Report from the Select Committee on Aged Deserving Poor ; together with the proceedings of the Committee, minutes of evidence, and appendix.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on the Aged Poor
Date:
1899
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report from the Select Committee on Aged Deserving Poor ; together with the proceedings of the Committee, minutes of evidence, and appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    12 June 1899.] Mr. Davy. [Continued. Sir Walter Foster—^continued. and Wales it is 55. 8c?., and I think in Denmark it is pretty mucli the same; I liave not the figure at the moment, but I will p'Ut it in. 1169. You will be able to put in those figures as to the cost per head in the two countries ?— Yes, I will. 1170. Coming to another point, you said you thought thrift was discouraged by this pension scheme?—I think I was quoting from my corre- spondent. 1171. It has occurred to you, of course, that people have to exercise a certain amount of thrift to keep off the Poor Law, up to the age when they are eligible for pension ?—Yes, they have to exercise thrift for that 10 years, or else they have to get somebody to help them. 1172. So that is a strong incentive to a man who feels he is wearing out when he is 50, or before he is 50, to do all he can to save money to keep himself floating, as it were, up to the time he is eligible for pension?—Everybody agreed there was the strongest effort to keep off somehow or other,—but, whether by thrift I cannot say. 1173. That would act in the direction of thrift as regards many persons ?—As regards soma persons, undoubtedly. 1174. And it would act in the direction of Uie promotion of charity with regard to other persons ?—Yes. 1175. The amount of pension that is granted ■n Denmark is so small that it necessarily con- jotes, does it not, the possession of some means on the pairt of the applicants ?—It must be so. 1176. It is not quite as much as our average outdoor relief in England ?—It ig not so much. The position is this: tO' take two rural unions, which I know very well, and the figures to which I have exactly worked out, just 25' per cent, of the people over 65 are in receipt of relief, and out of the 25 per cent., 6 per cent. are_in receipt of indoor relief, that is to say, persons who could not possibly get outdoor relief, and just under 18 per cent., are in receipt of outdoor relief, and each of those would get from 2s. %d. to 3s. a head. It occurred to me that those people are better off, so far as money is concerned, than the pen- sioners in the rural districts of Denmark. 1177. They are paupers while the others are pensioners ?—I should rather put it that the one are called paupers and the others are called pen- sioners. 1178. That is the distinction you admit in your evidence as felt to be very important among the people there ?—Yes, everybody assured me it was so. 1179. As regards the question of lowering wages, do you think there is a great danger of that after a man is 65 years of age?—I do. I see it every day that the state-aided paauper is kept on the labour market, so to speak, and does get work which otherwise ought to be done by independent person; that is a difficulty which you cannot get over. 1180. Was that the result of your observation in Denmark?—That is the result of my observa- tion in this country. 1181. I am speaking of Denmark?—They cannot all be capitalists, living on their means, and doing nothing; they must be earning some- Sir Walter Foster—continued, thing, and if they are earning something, and able to do that work, and live by the aid of the pensions, I say the pensions have exactly the same effect in lowering wages that out- door relief has; and that is an insuperable difficulty a_s against giving outdoor relief in this country, or pensions in Denmark. 1182. Did you obtain evidence in Denmark to the effect that there was a general impression that the rate of wages to persons over 60 or 65 was lowered by the pension scheme?—The xmfortunate persons whose wages are lowered are too ignorant to know the effect upon them- selves. 1183. But you might have heard of it from their friends. With regard to the independence of the people ,1 believe it is the general impres- sion and belief that the independence of the people is not sapped by this system of pensions; is that so ?—I 'do not know, I should not like to say that. 1184. Then with regard to dis-pauperisation, the dis-pauperisation which has been going on in this country, you think might be checked by a scheme like the Danish scheme?—^I think it certainly would be checked. 1185. That is to say, if you assume that pensions have the same check as Poor Law I'elief ?—As outdoor relief. It would be a pro- nouncement by the legislature of this country that Poor Law relief was no longer to be con- sidered as a temporary evil which, as the labouring classes get more and more emanci- pated it would be possible to do away with, but would be a permanent fact in the constitution of a civilised country. 1186. We do not quite look at it, some of us, in that way, but I want to ask you this question : Considering that these pensions would apply mainly to old persons practically incapable of earning anything like a good rate of wages, do you not think the evidence of our Poor Law is that such persons have not been very much diminished as regards the receipt of Poor Law relief in this country?—I know that is a very much contraverted point, but I am perfectly sure they have been and are in the position of being diminished. 1187. Was not the proportion of indoor paupers in 1849, a large proportion of whom are old people, 77, and in 1898 7 without the decimal point seven?—Is that indoor? 1188. Yes ?—Because in making provision for indoor paupers it has been on account of the difficulty of paying persons. 1189. Still the figures are practically sta- tionary?—Perhaps. I will concede you this, that if you could have your pension scheme and prohibit the pensioners from doing any work whatever of any sort or kind, as sick club people and trades unions do, then half the objection to pensions would be gone, that is to say, there would only remain the objection that any formal State subsidy must discourage thrift. That is to my mind a comparatively small objection to the other one. 1190. Always qualified by the fact that they would have sufficient to keep off the Poor Law if you pay the pension?—That they must not work. 1191. Just
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