Poor laws

Front matter

REPORT

OF

GEO. NICHOLES, ESQ.,

Part I. PART THE FIRST

5. It will he convenient to consider the two portions comprised in this division of the subject separately, and

I. — In the first place, — As to tlic present condition of the country, and the habits and feelings of the Irish people.

I soon became satisfied, that it is only by a personal inspection, that the condition of the Irish people can he accurately known. A general, and a tolerably correct, notion of the state of the country may be gained, by the examination of Reports and Evidence; and deductions, pretty accurate in the main, may be drawn therefrom; but to arrive at definite and practical views, a personal inspection of the country is, I think, necessary.

Progressive im- 6. The investigations and inquiries in which I have now been engaged, have led provement. me to t j ie conviction, that the condition of Ireland has, on the whole, during the last thirty years, been progressively improving. It is impossible to pass through the country without being struck with the evidence of increasing wealth, which is everywhere apparent, although of course it is more easily traced in towns, than in the open country. Great as has been the improvement in England within the same period, that in Ireland, I believe, has been equal. There are towns and districts there, as there are towns and districts in England, in which little if any improvement is visible, or which, owing to peculiar circumstances, may even have retrograded ; hut the general advance is certain, and the improvement in the condition, and increase of the capital of the country, are still, I think, steadily progressive.

Disproportionate in- .. 7. If it he asked how this accords with the apparent increase of misery and descrease Of population, titution among a large portion of the people, the answer I think is obvious. The capital of the country has increased, hut the increase of the population lias been still greater ; and it therefore does not follow that there is an increase of capital or comfort in the possession of each individual, or even of the majority. The reverse is unhappily the fact. — Towns, exhibiting every sign of increased wealth, are encircled by suburbs composed of miserable hovels, sheltering a wretched population of mendicants. — In the country, evidence of the extreme subdivision of land everywhere appears, and, as a consequence, the soil, fertile as it naturally is, becomes exhausted by continual cropping ; for the cottier tenant, too often reduced to a level little above that of the mendicant, is unable to provide manure for his land, and has no other mode of restoring its vigour, hut bv subiecting it to a long and profitless fallow.

Subdivision of land. 8. Fanners of three hundred acres, or even of two or one hundred, except in the grazing districts, have become almost extinct in Ireland. A variety of circumstances seem to have contributed to bring about this change. In some instances the proprietor lias himself subdivided his land into small holdings of five, ten, or fifteen acres, with the view of increasing liis rent-roll, or adding to his political influence. In other cases, the land has been let on lease to a single tenant on lives, or for a term ot years, or both conjointly, — and he has sublet to others, who have again gone on dividing and subletting, until the original proprietor is almost lost sight ot, and the original holding is parcelled out among a host of small occupiers. tacEedto th^pos- - occ upation °f a plot of land, has now gotten to he considered by a great session of land. portion ot the Irish people, as conferring an almost interminable right of possession.

rins seems in some measure to have arisen out of the circumstances in- which they have been placed : for there being no legal provision for the destitute, and the subdivision of the land into small holdings having destroyed the regular demand for

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POOR LAWS— IRELAND.

labour, the only protection against actual want, the only means by which a man could Part I.

procure food for his family, was by getting and retaining possession of a portion of

land : for this he has struggled — for this the peasantry have combined, and burst through all the restraints of law and humanity. So long as this portion of land so acquired and so retained, was kept together, it was possibly sufficient to supply his family with a tolerable degree of comfort : but after a time he would have sons to provide for, and daughters to portion off ; and this must all be effected out of the land until the holding of ten or fifteen acres, became divided into holdings of two, three, or five acres. After a time too, the same process of subdivision is again resorted to, until the minimum of subsistence is reached ; and this is now the only resource of a large portion of the Irish peasantry. — Laud is to them the great necessary of life. There is no hiring of servants. A man cannot obtain his living as a day-labourer. He must get possession of a plot of land, on which to raise potatoes, or starve. It need scarcely be said that a man will not starve, so long as the means of sustaining life can .be obtained by force or fraud ; and hence the scenes of violence and bloodshed, which have so frequently occurred in Ireland.

10. One of the circumstances that first arrests attention in Ireland, is the almost Mendicancy-its universal prevalence of mendicancy. It is not perhaps the actual amount of misery P ernicious ^coexisting amongst the. mendicant class, great as that may be, which is most to be deprecated ; but the falsehood, the trickery, and fraud, which become a part of their profession, and spread by their example. Mendicancy appeals to our sympathies

on behall ot vice, as well as wretchedness; and encouragement is too often afforded to the one, by the relief intended to be administered to the other. To assume the semblance of misery, in all its most revolting varieties, is the business of the mendicant. His success depends upon the skill with which he exercises deception.

A mass of filth, nakedness, and misery, is constantly moving about, entering every house, addressing itself to every eye, and soliciting from every hand : and much of the dirty and indolent habits observable in the cabins, clothing, and general conduct of the peasantry, may probably be traced to this source ; and I doubt even if those above the class of labourers altogether escape the taint. Mendicancy and wretchedness have become too common to be disgraceful. It is not disreputable to beg, or to appear wretchedly clothed, or to be without any of the decencies of life : and the semblance of such misery is not unfrequently assumed for some special object, by individuals not of the mendicant class.

11. Another characteristic of the Irish, is their intemperance. Drunken- Intemperance, ness appears to be much more common than in England. The use of whiskey,

and tobacco, appears to be excessive, although the evident poverty of the people would seem -to forbid such indulgences. The number of spirit-shops in every town and village (for almost every shop in fact sells spirits), and the extreme cheapness of the whiskey, afford facilities for drunkenness which seem irresistible. A man may get beastly drunk for '2d. ; and I understand their potatoe diet renders the Irish people more easily affected by the spirit than others — it may t possibly help to increase their love for it. I have been everywhere assured that the vice of drunkenness is increasing, and that many of the acts of violence and disorder which occur in Ireland, are planned in some obscure whiskey shop, and executed under the influence of the poison there imbibed.

12. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Kilkenny has set an admirable example, by Drunkenness" putting a stop to drunkenness on Sundays throughout his diocese. It was at first checked, supposed to be impossible to accomplish this, but by steady perseverance he at

length succeeded, and is now rewarded by 'witnessing the improvement of the people in comfort and respectability. The New Act, prohibiting drunkenness on penalty of certain fines, seems to be working well in Ireland, and in some degree lessening the evil. The public exhibition of drunkenness is an offence against decency, from which the community is justified in defending itself; and the police are properly active in enforcing the provisions of the Act.

13. During my progress through the country, it was impossible not to notice the Depression of feeldepression of feeling, morally and personally, of the Irish peasantry, and this to an in e | s a “° r ngst tlle j extent which a stranger could not witness without very painful emotions. It shews peasan ry ‘

i n ^ le * r m0f ^ e of living, in their habitations, in their dress, in the dress of their children, and in their general economy and conduct. They seem to feel no pride, ho emulation ; to be heedless of the present, and reckless of the future. They do hot (speaking of the peasantry as a w r hole) strive to improve their appearance, or add o their comforts. Their cabins still continue slovenly, smoky, filthy, almost with

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REPORT OF GEORGE NICHOLES, ESQ., ON

Part I. out furniture or any article of convenience or decency. On entering a cottage, the woman and children are often seen seated on the floor, surrounded by pigs and poultry, in the midst of filth— the man lounging at the door, to approach which it is necessary to wade through mud; yet he is too^ indolent to make a dry approach to his dwelling, although there are materials fit for the purpose close at hand • his wife is too slatternly to sweep the place in which they live, or remove the dirt and offal, however offensive, from the floor. If you point out these circumstances to the peasantry themselves, and endeavour to reason with and show them how easily they might improve their condition and increase their comforts, you are invariably met by excuses as to their poverty. Are a woman, and her children, and her cabin, filthy,— whilst a stream of water runs gurgling at the very door ?— the answer invariably is, “ Sure, how can we help it, we are so poor.” With the man it is the same*; you find him idly basking in the sun, or seated by the fire, whilst his cabin is surrounded by mud, and scarcely approachable from the accumulation of every kind of filth ; and he too will exchiim, “ Sure, how can we help it, we are so poor,” — whilst at the very time he is smoking tobacco, and has probably not denied himself the enjoyment of whiskey.

Poverty not the 14. Noav poverty is not the cause, or at least not the solo and immediate cause, sole cause. 0 f this mode of living of the Irish peasantry. If they felt the wish to better their condition, or to appear better, they might do so : hut they seem to have no such ambition ; and hence the depressed tone of feeling of which I have spoken. This may partly be attributed to the remains of old habits, — for, bad {is the circumstances of the peasantry now are, they were yet, I am persuaded, worse fifty or thirty years ago. A part also must be owing to a want of education, and of self-respect ; and a part likewise to their poverty; — to which last cause alone, every thing that is wrong in Ireland is invariably attributed. Coupled with this assertion of their own poverty, I every where found the most exaggerated notions of English wealth, and a vague belief of certain great things that are by and bye to be done by the influx of English men, and English capital. This, perhaps, is iu some respects fortunate, for although it may in a certain degree indispose the Irish themselves to present exertion, it will yet induce them to hail with favour whatever efforts may be made for bettering their condition, and developing the resources of the country.

Desultory and idle 15. The desultory and idle habits of the Irish peasantry, sire very remarkable.

However urgent the demands upon them for exertion, — if, as iu the present season, their crops are rotting in the fields from excessive wet, and every moment of sunshine should he taken eager advantage of, — still, if there be a market to attend, a fair, or a funeral, a horse-race, a fight, or a wedding, all else is neglected or forgotten ; they hurry off in search of the excitements and the whiskey which abound on such occasions, and with a recklessness hardly to be credited, at the moment that they are complaiuing most loudly of distress, they take the most certain steps for increasing it. Their fondness for ardent spirits is, I believe, one cause of this; another, and probably the principal cause, will be found in their general position as part occupiers and part labourers. The work required upon their small holdings is easily performed, and may, as they say, “ be done any day.” Their work for wages is uncertain ; hence arises a total disregard of the value of time, a desultory and sauntering habit, without industry or steadiness of purpose. Under these circumstances, it will not he matter of surprise that the heaviest share of the work falls upon the females, who appear to do all the drudgery, and are commonly seen "without shoes or stockings, whilst the men are in general supplied with both.

Analogy between 16. Such is too generally the character, and such the habits, of the Irish peatioVofthe Irish and sa,ltr y at ^ ie present day; and it may not he iminstruetive to murk the close that Of the English resemblance which these hear, to the character and habits of the English peasantry oldPoor fis. the “ tll . e Pauperized districts, under the abuses of the old Poor Law. Mendicancy and indiscriminate alms-giving seem to have produced the same results in Ireland* that indiscriminate relief produced in England : the same reckless disregard at the future — the same idle and disorderly conduct — the same proneness to outrage, aud resistance to lawful authority, having then characterised the English pauperlabourer, which are now too generally the characteristics of the Irish peasant. A* abuse of a good law caused the evil in the one case, and a removal of that abuse is now rapidly effecting a remedy. In the other case, the evil appears to have ansfiQ rather from the want, than the abuse of a law ; hut the corrective for both wili, believe, he found to he essentially the same.

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POOR LAWS— IRELAND.

ii. — S econdly — As to the introduction of a system of Poor Laws into Ireland. PAnT r *

17. The objections usually urged against an Irish Poor Law, may be divided Objections, into two heads— first, those founded on an anticipated demoralization of the Irish peasantry — and, secondly , those founded on the probable amount of the charge.

18. The first objection derives its force from the example of England under the Objections founded old law: but the weight of this objection is destroyed by the improved adminis- EnS Ple ° f tration under the new law, which is rapidly eradicating the effects of previous S

abuse ; and which will, there is good reason for believing" effectually prevent their recurrence. This belief is founded on the experience of the effects of the new system, in every instance in which it has been brought fairly into operation ; and particularly in two important parishes in Nottinghamshire, where the workhouse principle was first established in its simplicity and efficiency, fifteen or sixteen years ago; and where it has continued to be equally effective, up to the present time. Similar results have invariably attended its application in the new Unions formed under the Poor Law Amendment Act, which are conducted essentially upon the same principle, but until a superior combination of machinery, and administrative arrangement.

19. With respect to the second objection, founded on the probable amount of Objection founded expenditure,— -it may be remarked, that the Irish population, like every other, must on expense>

be supported in some way out of the resources of the country ; and it does not follow therefore, that the establishment of such a system of relief will greatly increase the charge upon the community, if it increase the charge at all. During the progress of my inquiries, I was often told that the recognition of any legal claim for relief, would lead to universal pauperism, and would amount to a total confiscation of property. Many Irish land-owners appeared to participate in this apprehension, — under the influence of which, it seems to have been overlooked, that the only legal claim for relief in England, is founded on the actual destitution of the claimant ; and that as the existence of destitution is the ground of the claim, so is its removal the measure of the relief to be afforded. This circumstance alone, if the destitution be rightly tested, will afford sufficient, and perhaps the best protection to property. At present there is no test of destitution in Ireland ; mendicancy is only the outward sign of it. The mendicaut, whether his distress be real or fictitious, claims and receives his share of the produce of the soil, in the shape of charity, before the landlord can receive his portion in the shape of rent, and before the tenant has ascertained whether he is a gainer or a loser by his labours and his risks. The mendicant’s claim has now precedence of every other. If the whole property of Ireland was rated to the relief of the poor, it would be no more : but in this case the charge would be fairly and equally borne; whereas, at present, it is partial and unequal in the collection, and has, moreover, a direct tendency to evil in its application.

20. The voluntary contributions of Scotland have been strongly recommendedVoluntary coitrias an example, rather than the compulsory assessments of England; and the butions '

Dublin Mendicity Association, suppox-ted on the former principle, has been referred

to, and its working described as at once effective for the suppression of mendicancy, and the relief of the indigent within the sphere of its operations, without in any way lessening the sensibilities of individual benevolence. It appears to me, however, that the feelings of charity and gratitude which it is delightful to contemplate as the motive and the fruit of benevolent actions, can only exist between individuals, and are incompatible with the operation of such associations. It batters not whether the fund to be distributed, has been raised by voluntary contriution, or by legal assessment, or whether it has been devised for purposes of general chanty : the application of the fund becomes, in each case, a trust ; it is distributed as a trust, and it is received as a right, not as a gift. Each applicant considers that e has a claim upon the fund, and regards every refusal as an individual injustice.

21 As regards the mode of proriding relief for the destitute, which prevails in Mode of Relief in I and, — interwoven as it is with the habits and religious feelings of the people, ScotJan<1, and made up of partly voluntary, paitly compulsoi-y, contributions, (for a conti-ibution nTrri- r ? ndere(1 almost as compulsory by custom, as if imposed by legislative enactent,)-— it seems only necessary to remark, that its existence in Scotland does not prove that it is applicable to a country so essentially different in all respects as re an( b where no modification of voluntary contributions can be relied upon for

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Part L

Dublin Mendicity Association.

Houses of Industry.

Feeling in favour of a general assessment.

Circumstances favourable to the introduction of Poor Laws.

8 REPORT OF GEORGE NICHOLES, ESQ., ON

rendering relief, from that source, permanent or effectual. Of this I was satisfied after a careful examination of the Dublin Mendicity Association, which has with difficulty been kept in existence by the great exertions of the gentlemen constituting the committee, and by the threat of parading the mendicants through the streets. If so much difficulty is found in supporting such an institution in Dublin, how impracticable must it be to provide permanent support for similar institutions in other parts of the country ? — and if the relief professed to be afforded on certain conditions, is not steadily supplied, what mischief and misery may not ensue?

22. The practice of the Dublin Mendicity Association is, to receive all applicants, to supply them with sufficient food during the day, and, on dismissing them at night! to give each individual a penny to procure a lodging. Of the 2,047 persons who were inmates when I visited the establishment, the far larger portion were seated in idleness. Some of the women and girls were occupied in spinning and knitting, and some in stonebreaking : this last seemed a favourite occupation, and the women could easily earn Is. Sd. each per week at it, but they were not permitted to earn more. The men who were able and willing to work, were occupied in grinding horse corn, and in breaking limestone into gravel, and were not permitted to earn' more than 2s. 6d. per week; but none were compelled to work, and the men as well as the women, earning as above, were provided with subsistence, for which they were charged Id. per day by the Association. The Dublin Mendicity Association has certainly done great good, and it must be admitted that the sudden closing of its doors would be productive of much suffering. It is, however, I think evident, that its tendency must be to hold out an encouragement to vagrancy, by ensuring a certain amount of support, on which the vagrant can fall back under unfavourable circumstances, or a “ run of ill luck,” as it would probably be called, — thus operating, in fact, with respect to vagrancy, as a kind of voluntary labourrate. The Dublin Mendicity Association, therefore, affords no precedent for general adoption as a medium of relief in Ireland; and the chief reasons in favour of such an institution, seem to be the absence of any general system of relief for the destitute, and the amount of suffering which would attend its sudden dissolution.

23. Some persons have contended, that relief for the indigent classes in Ireland ought to be provided in “ Houses of Industry,” similar to those now existing in Dublin, Clomnell, Cork, Limerick, &c., to be established and maintained by Government. These institutions are in general tolerably well managed in the large towns. Some degree of classification of the inmates is enforced, and tlie sexes are invariably separated. In this respect they are decidedly superior to the old Gilbert’s Incorporation Houses in England, although in most other respects they are nearly on a par with them. But they are certainly not entitled to the designation of “ houses of industry there being little work done m any of them, and in some none at all. They are, in fact, places for the reception and maintenance of a certain number of poor persons, generally aged or infirm, and idiots and lunatics. In some instances vagrants are committed to these “ houses of industry” for one day or more ; but as a means of supplying needful relief to the destitute, and of testing that destitution, so as to detect and repel wilful idleness, and thereby afford a new stimulant to exertion, they are, I think, totally inefficient.

24. Notwithstanding these objections, I found everywhere throughout my pro-

gress, after quitting Dublin, a strong feeling in favour of a general assessment upon property, for the relief of the indigent. At present, the burthen of such relief falls almost exclusively upon what may be called tile Imver classes ; whilst the higher classes generally, and the absentee proprietors entirely, escape from any immediate participation in it A system of Poor Laws, similar in principle to the English system, would go far to remedy this inequality,— the people are aware of this, — mid, as the general result of my inquiries, I have been led to the conclusion that Boor Laws may be now established in Ireland, guarded by the correctives derived from experience in England, with safety and efficiency. I think also, that such a measure would at the same time serve to connect the interests of landlords and tenants, and so become a means of benefiting both, and promoting the general peace and prosperity of the country. ° 1

25. The desire now so generally expressed for a full participation in English laws and English institutions, will dispose the Irish people to receive with alacrity, any measure having a tendency to put them upon the same footing as their fellowsubjects of England. This is a circumstance particularly favourable to the establishment of a safe and efficient system of Poor Laws for Ireland at this moment.

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POOR LAWS— IRELAND.

At another season, or under other circumstances, it might he difficult to surround Purr I.

a legal provision of relief for the Irish poor, with such checks and counterpoises

as to guard, it effectually against abuse ; and to prevent that which was intended for the relief of the unavoidably indigent, from being perverted to the support of indolence, or to the encouragement of vice and improvidence. At present, I think little comparatively of such difficulty exists ; and the Legislature may now venture to entertain the subject, having the experience of England before them, with a reasonable confidence of being able so to deal with it, as to guard against abuse, and to bring the measure to a successful issue. All circumstances appear to be now favourable for tlie introduction of Poor Laws into Ireland ; and if the landed proprietors and gentry will there perform the same part, which the proprietors and gentry of England are so zealously and beneficially performing in the administration of tlie new law, the result will be neither distant nor doubtful. That the landlords of Ireland will do this, it seems unreasonable to doubt, every motive of public duty and private interest impelling them to it ; and it is, I think, impossible to over-estimate the importance, morally and socially, of their thus taking their full share of the labour, as well as the charge, of local administration, and identifying themselves with the other classes of the community.

26. A system of Poor Laws however, if established in Ireland, must not he ex- Effect of Poor pected to work miracles. It would not immediately give employment or capital; Laws.

out it would, I think, serve to help the country through what may be called its transition period ; and in time, and with the aid of other circumstances, would effect a material improvement in the condition of the Irish people. The English Poor Laws, in tlieir earlier operation, contributed to the accomplishment of this object in England ; and there seems nothing to prevent similar results in Ireland.

Facilities now exist in Ireland for helping forward the change, and for shortening its duration as well as securing its benefits, which England did not possess in the time of Elizabeth, or for a century and half afterwards. By the term “ transition period,” which I have used above, I mean to indicate that season of change from the system of small holdings, allotments, and subdivisions of land, which now prevails in Ireland, to the better practice of day labour for wages, and to that dependence on daily labour for support, which is the present condition of the English peasantry. This transition period is, I believe, generally beset with difficulty and suffering. It was so in England ; it is, and for a time will probably continue to be so, in Ireland ; and every aid should he afforded to shorten its duration, and lessen its pressure.

27. It has been considered, that the existence of the con-acre system in Ireland, Con-acre system: is favourable to such a transition. I am disposed to concur in this view; and its effecls - think that the frequent change, and annual hiring of the con-acre, will help to

wean the Irish peasantry from their now eager desire for becoming occupiers of land, and will thus lead them to become free labourers for wages. This eager clinging to land, and its subdivision into small holdings, is I think, at once, a cause and a consequence of the rapid increase of the Irish people, and of the extreme poverty and want which prevail among them. It is not because the potatoe alone constitutes their food, that a kind of famine, more or less intense, occurs annually in Ireland, between the going out of the old, and the coming in of the new crops ; but it is because the peasantry are the sole providers for their own necessities, Annual famine— its each out of his own small holding : and being all alike hard pressed by poverty, cause * and prone, therefore, to endeavour “ to pull through,” as they call it, with the smallest amount of means, they are very apt to under-calculate the extent of their wants, and often squander tlieir store so early, as to he left without food before the new crop is ripe. In this emergency, there is no stock provided to which they can have recourse, even if they had the means of purchasing: and misery and disease are the consequences. All the evidence hears out this view of the subject, und it i s confirmed by my own inquiries. A Poor Law, if established, would lighten the pressure under such, a visitation, by providing for the relief of the aged and infirm, the widow and the orphan, who now depend entirely upon the labouring classes for subsistence. The Poor Law machinery, too, would probably afford me best organization for obtaining present relief for the able-bodied, in their extreme need, as well as for preventing the occurrence of such a calamity in future.