Page:Local taxation and poor law administration in great cities.djvu/13

9 from the Isle of Man for the express purpose of getting into the hospital to be cured of skin disease, and on each occasion was treated and sent out cured. The Isle of Man had the benefit of his health, the parish of Liverpool the expense of his sickness." Thus the House will see that parishes are not unfrequently punished for doing their duty by adequately providing for the cure of sickness, yet sickness, as every one connected with the administration of the poor law knows, is one of the most prolific causes of pauperism. Still I do not advocate a return to the old Law of Settlement. It was most oppressive to the labourer, and often most unjust to the owners of property, that a man should be thrown upon the rates of a parish when he became ill, sick, or useless, simply because he was born there, while he might have lived and worked elsewhere. But still in remedying one injustice we ought to be careful not to commit another. While relieving the farmer and the landowners of a burden which ought not in justice to be borne by them, we must take care not to throw that burden upon the small householders of our large towns, a class who are still less able to bear it.

I think, Sir, that I have shown the present incidence of taxation is doubly unfair,—that it not only throws upon the large towns burdens which do not belong to them, but that it unfairly distributes those burdens, even amongst the different classes of their inhabitants; and I think I have shown that the wealthy classes, now exempt, ought to be made to contribute their fair share towards local taxation.

I now come to another portion of my subject. My resolution says, "That in the opinion of this House a closer and more harmonious correspondence between the central and local poor law authorities would be established;" and of course it infers that it ought to be established. There can be little doubt that the waste and demoralization of the present system clearly demand some correction, and when we consider this branch of the subject we shall, I believe, though by a different road, arrive at the same conclusion. I think I have shown incidentally in the first part of my speech that the want of uniformity and efficiency in our poor law system as regards the sick not only does not promote good management, but that it is antagonistic to the attainment of that result. Since I placed this motion on the paper I have received from various parts of the country letters pointing out numerous