Page:Local taxation and poor law administration in great cities.djvu/11

7 which many of our large parishes contain? Take Liverpool for instance, which contains not only the parish of Liverpool but four other townships besides. Take, however, the parish of Liverpool alone; its workhouse, hospitals, and schools, under the management of one vestry, contain at times over 6,000 inmates, a population in excess of that of some towns which return a member to this House. Its poor rate is over £190,000 a-year, and the sum actually expended in the relief of the poor over £100,000 a-year. A work surely large enough to tax to the uttermost the administrative powers of a Board of Guardians.

I also venture to assert that a large mass of pauperism accumulates in the large towns, for which they are in no way responsible, and with the burden of which they ought not to be charged. I would point out that although much of the pauperism of the country may arise from labour employed in particular trades and places, there is no inconsiderable amount of floating pauperism which cannot be attributed to the locality, and which may be fairly considered as national in its character, and chargeable upon the general wealth of the country. By the 28 & 29 Vict. the Settlement laws were greatly altered, and residence in any place for a year made the person so residing in that place chargeable to the local rates. The result of this alteration of the law, combined with increased facility and cheapness of locomotion, and with the want of efficient management of the poor law, has I contend, been to throw upon the large towns great masses of pauperism which have been created elsewhere, and to throw upon the local rates the support of persons from whose labour the locality has derived no benefit whatever. The vague possibilities of employment, especially in times of distress (and this is a point to which I desire especially to call the attention of the House) attract to the large towns numbers of people greatly in excess of the labour requirements of these towns; and this excess, so far from contributing in any way to local wealth, is almost sure, sooner or later, to increase the burden of the rates. The surplus labour adds nothing to the limited fund available for employment of labour in these large towns, while it adds enormously to the numbers of those whose maintenance depends upon the limited fund.

And I would point to another difficulty with which we have to deal. It is almost impossible in the large towns to exercise the same control over able-bodied pauperism which is possible in the