• THE GROWTH OF LONDON PAUPERISM.
THAT London is a unit, and should, except where good cause can be shown in favour of a different method, be treated as a unit, would be a commonplace if it were not flagrantly contradicted by our Poor Law system. In the annual article relating to "The Legal Poor of London" which recently appeared in the Times, most of the defects in the Metropolitan administration of poor relief are traced to the fact that for this particular purpose London is not one city, but thirty-one cities. Uniformity of policy is impossible when no proved abuse can be abolished and no obvious improvement introduced unless the advantage of the change can be made plain to thirty-one separate Boards of Guardians. The only conceivable defence of such a chaotic system is that each separate authority is continually trying experiments which are watched, and when they succeed copied, by all the rest. And if this were true, if diversity were only the antechamber to uniformity, we should willingly put up with the want of logic involved in treating the destitute poor of a single city as though they were distributed over thirty-one cities. But where is the evidence that any such real though informal unity exists ? Experiments which have been tried for a generation in one Union and yielded ample proof of success have borne no fruit in Unions immediately adjoining them. To take a familiar instance, the results of the policy followed by the Whitechapel Guardians ever since 1870 are well known, but only one, or at most two, other East London Unions have profited by this example. "It is still seen," say the St. Pancras Guardians, " that where outdoor relief is most suppressed the expendi- ture upon poor relief in other branches is correspondingly diminished." The principle could not be better stated, and the consequences that follow from it are unmistakable and invariable. In Whitechapel in 1870 there were 1;410 indoor and 5,339 outdoor paupers. In the middle of December, 1907, the indoor paupers were 1,858, and the outdoor paupers 37. An increase of 448 in the one class is balanced by a decrease of 5,302 in the other. The figures for St. George's-in-the-East for the same week are equally satisfactory. Against 1,252 indoor paupers they show only 11 outdoor. St. Pancras, however, has yet to put its own excellent theory into practice. It returns 4,572 indoor paupers ; it still gives outdoor relief in 1,560 cases. But even this proportion, greatly too large as it is, compares favourably with the neighbouring Union of Islington. Here, while the indoor paupers number 4,483, the outdoor reach the astonishing figure of 5,660, a number exceeding even that reached in Poplar. Islington, indeed, is the one London Union in which the total pauperism reaches five figures. It is plain that these vast differences cannot spring merely from difference of local conditions. There are eight Unions, for example, in East London, with an outdoor pauper roll of 7,905, and to this a single Union, Poplar, contributes 5,004. That is a proportion which can only be explained by reference to policy. Indeed, Poplar has spared us the trouble of arguing this point by publicly proclaiming its determination to make the grant of outdoor relief a plank in its municipal platform. This engaging disposition to play ducks and drakes with other people's money has at last brought the Poplar Guardians into conflict with the Local Government Board. They are now to be compelled to send all able-bodied persons receiving outdoor relief to a farm colony, where they will be given a modified labour test. For the future, therefore, those Guardians who take pleasure in seeing the objects of their bounty standing at every street- corner will have to prove the goodness of their inten- tions by submitting to the auditor's surcharges. Unity of administration would put an end to all this confusion. The action of a Central Poor Law Board for the whole of London might be well or ill advised, but it would everywhere be based on the same principles and be applied by the same methods. It is not likely that the common-sense of a great community would long remain blind to the plain teaching of experience.
The ordinary action of a stringent test in the matter of outdoor relief has been interfered with of late years by a change in. the methods of indoor relief. The able-bodied pauper seems to be losing his dislike of "the house." In London there are over a thousand more indoor paupers this Christmas than there were a year ago, and over eleven thousand more than there were in 1901. This increase coincides with, and to all appearance is the direct growth of, certain changes in the conditions of workhouse life. These changes have been all—we quote from the Times artiele—" in the direction of increased comfort. Special efforts have been made to lighten the monotony of the workhouse, and to introduce more cheerfulness into the greyneee of indoor pauper life. This has been done by altering the character of workhouse buildings, by supply- ing a more liberal and varied dietary, by making the general appearance of living rooms brighter, and in other ways adding to the comfort of the inmates." It may seem at first sight a brutal thing to object to the introduction of these improvements. The inmates of a workhouse, it will be said, are there by no fault of their own. They are the victims of old age, of disease, of a destitution which the state of the labour market does not permit theni to avoid. Are they to be mocked by the offer of a shelter as comfortless, of a dietary as near starvation, as those from which they have escaped ? For our present purpose the aged and the sick may be put on one side. The new feature in workhouse statistics is the increased number of inmates who are neither old nor ill. They have come in, they say, because they cannot find work. Whether they have made any serious attempt to look for work, whether the would be willing or able to do it if it were found for them, are points upon which they are naturally silent ; and in certain Unions the authorities, not so naturally, accept this silence as a sufficient explanation. Upon what inducement do the Guardians rely for ever getting rid of this class of inmates ? Their answer, if they were at the pains to give one, would probably be that the able-bodied inmates will take their discharge as soon as the season .and the weather give them an opportunity of getting work. Until lately this diminution in the inmates of the workhouse could be tounted on in the summer months. In 1907, however, this record was interrupted. "Not only did the numbers increase from month to month, but they went higher than those for 1906, and approached more nearly the totals for the distressful summer of 1905." Even if some of the increase is to be attributed to the ungenial weather of July and August, this argument cannot be extended to Sep- tember. Yet in the closing week of the last-named month the indoor paupers were 74,264. Two months later they had risen to 79,143. This last item of increase shows how valueless the apparent shortage of pauperism in the summer really is. Men go out of the workhouse not so much because they are anxious to find regular work as because they see their way to picking up a livelihood during the warm weather by odd jobs and odd charity. They like their liberty so long as the weather is warm enough for them to enjoy it, and to gain their liberty they are willing to run some risks. They are not for the most part absolute idlers ; they are willing to do work which is neither too hard nor too continuous. But it must be work which is con- sistent with entire freedom of movement from place to place, and the full use of the casual ward and the.charitable shelter. As soon as the warm days are over the idea of the workhouse again becomes attractive, and they return to their winter's enjoyment of good fare and warm rooms. For any good their outing has done them they might as well have stayed in the workhouse. When they come back in the autumn they are no nearer regular employ- ment, and no better fitted to undertake it, than they were when they went out in the spring.
London has many special agencies at work which seem expressly designed to multiply paupers. Perhaps the palm ought to be awarded to Medland Hall, the free shelter of the Congregational Union in Ratcliff. It is open all the year round, and no one is turned away so long as there is room. There is no attempt at inquiry or classifica- tion. The title to admission is the wish to be admitted. For twelve hours of the twenty-four the hall is open. Every inmate has a meal, with better fare on Sundays and concert nights. There is a nurse in attendance for injuries or slight ailments, and material and tools are pro- vided for repairing boots and clothing. There is no test of any kind as regards admission, nor seemingly do the managers of the shelter ever ask themselves what effect their benevolence had upon the 123,418 persons who, accepted their hospitality in 1906. Upon this point, how- ever, the figures tell their own story. Out of these 123,418, 71 are known to have found work, and out of two millions and three quarters who have been sheltered during the last sixteen years, only 400 have been emigrated. The Stepney. Guardians, in whose midst this institution stands, are under no delusion as to its character a,nd. working. "Throughout the winter months," they say, "there is a, steady march to London from the provinces of ne'er-do., wells, corner-boys, criminals, and other ill-organised beings whose stock-in-trade is their rags and. dirt. These are ever ready to prey on others, ready to take advantage of any well-meant scheme to relieve the want and misery of the deserving poor, ready at the shortest notice to demon- strate,' ready at all times to do anything but work." Yet Medland House does not contribute so many inmates to the workhouse as other shelters do. The Stepney Guardians probably offer fewer attractions than some of their brother authorities. In Marylebone 520 applicants to the relieving officer came from shelters belonging to the Salvation Army. Neither Government nor Parliament can put a stop to these mischievous charities ; but they can, if they choose, ensure that the occupants of these "homes" shall find no parallel to the treatment they receive in them in any London workhouse.
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