Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress. : Appendix Volume XIX. B. Report by Mr. Cyril Jackson on the effects of employment or assistance given to the "unemployed" since 1886 as a means of relieving distress outside the Poor Law in Ireland.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress. : Appendix Volume XIX. B. Report by Mr. Cyril Jackson on the effects of employment or assistance given to the "unemployed" since 1886 as a means of relieving distress outside the Poor Law in Ireland. 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.

    19/64 (page 12)
    In February, 1886, anew street was laid out at a cost of £1,000 and it was resolved 1886 that as some of the work is to be in the nature of relief works, the wages of labourers employed thereon should not be more than 10s. a week and that only townsmen be employed. Early in 1895 relief works were started upon laying out a park, and a sum 1895. ' of £613 expended. At the end of the year works of a similar kind were opened, and places found for 120 men. Wages were paid at the rate of 2s. a day. Eelief work was next provided in January, 1904. Street widening, which had 1904- been decided upon already, was forestalled, other work of a similar kind was put in hand, and arrangements made for breaking a considerable quantity of stone. A register of applicants was ordered to be kept, and members of the Town Council were provided with 100 recommendation forms : for giving the applicant's name, address, last employ- ment, and date of same, number of family, number working and any special circumstances. Wages were paid at the rate of 2s. a day, and for the first three months were paid every other day. The men were interviewed by the superintendent of works and sent to the work if they appeared to be suitable ; 2,147 applications were received, and 550 men started work. £1,520 was spent in wages, and the men appear to have been employed continuously. The work ceased on April 6th, 1904. As the result of a deputation from the United Trades and Labour Council, the 1904-5. Corporation decided in December, 1904, to provide relief work upon a sewer and upon street cleaning at a minimum wage of 18s. 6d. a week. The men employed were to be drawn only from men who had been resident in Belfast for the preceding twelve months. Each member of the Town Council was asked to supply the names of about ten men in need of employment. Seven hundred applications were received, and 150 men started at work. Up to March 18th, when the work ceased, £719 had been paid in wages. In the following winter (1905-6) relief work was again provided. Some 400 1905-6. men over and above the usual Corporation staff were employed upon paving, street widen- ing and sewer works. During this winter 902 men were registered up to January 31st, and of these the cases of 262 were investigated ; 72 were found to be ineligible, 32 were cancelled, and 798 re- mained on the register. Nine hundred and twenty-eight men were registered to the end of February. The Belfast Corporation do something to relieve the annual winter depression by arranging to carry out some of their ordinary work at an inconvenient season. It is estimated that the practice adds as much as 20 per cent, to the cost of such work. The figures showing the number of men employed at different times of year indicate the extent to which this practice is followed. There were employed in August, 1906, 743 men, while in the following January 926 men were at work. The Corporation of Waterford have from time to time started relief works similar to Waterford. those already described in Belfast. Such were the works upon making a promenade at a cost of ab-i^ut £500 in 1886 ; upon a river bed in 1893, at a cost of between £300 and £400 ; and, in 1896, upon making a cycle track and laying out a park. More recently some eighty men were employed upon sewage works at a cost of £1,000, out of a loan of £55,000 for the purpose, and were paid at the current rate of wages—from 14s. to 16s. a week. About a dozen men are also taken on for extra street sweeping each winter. In the winter of 1905-6 relief work on a small scale was provided by the Municipal Dundalk Authorities of Dundalk and Clonmel. In the former place in February, 1906, fifty men and were employed upon reclamation of town property and upon roads, at a weekly wage Clonmel. of 12s. The work lasted twenty-four days. At Clonmel between thirty-six and eleven men monthly were chosen for their destitution, and employed upon street cleaning and road work from November to March. They received 2s. 2d. a day, and worked upon an average for five days a week.* At Londonderry the Corporation provided special work at stone-setting and road work London- for about a fortnight in November, 1905. In February, 1906, further work of the same derry. kind was undertaken for fifteen days. Forty-two men were chosen by the city surveyor, * Employment was given as follows :— October 30th to December, 1905, thirty-six men employed for four weeks and two days, eight hours a day. (792 days' work.) January, 1906, seventeen men (359J days' work). Wages, £46 lis. lid. February, 1906, sixteen men (196 days' work). Wages, £21 43. 8d. March, 1906, eleven men (75 days' work). Wages, £8 23. lOd.