TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 105 



peared plainly that pauper labour could not be made self-supporting, for four rea- 

 sons: — 1st. Because pauper labour was necessarily inferior to the labour at the com- 

 mand of private capitalists. 2nd. Because boards of guardians were entirely un- 

 suited to act as capitalists. The failure of the culcivation of waste lands at King 

 William's Town in Ireland by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, and the 

 failure of the Waste-Land Improvement Company, both showed how unsuited such 

 an enterprise was to be undertaken by boards of guardians. 3rd. Boards of guar- 

 dians must either lose all the most skilful paupers, or they would have to relax the 

 tests of destitution to retain them, and so would lose more by the increase of pau- 

 perism than they would gain by any profit on pauper labour. 4th and lastly. Be- 

 cause, if pauper labour could be self-supporting, it would follow that communism 

 would be more advantageous than competition ; as paupers employed by a board 

 of guardians were in exactly the position of a community on the system of St. Simon, 

 and to become paupers they must have failed to support themselves by free com- 

 petition. 



It followed, therefore, from these considerations, that pauper labour could never 

 be made self-su[)porting, and that industrial enterprises could never be successfully 

 carried on by paupers. 



The opinion that pauper labour could be made self-supporting had to some extent 

 been caused by the common fallacy on the opposite side of supposing that paupers 

 should be kept in idleness or at unproductive work. This fallacy had arisen from the 

 mistake of believing that pauperism was caused by over-production, whilst it always 

 arose from under-production, or production misdirected. But the moial and econo- 

 mical view of this question coincided. It was the duty of the guardians to keep 

 those under their care actively employed, since nothing could be more demoralizing 

 than a life of idleness, and nothing more calculated to weaken the force of the work- 

 house as a test of destitution, than making it a place for the indulgence of indolence. 

 In an economic point of view, it appeared extraordinary how any one could believe 

 that the wealth of a community would be increased by keeping a number of people 

 in idleness. 



As the task of making pauper labour productive was a hopeless one, it was the 

 duty of all intelligent members of the community, and especially of guardians of the 

 poor, to consider the wide field for exertion open to the philanthropist and the 

 statesman in the discovery and removal of causes of pauperism. 



In a paper ' On the Causes of Distress at Skull and Skibbereen during the Famine 

 in Ireland,' which he had read at the Edinburgh Meeting of the Association, he had 

 pointed out some of the causes of pauperism in Ireland. In other publications he had 

 treated of the same subject ; but beyond the subjects he had already noticed, there 

 were large fields of investigation connected with sanitary arrangements, with the 

 savings of the poor, with intemperance and immorality. The great advantage of a 

 long-lived over a short-lived population in respect to wealth, especially the wealth 

 consisting of human labour, had not been sufficiently dwelt on. The early mortality 

 of the Irish labouring population was a great source of pauperism amongst them. 

 Every improvement in sanitary arrangements would lead in the most certain way to 

 an increase of wealth and a diminution of pauperism. Tlie want of a perfectly safe 

 place for the investments of the poor was another prolific source of pauperism. He 

 had shown in another paper read at this meeting, that the present half.government 

 and half-charitable savings-banks afforded no adequate security, and although this 

 subject had been investigated for some time no practical good had been done. 



Again, could nothing be done with those large sources of crime, intemperance and 

 immorality ? It might be that nothing could be done directly, but could nothing be 

 done indirectly? Was anyone warranted in saying, without investigation, that nothing 

 could be done ? Would not the mere inquiry (if conducted in a proper spirit) into 

 the nature and extent of these evils and into their causes, be attended with beneficial 

 results ? 



If rightly considered, it would appear that all social evils and all defects in our in- 

 stitutions were to some extent causes of pauperism. The effects of these evils were 

 shifted from class to class, until they came upon those in the lowest place; but this 

 class had to bear them. He then showed that it was the especial duty of boards of 

 guardians, as a department of government, and as the department most directly con. 



