A treatise upon the poor laws

Front matter

speciAL coUeccioNS

t)OUQlAS

IGtbrarg

Section I. Introductory ----- Page 1

II. On a limitation of the amount of the Levies - 21

III. Of a total, hut gradual Repeal of the Law of Relief; and first, of schemes for withholding the benefit of the Law from future claimants - - - -'- - - 31

IV. Of Plans for restricting the Administration of Relief 38

V. Of the maintenance oj the Children of the Poor - 44

VI. Of the maintenance or employment of Able-bodied Persons ----_---. 72

VII. Further observations upon the subjects of the two preceding sections ; and especially on the connection between Phages and Poor Rates ---__.__ joo

VIII. Of the relief of the Sick, Aged, and Lnpotent - 112

IX- Of miscellaneous regulations concerning the Administration of Relief 117

X. Of schemes for preventing want, by Contributions from the Poor themselves -.--... 12Q

XI. Of Settlements and Assessments - - - 146

XII. Concluding Remarks - - - . - 154

Appendix

VI

Appendix A. Details relative to the progressive Increase of the Poors' Rates - - . . 163

B. Concerning the Pressure of the Rate in particular Districts

C Extracts front the Returns of \S\ 5 - 167

D. Talle shewing the Progress of the Population from the Commencement of the Eighteenth Century - 168

ERRATUM.

In page 3, line 19, for reference 'read attention.

A TREATISE, Sfc.

X HE Public is in possession of highly valuable dissertations upon the general topic of the Poor Laws, and of many schemes as well for the entire abolition, as for the amendment of particular parts of the System ; but none of these have led to any important measure, nor, until the last year, could Parliament be said, in modern times, seriously to have entertained the subject. Yet while year after year has thus passed without an attempt at amelioration, many practical evils attending the administration of the Laws have been universally acknowledged, and the fundamental principles of the System have been condemned by the most eminent writers.

Opinions unfavourable to the system in principle, have indeed, recently gained ground, and thence perhaps, the time might now be expected to approach, in which the " political plague of England" will be stayed by a great effort.

It may however be feared, that the vehement and encreasing conviction of the impolicy of the Poor Laws, will not have the tendency, naturally ascribed to it, towards a radical reform ; but that the magni-

B tude of the danger, and the boldness of the measures recommended for averting it, may deter Parliament from the attempt, and that we shall sit down in despair, trusting only to chance for an escape from the threatened ruin.

No man can have failed to observe, in the same person, the most decided concurrence in all that is said of the importance of the evil, and of the imminency of the danger ; and the most insuperable repugnance to all that is proposed, by way of remedy or prevention. Yet few men deny that the evil and the danger are progressively encreasing, and that the difficulty of amendment is day by day augmented.

The projectors of Remedies, perhaps, have proposed sometimes too much for practicability, sometimes too little for efficiency ; there has been frequently too great an abhorrence of details, and, not seldom, too little advertence to principles ; so that bold measures of reform have been rejected, through fear of their dangerous operation, and useful suggestions of regulation have been laid aside, as incompetent to a great purpose. Afraid of doing much, and ashamed of doing little, we have done nothing.

The late Report of the Committee of the House of Commons furnishes materials for the consideration of the Poor Laws, as well in principle as in detail^ more ample and useful than any that have been collected ; but it affords also most abundant proof of ■ the difficulty and complication of the subject, and it does not profess to present to Parliament, in a distinct form, the projx)sitions upon which it has to decide, still less, to recommend them by the matured opinion of the Committee.

It will be attempted, in the present Treatise, to state, clearly and separately, the questions which necessarily arise, in the discussion of each branch of this extensive subject ; — the opinions entertained upon them by eminent writers, and by the Committee ; — and the nature and tendency of the several projects of reform.

I hope thus to assist the deliberations of Parliament and the Public, by the detail of arrangement; but I have a motive also of higher pretension : I wish to lead them to avoid the extremes of rashness and timidity, to consider principles and facts together, and to satisfy themselves that much may be done that is useful, without doing all that is desireable.

But I will now advert to some general and fundamental objections to the whole system of English Poor Laws, which if valid would supersede the necessity of minute investigation.

In speaking of the system, I refer to that which now exists in practice, without reference to its origin or history. It is not very important, whether the Poor Laws, as now administered, were the Poor Laws of Elizabeth, or of IVilliam, or innovations upon both ; since neither of those Princes can be taken as authorities in Political Economy; nor is there so much similarity between their times and ours, in Wealth, Commerce, or Power, as to justify any comparison of the respective institutions. Nothing decisive is proved against the existing system by shewing that it is not to be found in the 43d of Elizabeth. I believe, however, that some of the most objectionable practices of the present day may be traced in the Laws of that Queen, and in the practice of William*

B 2

A remark somewhat similar may be made upon an observation, put forward by the Committee*, that the laws are peculiar to Great Britain, and, as now administered, peculiar to England only. Peculiarity is surely not a conclusive objection, and indeed, scarcely a plausible objection, to an English Institution. It is in many instances our boast rather than our shame. The statement, however, concerning other countries, is not strictly correct. In Holland, the law is or was nearly the same as in Scotland, and the administration not widely different. It is at least clear that the finding work for able-bodied men, and relieving them according to the number of their children, were points of legal obligation ;'f' and Holland is said by Mr. Malthus to have been " able to employ and support all who applied for relief." \ In Bavaria a stated provision for the poor was, not many years ago, adopted as a cure for vagrancy and robbery.^ In some of the Italian States, especially Naples and Rome, the children of the poor appear to have been indiscriminately relieved.|j Even in France, it appears, parents might, upon the condition of separation be relieved from the expence of maintaining their children ;^ and in f " Collections relative to systematic Relief of the Poor, at different periods and in different countries." By Mr. Duncan. p. 85. and see Postlethwayt's Diet. art. Poor.

X Malthus's Essay on Population, edit. 1803, Vol. II. 410.

§ Duncan, p, 88, speaks of an establishment at Munich, " to " provide work for the able-bodied and unemployed, and various " aid for the infirm poor."

II Duncan, p. /l, /5.

Switzerland there is a parochial^ though scanty, provision for the poor.*

It is undeniable that the relief afforded in England is more extensive and systematic, but it is not to be assumed of other countries, said to be without Poor Laws, that they are free from the evils of which we complain. Which is the nation of the Continent, to whose state we are willing to appeal ? Notwithstanding the number of our paupers, is it not clear that even in times of distress and discontent, our mobs are fewer, and less desperate and sav^age, than those of any other populous nation ? Let us look to that one of our own islands, in wdiich there are no Poor Laws. Is Ireland more famed for individual comfort and public peace ? Mr. Malthus has well observed that " it is an obvious answer to those who lay too '^ much stress upon the Poor Laws, to desire them to '^ look at the state of the poor in some other coun- " tries, where such laws do not prevail, and to com- ^' pare it with their condition in England. "-j^

The most popular and forcible appeal however is to the state of Scotland ; and the acknowledged superiority of that country in respect of the condition of her poor, is naturally adduced in proof of the advantage to be derived, from a more discreet administration of the same laws. J The nearness of that instance of wholesome management may well flatter us with the hope of at least an approximation to the same state, but it is to be feared that there are varieties in the circumstances of the two countries.

* Malthus I. 420.

which make the assimilation impossible. Scotland, in fact, is not, in the view of a poHtical economist, a distinct country ; her population has the benefit of English Wealth and English Poor Laws, and she is no more to be cited as an example, than any of those districts or parishes within England, in which local circumstances have also admitted of a less objectionable system.

Scotland, if taken by herself, must at least be regarded as a country having a very peculiar advantage in the facility, the popularity, and the profitableness, of emigration. I do not advert to adventurous emigrations to distant regions, but to the easy and regular transition to the benefits afforded by the capital and institutions of her richer neighbour, whereby she is protected from the redundancy of labourers, afid consequent lowness of wages, which occasion the principal demand upon our English funds.

Scottish habits and institutions are peculiarly favorable to a frugal and regular system ; but it already appears that as Scotland encreases in wealth and manufactures, her Poor Laws begin to have a more extensive operation. The fact is, (says an intelligent and eloquent Scottish writer) "that in " most of her large towns, and in pretty large dis- " tricts too of some country parishes, the peculiar " system of Scotland has already been broken in " upon.* It is doubtless true that "where a regular " assessment has been established, the wants of the " poor, and the extent of the assessment, have gra-

* Edinburgh Review, Vol, XXVIII, g. — See some sensiblfe remarks on the citation of Scotland as an example, in Weyland's Observations on Mr. Whitlread's Poor Bill, p. I9.

" dually and progressively encreased;"* but these additional wants may probably have been the causes rather than the consequences of the resort to compulsory assessment. I am however far from denying, that many useful hints may be taken from the Scottish administration, whereby the treatment of our poor may be materially improved.

Another preliminary and indeed fundamental objection to the English system is, that it subjects Jimds which are in their nature limited, to an un/imited demand, under which they must therefore at last give way. Perseverance in such a system must end in destruction.

I must, then, here venture to state my persuasion, that in this representation of danger there is a great exaggeration; that the Poors' Rates have not operated upon property with that continually encreasing pressure which has been imputed to them, and that we ought not to infer, from the acknowledged progression of the amount, a lasting progressiveness of the proportion. It is alleged that the amount has constantly ■ encreased with a rapidity too great to be accounted for by the encrease of population, or of the price of provisions; and on comparing the assessments at the periods in which the country was comparatively poor, with those which have been witnessed in modern times, the allegation will be found correct. It is, however, worthy of observation, that if we compare the returns of 1815 with those of 1803, an accurate allowance for the encrease in popuktion and in the price of wheat, will sufficiently account for the encrease of expenditure; while the proportion which the number of paupers bears to the whole people^ has scarcely encreased within that period, and in some counties has been diminished. How materially the amount is affected by the price of com is shewn by a fact appearing in the returns of 1815: in the three years included in those returns, not only the sums expended upon the poor but the number of persons relieved are shewn gradually to have declined. A corresponding fall appears in the price of wheat. Necessarily unacquainted with these details, which are to be found only in the Parliamentary Returns, Mr. Malthu^s appears to have fallen into an error as to the connection between the encrease of pauperism and the price of provisions. " Duringthe progress of the war," he says,* '' the encrease in the proportion of persons " requiring parish assistance was attributed chiefly to '^ the high price of the necessaries of life. We have '' seen these necessaries of life experience a great and '' sudden fall, and yet at the same time a still larger " proportion of the population requiring parish assist- " ance." The fact appears to be, that a reduction in the expenditure of more than one million of money, and a diminution of eighty thousand paupers, were occasioned by the fall of prices between 1812 and 1815.

How far the proportion which the rate bears to the property on which it is assessed, has, during the whole existence of the Poor Laws, encreased with the encreasing amount of the assessments, it is difiicult to prove. It certainly has not materially varied of late, except with reference to thepriceof bread. According to the latest returns, the whole levy was 3^. \\d. in the pound upon the landed property, estimated for the

* Additions, p. Q5.

Property Tax*. This rate does not justify the apprehension of an overpowering burthen.

I can not admit tliat a conclusive argument for the destructive tendency of our system is to be drawn from the encrease of the rates, of the number of paupers, or even of the proportion which they bear to the population. The general situation of the country in respect of wealth and power, must also be taken into account. It would perhaps be difficult to give a positive denial tothe statement of the Committee, that " the demand" of the Poor Laws is " unlimited,'* and that it operates upon funds "which it cannot aug- " ment;"f but the force of that remark is surely much weakened by the undoubted fact, that the funds and the demand upon them, have encreased together ; the assessable fund has always exhibited a strong tendency to accommodate itself to the pressure of the demand, whilst other funds legally exempted, but equally interposed between the country and its destruction, have been daily growing and expanding.

Nor is it quite certain but that if, as is alleged by the Committee, the Poor Laws produce an augmented population, they do not by a circuitous operation, encrease the funds themselves ; and at least it must be noted, that in that view of their effect, they enlarge the demand for the produce of the land ; the occupiers of which therefore, in paying the rates, are encouraging the formation of an extended market for their produce.

It is enough, however, forme, to object to the consideration of the fund as stationary, and the de-

* For a verification of these statements, see Appendix, t Report, p. 4.

mand as progressive, seeing that the two have advanced together.

In the short period which has elapsed since 1815 (on the returns of which year the Committee ground their statement) there has probably been a material encrease in the assessments; and in this particular case, that encrease has not been accompanied by an encrease of wealth : but the Committee itself seems disposed to consider this crisis as one too peculiar to be the basis of our Legislation ; and it furnishes assuredly no fact in proof of the progressiveness of the assessment. It might well be questioned ^\'hether, if, at the occurrence of such a crisis, no Poor Laws had existed, the watchful benevolence of the British Legislature would not have resorted to some peculiar means for alleviating the distress.

The instance which the Committee has selected of a parish* nearly abandoned, certainly evinces inequality of the assessment, and the severe pressure occasioned by local and temporary circumstances, but it affords no rule forjudging of the general state of the country. It is certain, that many cases of unusually high rates may be adduced, but as far as I can judge, after collecting returns quite indifferently, from all parts of England, I may affirm that nearly all those cases are to be traced to peculiar circumstances, connected with war, commerce, or manufactures.

It is undeniable that some "^ circumstances, which, " in the early periods of the system, rendered its pro- " gress slow, are now unfortunately changed ."f I

* U'omlnd^e, in Sliropshire, a raining parish, t Report, p. 9, am abundantly sensible, that the aversion from parochial relief has been much lessened and is daily disappearing. This change of feeling, unquestionably, favors the probability of an accelerated progress of the Poors' Rates, and of all their attendant evils.

The practice of relieving fathers according to the number of their children, and making up their wages to a sufficiency for their maintenance, is doubtless among the leading causes of the encreased familiarity with parish pay. But the Committee give a representation of the fact, rather inaccurate, or, at least, likely to generate inaccurate ideas, when, speaking of the loss, of the check afforded by " the workhouse system," they attribute the necessity of relieving persons out of the workhouse to the number being greater than any workhouse would contain ; whereas the fact is that the relaxation of the workhouse system, was adopted for the benefit of persons whose circumistances and situation could not have admitted of residence in workhouses, namely " industrious poor " persons" who cannot be taken from their ordinary occupations, or separated from their families.* This principle of relief is rather the cause than the consequence of the encreased number of paupers, inasmuch as it jidds to the list a new description of persons.

These considerations, however they may influence the course of our reforms, are obviously not conclusive against the whole system.

* The statute, 36 Geo. III. c. 23, recites the provision of the former statute, y Geo. I. c. 7. respecting workhouses as " inccn- " venient and oppressive, inasmuch as it often prevents an in- " dustrious poor p. rson from receiving such occasional relief as is ** best suited to the peculiar case of such poor person, and inas- " reuch as in certaiu cases, it holds out conditions of relief iitju- " rious to the comfort and dotnestic iiluation and happiness of auch " poor persons."

Another ground upon v/hich it is maintained that the Poor Rates will advance, at an accelerated rate of progress, towards the point of entire absorption of property is the consideration, " that in whatever de- " gree the addition to the number of paupers depends *^ upon their encrease by birth, that addition will pro- " hahly be greater than in past times in the proportion " in luhich the present number of paupers exceeds '^ that which formerly existed" and that " when the *' public undertakes to maintain all who may be bom, " without charge to the parents, the number born will " probably be greater than in the natural state."

In this passage again, there is, in my opinion, exaggeration, if not error. It assumes in the first place, that the whole progeny of paupers are necessarily paupers themseves, an assumption, resulting from the original mistake, of calculating upon encreasing population and stationary wealth ; and it attributes to the Poor Laws more than they realise in practice. The poor, no doubt, are in most parts of England greatlyrelieved from the burthen of large families ; but, for one, two, or three children, according to the practice of the district, the price of corn, and the rate of wages, they have no relief; nor can it, when afforded, be said to be always equal to the necessitv. The poverty of the lower orders is, notwithstanding the Poor Laws, an efficient check to the encrease of the people. It is true, that the population has encreased of late years, with a rapidity perhaps unusual in a nation so far advanced ; but, every thing indicative of that prosperity of which augmented numbers are a symptom and an effect, has during the same period, and, I think, from the same causes, continued to encrease.

I know not what precise operation the Committee have in view, when they say, " the rate of encrease

^' cannot fail materially to depend on the general state *' of the country, whether it be in an improving, a sta- *' tionary, or a declining state." My belief is, that if the country improves, in the ordinary acceptation of the word among political economists, the Poors* Rates will have a tendency (susceptible of repression) to encrease, as they have encreased during the remarkable improvement of the last twenty years ; and that if the country should decline in those respects in which she has lately advanced, the operation of natural causes, will, in spite of the Poor Laws, reduce the population, and perhaps prices, and with them lower the Poors' Rates.

That the circumstances of the times are likely, notwithstanding the Poor Laws, to operate as a check upon the encrease of the population, is an opinion distinctly stated by Mr. Malthus* who even indulges the hope that " in a few years the labouring classes " will be restored to have full employment and good " wages."

This is his view of probabilities, given under circumstances of unusual distress ; but, writing at a period in which our wealth, the demand for labour, iind the Poors' Rates, were all encreasing together, he distinctly admitted that it was at least extremely questionable whether the Poor Laws did in fact tend to the encrease of Population. f

This doubt is confirmed by several facts. First, the proportion of Marriages to the whole Population is smaller in England than in any other Country of

* Additions p. 64. t II. ^^7.

which Mr. Mallhm* can speak, excepting only Korway, and Sivitzerland where it is less, and Scotland, where it is thought to be equal f. It is thus " decisively proved that the Poor Laws do not en- " courage early marriages so much as might reason- *' ably be expected," and the prudential check then, or some other effectual check, exists in England,\ in greater force than in any other forward and highly peopled Country.

Again, Scarcity has in England, (for instance in 1800 and 1801,) been attended with a diminution of marriages ^, the ordinary consequence of a pressure, which, it is thus shewn, our System does not entirely remove. The fact, that in the years immediately following, the Marriages were more numerous than before, gives reason to conclude that Scarcity operates to the diminution of the people, not so much by accelerating death, as by exciting the prudential check and postponing ^Marriage.

While noticing the Population Returns, I cannot omit the mention of an " extraordinary fact," mentioned by Mr. Mallhus,\\ namely, that the proportion of births to the whole population is smaller in England than in any other Country except Korwai/ and Switzerland, a decided proof, when coupled with the acknowledged rapidity of our encrease of numbers, " of a very small moilality, — a distinction" (adds Air. Malthus) '^ on which we may justly pride

* II. 4Q3. And see his letter to Mr. Wiitbread, p. l6, and Quarterly Review, XVII. 27 1.

§ Parish Register Abstrcct, 1811, p. 196.

" ourselves." Might it not be added — a proof of the efficacy of the system of which the Poor Laws are a part, if not of those laws themselves, in preserving the human life, and preventing or alleviating individual suffering ? If it be through these means, — rearing the sickly and healing the diseased, — that under the Poor Laws the " number of people becomes " greater than in the natural state," the argument against that code may perhaps be in reason equally forcible, with one drawn from its encouragement of Marriage, but it is one which we shall more reluctantly put forward.

In stating, however, the objection founded upon the encouragement of Population, I do not acknowledge that encouragement as an unmixed evil ; — of that hereafter. The object of the present observations is to shew, that the progress of the Rate, hitherto, does not justify the conclusion that it will always encrease more rapidly than the Funds to be assessed. The circumstances under which the assessment has encreased have hitherto enabled us to support that encrease ; at least, they have been too uncommon to admit of our arguing from what has occurred under them, to what is probable under an altered state of affairs.

I submit then, that the danger of a final destruction of Property by the Poors' Rate, is one upon which we cannot so far calculate, as to have recourse, upon the ground of imperious necessity, to any measures from which we are naturally averse.

It has been said to be icvjust to tax property for the relief of indigence ; that such a system is fundamentally inconsistent with the order of Society of which the Law of Property is a sacred and essen-^ tial branch, and that it leads to an Equality of Condition, and a Community of Goods.

No man can be more satisfied than I am of the utter impracticability of all Schemes of Equality. If a systematic relief of the indigent by the more wealthy, tend to this result, it is confessedly vici-r ous. But of this tendency there must be reasonable proofs ; Proprietors are not to claim a protection for their property against the smallest encroachment, on the pretence, that the principle of that encroachment, if pushed to an extremity, and never checked, might lead, in the course of a thousand years, to a ruinous conclusion.

It is surely, in the abstract, reasonable and just, that the excessive inequalities of condition which Society occasions among men, should be corrected by a sacrifice on the part of the more prosperous, sufficient to preserve from wretchedness or actual destruction the least fortunate classes. That would doubtless be the most perfect state of Society, in which no such abject inferiority should exist. If observation teaches us that this perfect state is unattainable, and that the attempt will encrease the sum of human misery, and destroy the frame of human Society which is essential to peace and virtue, we must bow to the Providence which imposes limits upon the happiness of mankind ; but it is assuredly neither absurd nor unnatural to attempt, as well in our social institutions, as in our individual conduct, the mitigation of the severe but necessary evil.

On the grounds which I have already stated, I am convinced that the danger of a return to savage equality does not exist within reasonable apprehension; and that it may be with safety quite disregarded.

I readily admit, that the system, as now administered, does press too severely upon the class immediately above those who receive relief; and that it has, so far, the tendency imputed to it in the Report* " to pull down what is above;" but no argument drawn from the inequality of the pressure, is conclusive against systematic relief, unless it be shewn that the unequal severity cannot be avoided by any different arrangement of the assessment ; — a matter for separate discussion.

It does not appear to me, that an adherence to what is styled the doctrine of Mr. Malthiis, respecting population, necessarily leads to a condemnation of the whole code of Poor Laws actually in operation.

It may be true that population has a tendency ta encrease more rapidly than food, and that this tendency can be overpowered only by checks, all of which are resolvable into moral restraint, vice, or misery. It would follow, that where moral restraint does not exist as a preventive, vice or misery must prevail as a cure. Unquestionably it is our duty to ^ive a preference to the moral principle ; nor can it be denied that our Poor Laws tend, in theory, to counteract, in some degree, the operation of that prudential check, and, of course, to generate vice and misery.

But we have the authority of Mr. Mahhus for believing that, in spite of the Poor Laws^ the moral re-

P. II D strain! actually prevails in England to a considerable extent; and that the mutual adjustment between population and food takes place^ without more of danger or suffering, in England, than in other countries*.

It is evident, too, that the arguments of Mr. Mal^ thus, if they affect the whole code of our Poor Laws, affect its various divisions with very different force ; they are therefore more properly to be discussed in the consideration of the details than admitted as conclusive against the general policy.

On the whole, I am convinced that none of the general objections which have been enumerated, are sufficient to induce us to abandon a system interwoven with our political Constitution, or to adopt, upon the ground of imperious necessity, measures from which we are deterred, by a sense of their practical difficulty, or by the repugnance of our natural feelings. We need not despair of being able to drive off the danger to a period too remote for contemplation, and mitigate the intermediate evil, by a mild combination of palliatives.