Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress.
- Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress 1905-09
- Date:
- 1909
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress. Source: Wellcome Collection.
229/1272 page 203
![THE ABLE-BODIED UNDER THE POOR LAW. sae 203 449, We have described in a preceding Chapter how the Order prohibiting out-relief. Able-bodied ‘o the able-bodied was gradually applied to the rural Unions; while a less stringent pauperism in golicy was adopted in the towns. Though the great mass of pauperism was then in the ae sountry districts, the problem of town pauperism, as we know it now, was already making itself felt. Even the problem of casual labour at the docks was familiar, and t was subsidised by Poor Law relief then as it is now by charitable funds and Distress Jommittees. ) 450. There wasa very general feeling that, even if the new policy could be successfully ypplied in rural districts, it must break down in manufacturing towns where great numbers were liable to be thrown out of employment. It had been the custom in bad times to subsidise the earnings of the workers ; this enabled the employer to lower wages, or to set men to work and sell their products at a loss, and this intensified the trade depression. The Commissioners maintained that, though pressure upon workhouse Accommodation might occasionally necessitate a different form of treatment, nevertheless the essential principles of administration remained the same both in town and country. Mr. Chadwick gave interesting evidence on this point before a Select Committee appointed in 1838 to inquire into the working of the new law :— pew “In a manufacturing district emergencies may arise in which the workhouse test cannot be p applied, and then you will apply, carrying out the principle of the Poor Law Amendment Act, the next best test that can be applied, that being labour by task-work.”1 _.. 451. Such a. crisis had. occurred early in the history of the new Poor. Law at Nottingham. A Poor Law Union had been formed there in July, 1836, during’ a time of very good trade; the population being entirely manufacturing, and engaged chiefly in the manufacture of cotton, hosiery, and lace. In December of the same year, commercial difficulty began, and gradually the pressure upon the workhouse accom- modation became very great. After utilising outside buildings and reopening a workhouse which had been closed :— “still the pressure went on increasing; our means were not equal to it, and we found that a great number of people towards October last were applying for relief that were not at all known 70: as paupers; they were not of pauper habits; they were people who had effected some savings, igi) but those savings having become exhausted, they were sunk down to the common level of ¢ pauperism. . . . The Commissioners, at once, on my suggestion, relaxed the rule, enabling » © the board of guardians of the Nottingham Union to give outdoor relief to able-bodied men in return for task-work ; that task-work was digging. _ We obtained permission of the corporation to: make a road through a property that had been very much hitherto inaccessible, and we set the: men to digging under a surveyor.”8 _ Care was taken that the money earned should be less than that earned by the: independent labourer :— 3 “Or we should have been swamped at once, and have had all the independent labourers upom us.” 4 The distress subsided at the beginning of 1838, without leaving any permanent burden of able-bodied men on the rates.° 452, This expedient of meeting times of. special distress by a relaxation of the Relief of able- administration has been continued to the present day, with results to which we shal] bodied in times. allude subsequently. a res: aistress.. “The modern form of Outdoor Labour Test Order is” says Mr. Adrian, “designed to operate in Poor Law unions to which the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order applies, and in effect authorises a relaxation of that Order on the lines of the Outdoor Relief Regulation Order.”6 But in towns in: which the Regulation Order is in force, itis always open to the Guar- dians, without any special relaxation, to grant out-relief to the able-bodied, provided that, in the case of males, half of it is given in kind and that the recipients are kept at work. 453. The history of the relief of the able-bodied outside the workhouse under these two Orders is full of interest, and for our present purpose very instructive. What we find (1) Labour yards. 4 1Select Committee, 1838, Chadwick, 67. 2 Tbid., 18. 2Ibid., 41. 41[bid., 56. 5 Ibid, 73.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32170555_0229.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
