Page:Farm labourers, their friendly societies, and the poor law.djvu/17

 had been turned out of the club for cheating, he obtains only half, and that not in cash, but in flour. My specimen therefore considers himself an ill-used man, and as the stewards of the club stop his pay before he considers himself well, he thence-forward takes up his parable against self-help and benefit societies, and in the long run will have cost the ratepayers a little fortune in maintaining him and his family. When he comes permanently into the house, he has the same care and attention as the most respectable poor man in it, who, indeed, occupies the next bed in the ward in which my specimen sleeps.

Placed between the two classes of which these are the representative men, and influenced by the example of each for good and evil in turn, is the mass of the farm labourers of this country. Something surely might be done to encourage the good and repress the evil, not by destroying the Poor Law, as some earnest reformers think possible, but by judicious and careful alterations in the mode of dealing with applicants for relief; and we venture to call attention to the points in which reform should be attempted, before discussing the treatment of applicants for poor-relief who belong to benefit societies. And, first, with regard to the treatment of idle and vicious able-bodied paupers. There is at present no provision in our unions adequate to their deserts. The system of administration is weak, and fails when applied to them. The cost of their maintenance and clothing should be exacted from the male pauper of this class. We have labour tests, useful in some cases, useless in others, but no organisation which would secure to these encumbrances of the community the strict necessity of earning their bread. Retaining the power of dealing with refractory and disorderly paupers according to the law, the guardians of the poor might be empowered to draft able-bodied paupers of bad character from among the inmates of their union, and send them for a term to an establishment where work was exacted in return for maintenance. One such establishment in each county would suffice for all the unions in it, and labour could be found, both indoors and out of doors, for its occupants, who should be kept there for not less than a month, and receive sufficient food and clothing during that time, provided that they earned it,