lines suggested in Mr. Chamberlain'si Circular; but I do not think that would have been a very satisfactory way of dealing with the C£ue*tion. What we actually did was to accept the situation as it had been created by the action of the local authorities, and attempt to organise a permanent machinery for doing better and more wisely what the local authorities had been for years doing perhaps with more zeal than discretion. Above all, what we wanted was a machinery which should make it possible to discriminate effectively between the classes for whom the measure was designed and others who, we thought, were more proper subjects for Poor Law treatment. In fact, to my mind, adequate discrimination, was the real cr!(.T of the problem; and if the measure as we framed it, and the Regulations as we framed them, have been proved insufficient to secure effective discrimination, then I should certainly say that the Act had largely failed of its object, and might be in danger of doing more harm than good. The Rl. Hon. Gerald W. Balfour. U Oct. 1007. Mr. Cliam- Ijerlaia's ?[)roposal in 1886 not to •disfranchise. 77747. Under Mr. Chamberlain's proposal the relief given was not to disfranchise, I think ?—No, it would not disfranchise, naturally. 77748. Have you followed uji at all the results of the Act of 1905 ? Would you be able to give us an opinion as to whether or not it has in your judgment achieved the object with which it was put on the Statute Book ? —I am afraid I hardly feel competent to answer that question. Of course I have no longer any official know- ledge of what has been going on, and such information as has since been published has, I think, been too meagre and insufficient to enable one to form a judg- ment. Nor can I lionestly say that since then I have been following the question very closely ; I have been occupied with other matters. 77749. I think a sentence you used just now sums up very succinctly the object, which was to attempt a classi- fication of the able-bodied very much in the same way as other recipients of relief have been classified ?—That is so. From the point of view of the relief of the poor, you may say this was an attempt to classify the able-bodied poor, but the classification was not of the ordinary kind because it was intended that the superior class of the unemployed should he provided for before they came within range of the Poor Law—before they were reduced to absolute destitution. 77750. Then the Act was for the relief of those who are rather above the class that come to the Poor Law, and it was intended if possible to be a preventive Act ? —Yes ; it was intended to save them fi-om the necessity of having recourse to the Poor Law. 77751. There is only one other matter I should like to put to you, and that is a little outside the subject we have been discussing. How long were you the head of the Local Government Board ?—I was only eight or nine months head of the Local Government Board. 77752. We have had a great many schemes before us and we have had to consider at great length how v/e can best organise the local Poor Law authority, and that rather raises the question of the central Poor Law authority, -so perhaps you would not mind giving us your opinion Inferior ■stata.<i of Local Government Board. Advisability of complete reparation i«i Poor Law ! ministration. on this question. The Local Government Board is a very hard-worked department, is it not ?—Yes, very, 77753. And the head of the department does not rank as a Secretary of State ?—No. 77754. Does that affect the stains of the whole depart- ment ?—Yes, it does. 11155. And puts them, so far, for the purpose of exchange with other departments on a somewhat lower position than they would be if the head of the depart- ment ranked as a Secretary of State ?—Yes ; the whole department is in a lower position than departments presided over by Secretaries of State. 77756. Have you ever considered whether or not the Poor Law administration should be made a separate department ?—I should doubt whether it would be wise to separate the Poor Law administration entirely from other branches of local administration so far as the central department is concerned. 77757. Do you think it would be advisable, as regards Possibility this class of duty, that there should be any re-arrange- le-arrange- ment of duties between the Home Office and the Local ^ q^;^^,*' Government Board ?—I think it is possible that in some y^jj|Local^' respects there might be such re-arrangement, though Goveriinieni I should not be prepared to suggest off-hand what it ]^oar(l. should be ; but if the Local Government Board was raised in status, and its head was a Secretary of State, I believe I am right in saying that departmental interchanges of work could be made without the necessity of an Act of Parliament for the purpose. In our last year of office we brought in a Bill, which you may perhaps remember, in which it was proposed that the Local Government Board and tlie Board of Trade should both be raised to the dignity of departments presided over by Secretaries of State. The Bill never got beyond the First Reading, but the proposal was actually the subject of a government measure. 77758. Turning to the Board of Trade, they supply Value the figures as regards unemployment; is that a satis- of 3^'*'*'^ factory arrangement, or do you think that work of that ^^.^^j^^^j^ yj kind could be better undertaken by the Local Govern- Hnemrjlov- ment Board ? Their figures apparently relate only to nient. a very small percentage of the employees of the country ? —If I remember rightly, the Board of Trade figures arc entirely derived from the trade unions, and any estimate they make of general xmemployment rests ultimately for its basis upon the percentages of imemployed among the trade unions. 77759. I believe those are really the only figures v/e have at present which relate to unemployment ?—So far as I am aware, they are. 77760. And, of course, they cover a very small area of the industrial field of the country ?—They cover a comparatively small area, and imless it is legitimate to assume that the proportion of unemployed among unskilled workmen is approximately that which is found among skilled workmen at any given time, no deductions made from the trade imion figures are of any real value. 77761. {Mrs. Wehh.) I understand that one of the objects of this Act was definitely to take one type of able- bodied person out of the Poor Law ?—Yes, so far as we thought that could be wisely and properly done. 77762. Then I assume you did not wish any deterrent test to be applied to that particular type of able-bodied person ?—Except in so far as we provided that the total remuneration for such labour, where the centr;iJ body either contributed to it or provided the labour itself, should be less than that which could normally be earned by an imskilled labourer at the same time and place. 77763. Did you mean that it should be less per hour ? —No ; we expressly left that to be settled by the distress committees and central bodies themselves. 77764. Then did you mean a less time in the week ?— Supposing the pay had been per hour the same as that of an ordinary labourer, then, in order to achieve the end laid down in our regulations, it would have been necessary that the hom's should be fewer. 77765. Did you not then come rather near to the doles of work that you objected to under the old system ?— It is a question of degree. That depends upon the amount which could be earned subject to the conditions laid down. Deterrent test con- teniplateil by the Act. lleumneia- tion for relief work ; ditticulties a> to payinj; living wa;:;*! to unskilie»l labourers.