The English poor law system, past and present / Trans. by Herbert Preston-Thomas ; with a preface by Henry Sidgwick.

  • Aschrott, P. F. (Paul Felix), 1856-1927.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The English poor law system, past and present / Trans. by Herbert Preston-Thomas ; with a preface by Henry Sidgwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    public poor relief, which—under the influence of such writers as J. S. Mill—had found wide theoretical acceptance among the genera- tion that followed the subsidence, of the bitter conflict fought over the Poor Law of 1834. According (e.g.) to Mill (Political Econo7ny, Book V., ch. xi., p. 13), the division of work is very simple. The State is concerned solely with the question of need: it should abandon to private charity the task of distinguishing differences of desert. All persons should be guaranteed against absolute want, with the proviso that “ the condition of those who are supported by legal charity,” should be kept, if possible, “ considerably less desirable than the condition of those who find support for themselves \ ” and the minimum thus secured, “ even to the very worst,” should be also the maximum that the “ administrators of a public fund ” should be required to do for anybody. “To discriminate between the deserving and undeserving indigent ” is the “ peculiar and appropriate province ” of private charity, and should be entirely left to it. According to this view, the aims of poor law and private charity being essentially different, each might go its way without more than a vague and general knowledge of the manner in which the other agency was doing its work. And I conceive that this division of labour still remains the ideal of most thoughtful persons who believe in the general soundness of the English system of poor relief. But it is only in one department of the work of the poor law that it has been even approximately realized—/>., in the treatment of the destitute able-bodied, so far as the workhouse test has been firmly applied. To the case of outdoor relief the distinction does not seem to be really applicable. Such relief is almost universally preferred by the recipients to relief in the workhouse: at the same time the guardians are not legally bound to give outdoor relief, and their views as to propriety of giving it vary considerably: accordingly, in distinguishing the cases in which outdoor relief ought to be given from those in which it ought to be refused, they necessarily undertake a task of discrimination similar to that of private charity. It there- fore becomes important for the private almsgiver to know exactly upon what principles and with what effects the public outdoor relief is administered. On the other hand, experience has shown the increasing difficulty of performing well the discriminative operation which it is agreed to allot to private charity, so long as private almsgiving is unsystema- tized, and is left to individuals acting without concert. In rural districts where neighbourhood, in the case of any one anxious to do his duty to his fellows, implies some degree of real acquaintance, it is