832 REPORT— 1892. 



where there is some thought of the morrow, inveterate habit leads many bread- 

 ■winners to think more of the immediate than of the comparatively distant future 

 and to provide rather against the risk of accident or illness by joining a sick-club 

 than against the remote prospect of destitution when the day of work is over. 

 When all this is conceded there must remain, no doubt, many cases of unforeseen 

 and undeserved misfortune, in which old age overtakes the toiler without his 

 having had a chance of making provis"ion for it— cases where wages have hardly 

 ever been such as to allow of saving, where families have been large and sickly, 

 where the struggling widow, work and pinch how she might, has had difficulty in 

 keeping the wolf from the door. These are the hardships with which we must all 

 sympathise — these are the sorrows we should all wish to relieve. Putting 

 unavoidable misfortune aside, however, for the moment, let us consider whether 

 our present system is such as to offer tlie maximum amount of encourao-ement 

 to self-help and self-reliance, and the minimum amount of encourao-ement to an 

 «asy-going frame of mind which looks forward to pauperism with equanimitv. 

 What are the prospects, generally speaking, of the average worker who has made lio 

 provision for bis old age ? lie sees the system of outdoor relief in full operation • 

 he knows that unless and until he becomes utterly helpless and friendless, a dole 

 will be made to him which will keep him from starvation, and he learns to look 

 forward to that dole without repugnance and without dismay. The circumstances 

 under which it is allotted to him make but little change'in his family arrange- 

 ments. Ills able-bodied children, if lie has any, are seldom called upon by the 

 Guardians to make any great sacrifice for him, and he sinks down into a more or 

 less contented, but complete and hopeless, pauperism. I say that a community 

 •which tolerates and maintains such a system incurs a grave responsibility, and so 

 long as it makes no effort to improve it, has no right to wax impatient at the 

 •crying evil of old-age pauperism. And if a change in the system is possible, surely 

 we ought to consider whether it cannot and ought not to "be made before we seek 

 by heroic measures to set aside arrangements susceptible of gradual improvement 

 •and substitute for them a state of things which would perpetuate many of the 

 worst evils of dependence. If we had reason to believe that the Poor Law could 

 only be administered in the manner indicated above, we should perhaps be justified 

 in at once looking outside it for means to improve the condition of our aged poor. 

 But the very reverse is the case. _ We have abundant evidence that by^firm and 

 ^patient administration the condition of whole districts in regard to pauperism may 

 be radically changed, to the great benefit, material and" moral, of the poorer 

 inhabitants. During the last twenty years experiments in this direction have been 

 made both in urban and rural districts, not conceived in the spirit of empiricism or 

 -caprice, but undertaken as the result of ripe experience and with a single eye to 

 the real interests of the poor, which have been attended with complete success. 

 The tendency of the reforms effected has been, as is well known, towards a great 

 reduction, and in some cases the total abolition, of outdoor relief. In the waiter 

 of 1869-70 the Guardians of Whitechapel, one of the poorest districts in London, 

 lad forced upon them the necessity of reviewing their position. Up to that time, 

 in the words of Mr. Vallance, the Clerk to the Guardians 



'The system may be said to have been that of meeting apparent existing 

 ■circumstances of need by small doles of outdoor relief, the indoor establishments 

 .... being reserved for the destitute poor who voluntarily sought refuge in them. 

 Able-bodied men who applied for relief on account of want of employment were 

 «et to work under the Outdoor Relief Ptegulation Order, and, in return for such 

 work, were afforded outdoor relief in money and kind. Under this system, the 

 •administration was periodically subjected to great pressure ; so much so that the 

 aid of the police had not infrequently to be invoked to restrain disorder and afford 

 -necessary protection to officers and property. Police protection was even at times 

 required for the Guardians during their administration of relief.' 



In such circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that the Guardians should 

 have earnestly endeavoured to reform ' a system which was felt to be fostering 

 pauperism and encouraging idleness, improvidence, and imposture, while the 

 "relief" in no true sense helped the poor.' They gradually restricted outdoor 



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