Page:Pauperization, cause and cure.djvu/15

9 the essential communism incorporated into our Poor Law itself altogether sound? Is not the system itself a matter of expediency and compromise, and therefore to be applied as a system of expediency and practical effect? What is the practical effect of this, not what is the strict theory, must be the question answered by the Poor Law Board.

There is an association, co-extensive with the Poor Law districts, now rapidly spreading over London, and known as the "Society for Organizing Charity and Repressing Mendicity," some of the members of which from the first commencement realized this difficulty, namely, when John Thrift and William Spendall appear before a board of guardians, John Thrift, who has made some provision for himself and family, is sent empty away, but William Spendall, who has never saved a farthing, is provided and cared for by the other ratepayers, and goes home rejoicing to pauperize his friends and neighbours.

This Society, through some of its committees, has attempted, as far as might be in the two or three years of its existence, to reverse this principle. John Thrift is to them a subject for assistance and sympathy, but William Spendall must look to the bare subsistence of the Poor Law. Is it impracticable to introduce such a policy into our present Poor Law? Here is a sort of outline for consideration, quantum valet:—

(1.) Administer generally your relief on a more liberal scale to those who have made some attempt at provision for themselves than to those who have not, and so set a premium on thrift.

(2.) As a rule the annuity or allowance of a friendly society should not be directly supplemented, since it ought to be adequate; but give to non-subscribers, ceteris paribus, two thirds only of what members are receiving, or the offer of the workhouse.

(3.) As a matter of principle and general rule, make it extensively known that those who when able make no provision for themselves will get less favour, if, indeed, any out-relief given at all. This need in no way be adopted at first as a hard and fast rule, but merely declared as the ulterior practice gradually to be taught to the poor, and the example of a few cases will soon be found contagious.

(4.) A Government recognition and insurance of all benefit societies that will pass a liberal scale drawn up by actuaries; namely, on the principle that one generation should support another—the young the old.

A step has already been made in this direction by Mr. Gladstone's Post-office Savings Bank and annuities—but information is at present very scantily supplied to different post-offices. The attention of the Poor Law Board might be called to this.

And now, finally, as one fact is worth forty arguments, consider these three—three great organized facts or systems working within the cognisance of, and actually in connection with, the Central Poor Law Board, and all tending to some better effect than towards improvidence and pauperism.