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.

    42/674 (page 26)
    Mr. William H. Beveridffe. 14 Oct. 1907. Relations of the munici- palities to laboiu exchanjres. London Borough Councils and labour exchanges. Expense of working labour exchanges. Question of proportions of cost beinu borne by the State. and employed together to form a labour exchange in a particular tovm ?—The centre of propaganda I think would be the central department. 77928. That would go all over England ?—It would get about and it would try to persuade local people. I hope it would also go to the municipalities. I think it is quite possible to have the exchange without the muni- cipality, but it is better to get the municipality because then you get general local interest and support. 77929. (Sir Samuel Provis.) You do not contemplate that the exchanges should be set up by the municipalities all over the country, but by an organisation specially constituted for the purpose, do I understand ?—I think I should prefer to have them set up by the municipality, but ultimately I want the management to be in the hands of representative employers and employed. Whether you have the municijjality technically above them or not is not an absolutely essential question. I should prefer to have the muni?i])al authority, because it represents the local life of the place, but I think you may deal with different trades in different ways as they are dealt with in Germany. 77930. The municipalities have not shown themselves particularly keen to do this sort of thing, have they ?— I think a good many municipalities have made experi- ments at various times, but I really think very seldom with any perfect understanding of what they would be at, and very seldom realising quite the importance of what they were going to do if they were going to do anjrthing at all. 77931. For instance, Avas it not the case that under the Labour Bureaux (London) Act, 1902, very little was done ? —I think when we took over the London bureaux there was practically only one of them that had any good will— that had any really live business. 77932. Does not that tend to show that tJie local authorities would not bo very keen to establish things of this kind, or superintend an organisation of this kind ?— In London the local authorities were the borough councils, and I certainly should not ask them to intervene in Loudon. 77933. Tliey would be the municipalities, would they not ?—In London I should take the whole of London for the municiijality. 77934. And have one body for the whole county ?— Yes. certainly. At present I think we are rather hampered by the fact that v.(i practically have to set up a separate exchange in each borough whether it is necessary there or not. That has very unfortunate effects upon the geo- graphical distribution of all the exchanges. 77935. The expense of working a thing of this kind will be small ?—I think the expense can be reduced to the sort of thing it is in Germany. At present we are costing something about £9,000 a year, I believe, in London. 77936. Tliat £9,000 is for the hire of offices, I suppose, and the payment of a certain staff ?—Yes, and postage and telephones and so on. 77937. If the matter was largely extended and you had a central body through whom the whole thing was worked, of course the expense would be increased: is that the expense you propose should fall on the State ?—I think the State naturally bears the expense of knitting up the exchanges. I am not siu-e that I should not like it to bear a bit more in order to encourage the municipalities to set up exchanges, but that is the principle adopted in Germany where the grants from tlie States Governments are defi- nitelj'set aside for federating the local exchanges, and then you got the Imperial Government pay ing for the federa- tion of the exchanges all over the Empire. 77938. I am not c^uite sure why you thought the Government in England should pay, whether you thought it was to encourage the thing to be done or whether you thought there Avas some other reason ?—I desire it to encourage the thing to be done and to secure co-ordina- tion. It J3 a grant to be given on condition of efficiency. 77939. If you placed the matter under the local authority, you could say that they shall comply with cert lin regulations?—Yes. It is a new thing, and I would rather have a perjx'tual power of adjustment in practice than stereotyiJO conditions at the beginning in an Act of Parliament. Bad effect of coonectioui of Unem- ployed Worl men Act witfi labour exchanges. Proper method at present of dealing with J possible temporary distress. 77940. Leaving that now, were you contemplating that the Unemployed Workmen's Act should cease to exist, except in so far as it might properly provide for an organisation of labour exchanges ?—I do not think that any labour exchange under the Unemployed Workmen's Act will ever succeed. 77941. Why not ?—Because the name unemployed is enough to ruin it. We leave it off our notepaper. With regard to the other parts of the Unemployed Work- men's Act, I must simply put my general view that I am not satisfied with the present system of Poor Law in this country any more than I am satisfied with it in Germany. I think they both ought to give way to something entirely different based upon a complete organisation of the labour exchange and the getting of a perfect test of unemploy- ment, but tiU we get that I feel our best plan in both countries is to go on with the system of which we know something, although it is but imperfect. Therefore I should no more suggest that we adopt the German Poor Law here or add on to it this relief side of the Un- employed Workmen Act. than 1 should ask the Germans in Germany to abandon their system and adopt ours. 77942. Practically you would not continue the Unem- ployed Workmen's Act ?—No. 77943. You know it is a temporary Act and expires three years after it was passed ?—I should like it to expire. 77944. Then you would not make any provision foi the provision of work during periods of temporary distress, even although you could not bring your labour organisa- tion into force for some time ?—I do not anticipate in the next year or two anything in the nature of a cychcal depression of trade that would make rtlief works at all appropriate. 77945. Supposing there was a very serious winter ?— I beHeve there are lesouices in the Poor Law to deal with it. 77946. But practically has it not been the case that severe winters have led to arrangements being made outside the Poor Law for providing men with work ?— I should let the borough councils go on. I would not try to stop them, although I think they would do harm. 77947. The object of the Unemployed Workmen's Act jjgai iatoa- was rather to deal with difficulties of that kind, to have an tioa of organisation of work when there was a period of dis-Un3mployed tress ?—I do not think from my reading of the Unem- Workmen ployed Workmen's Act that it was intended to be applied to merely seasonal distress. 77948. Not merely so, but seasonal distress is one thing it would apply to, would it not ?—I have not read it as meaning to apply to distress which was no more than eeasonal. I will put it like that. There is a rule that a man is not to have assistance in more than two years running, that is to saj, supposing there are three hard winters, he is not to get relief. 1 read that as implying that the Act is specifically an Act for cyclical trade depression. 77949. Supposing you did, in fact, have a severe winter, would you say that the Poor Law could still deal with it ?—I am not experienced in the Poor Law, but I do not see that what we do is of any use. 77950. (Mr. Patten-3IacDougall.) I think yoi said that, Bad features looking to the existing Act, its machinery is, in your in Unem opinion, not happily devised ?—Yes. ployed Worl 77951. Have you considered at all how, assuming that Act to be re-introduced after its expiration, you would improve its machinery ?—Yes. Perhaps I may specify one or two of the unhappy parts of the Act. The first is the existence of twenty-nine independent distress committees. That means that a Central Body ii. carrying out its wok. instead of being able to give orders to its own local officials, has to correspond formally with an absolutely independent body. That adds to the amount of correspondence, minutes and agendas, and all the committee expenses. 77952. That is in London ?—I think I specifically limited my statem nt as to the machinery of the Act to London. It also absolutely prevents any co-ordina- tion or uniformity. I think the principles upon which the Distress Committees go are very different in fact, and it is almost impossible to co-ordinate them. It is im- possible to deal with London as a whole. I think th? men Ac 'twill!