Fourteen Commissioners made the following recommendations in addition to those just indicated. Majority Recom mendations. (a) That the Boards of Guardians be replaced by Public Assistance Authorities, which should be co-extensive with a County or County Borough, half the number to be appointed from the County or County Borough, the other half to be appointed by the council from outside their number. These councils should be for administrative purposes only. No action has been taken to meet this recommendation. (b) That Public Assistance Committees be set up for the smaller urban and rural districts, to deal directly with the applicants for relief. No action has been taken. (c) That Voluntary Aid Councils be created in connection with (a), and Voluntary Aid Committees in connection with (b), for the purposes of supervision, and of acting as intermediaries between public assistance and private charity. No parliamentary action has yet been taken on these lines. (d) That County and Local Medical Assistance Committees be created, to provide medical relief on a provident basis. This recommendation has not been adopted. (e) That outdoor relief, while adequate to needs, be subject to thorough investigation and supervision. The conditions imposed by the Relief Regulation Order, 1911, largely meet this recommendation.* Minority Four Commissioners submitted the following proposals:(a) That necessitous non-able-bodied persons be dealt with by the appropriate committees of the County and County Borough councils, and therefore not come within the Poor Law. Children should be provided for by the Education Committee; the sick and incapacitated, * For the principles and methods of indoor and outdoor relief, and the various Orders, see Clarke, op. cit. Chapters, VIII.-X. mendations. the infants under school age, and the aged needing institutional care, by the Health Committee; the mentally defective by the Asylums Committee; the aged by the Pensions Committee. The several committees should be under the supervision of the corresponding Government Department. These recommendations have been met to a limited extent; necessitous schoolchildren may be given meals (though this practice was temporarily restricted during the post-war so-called "economy" campaign); the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 required the Boards of Guardians to make suitable provision for the mentally defective; while Old Age Pensions satisfy to some extent the requirements of the Minority. (b) That the necessitous able-bodied be dealt with by a special authority, and that in order to reduce unemployment the labour market should be organised by a Ministry of Labour; in order to minimise the unemployment caused by cyclical fluctuations the Government should institute a ten-year programme of public work (of at least forty million pounds for the decade), the work to be given out exclusively in the years of depression. It was further proposed that the unabsorbed surplus of unemployed should be maintained at public expense, and when desirable trained for alternative occupation. These recommendations have not so far been adopted, except for the establishment of the Ministry of Labour in 1916, and the special schemes for the training of ex-service men. (c) That Registrars of Public Assistance be appointed in Counties and County Boroughs for the purpose of keeping a register of those receiving public relief, and for preventing the overlapping of functions. No action has been taken in this connection. SOC. ECON. 20 In short, the Minority virtually disputed the necessity for any Poor Law at all. The non-able-bodied poor could be dealt with by the appropriate authorities outside the Poor Law. Unemployment was said to be the dominant factor making for distress among the able-bodied, and, to prevent this, special machinery should be set up. The Poor Law should, in effect, be dispensed with. Prevention rather than mere relief should be the principle to be followed in the future. The Poor Law since 1909. The extent to which the several recommendations of the Majority and the Minority of the Royal Commission of 1909 were adopted has been shortly indicated in the preceding paragraphs. It is evident, to judge from subsequent developments, that the Minority Report made the greater impression on the legislators. All the Commissioners were in favour of abolishing the Boards of Guardians and enlarging the area of administration from the Union to the county and county borough. The Maclean Report of 1918* supported this proposal. It urged that the responsibility for the administration of services from local rates should rest with one authority in each area; that the local authority should take over the duties of public aid; that the general mixed workhouse should be abolished; that a "Home Assistance Committee" should be set up in each area for the purpose of making inquiries into the circumstances of applicants for home assistance and also for general supervision and administration; and that the provision for the sick and infirm should be the function of the Public Health Committee of the local authority, the provision for children * Report of the Local Government Sub-Committee of the Ministry of Reconstruction, 1918. should be made by the Education Committee, and the provision for the mentally unsound by the Asylums Committee. Thus the Maclean Report endorsed the main recommendations of the Minority of the Poor Law Commission, though it did not altogether disregard the proposals of the Majority. The Report is significant in that it conciliated to a large extent the supporters of the Majority and the Minority, and demanded without party distinction the disappearance of the Boards of Guardians and therefore the virtual abolition of the Poor Law. The post-war depression showed up the defects of the existing Poor Law machinery. Some Boards gave assistance without any test," adopting scales of relief based on the number of dependants. Others refused to give out-door relief to ablebodied persons at all. Others, again, declined to accept a definite scale of relief, and in some cases refused relief to those in receipt of unemployment benefit.* The rise during the last fifteen years of a system of State insurance against unemployment and ill-health has brought further complications. Social insurance (which is the subject of the following chapter) is admitted in all quarters to be immeasurably superior to the antiquated system of Poor Law relief. Not only is it more efficient and equitable, but it savours less of charity and does much to remove the stigma of pauperism. But while the two methods are operating side by side, overlapping of functions and duplication of machinery and expenditure would appear inevitable. If the scheme of social insurance is to be made more comprehensive than it is at present—and the signs point in that direction-then the need for the abolition of the Poor Law is further emphasised. So far, the recommendations of the Maclean Committee have not * Cf. Annual Reports of the Ministry of Health. been adopted,* but it cannot be long before the Boards of Guardians, despite the sincerity and sympathy of the individual members, are supplanted by a more uniform, serviceable and humane system of relief. Survey of This rapid survey of the history of the Poor Law indicates the changes that have come about in outlook and policy on the part of the public authorities. At one time destitution was practically regarded as a crime, and severe punitive measures were employed in a vain attempt to cope with the problem. Whipping and branding proved to be no remedy at all, and the "Old" Poor Law of 1601 showed public policy to have been educated to the point of distinguishing between the different types of poverty; the impotent, the aged and the young were given more humane and lenient treatment than that meted out to the able-bodied. The Elizabethan policy, with certain alterations, was pursued for over a hundred years and with a considerable measure of success. With the agricultural and industrial changes of the eighteenth century, however, poverty became more acute, and the established methods of poor relief were found sorely inadequate. It was now recognised that an able-bodied man might become unemployed through no fault of his own, that idleness was not necessarily synonymous with laziness. The abolition of the workhouse test together with the adoption of the Speenhamland policy of "bread scales" caused a temporary departure from the Elizabethan code, but with the continuance of the enclosure movement, the extension of the factory system, and the dislocation following the Napoleonic Wars, * The Ministry of Health Bill, 1920, was intended to give effect to some of the recommendations in the Maclean Report, but it was defeated in the House of Lords. |