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.

    81/466 page 31
    5 June. 1899.] Sir H. Longley, k.c.b., and Mr. Fearon, c.b. [Continued. Sir Fortescue Flannery—continued. County Council would be a body very remote from the wants of tlie poor in a particular piarisb. It -would be very difficult for them directly to administer a. parish fund. 552. In other words the sphere of its operation is too large ?—I should have thought so. 553. You appoint trustees as you have told us ad hoc, that is to say, they are appiointed from a central administration of the Charity Commis- sion. Do you consider that there would be any serious objection to the trustees, even in a smaller area than that 'of the County Council, being an elective body ?—No ; many of our tiais- tees are elected. 554. I understood that in the majority of in- stances at all events they were apipointed from the Charity Commission ?—You refer to these two schemes. A considerable number of these trustees are elected by elected bodies. 555. But not direct by the ratepayers ?—No ; we have never done that since the Act of 1894. The Act of 1894 we considered told us that in- direct representation was to be the rule. Chairman. 556. For your charities?—For our charities, yes. ^ 557. The Local Grovernment Act?—The Local Government Act, 1894. ' Sir Fortescue Flannery. 55'8. Does that apply, from your experience and your opinion, that to any body which would adminster a general system of old age pensions, that the body should be a body directly elected by the ratepayers or voters ?—My answer would be a very limited one. We have had great ex- perience of bodies directly elected. Until there were parish councils, we had to try and get trus- tees elected in any way we could, and we used to frame all sorts of bodies which had to elect, bodies especially constituted for the purpose; and the expense was so great as to deter us, and now elections by representative bodies cost nothing. 559. Apart from the question of expense, did you find there was any ooiTuptiou or undue in- fluence, or any question of that kind which would make it undesirable to have the adminis- tration of pensions by a directly elected body ?— I do not think I coiild say I had had any experi- ence in that direction. 560. So far as you know there would be no objection of that character to an elected body? •—My experience has not suggested any s.o far; but, of course, as I have said in answer to an- other question, the granting of pensions is very liable to be abused. Mr. Anstruther. 561. I have only one question to ask you. Will you kindly look at 47 of St. George the Martyr, page 11. I want to ask you if you could explain to me a phrase in the second part of that clause: The funds or income of the charities shall not in any case be applied directly or in- directly, in aid of any rates for the relief of the poor or other pui-poses in the parish, or so that Mr. Anstruther—continued. any individual other than a pensioner may be- come entitled to a periodical or recurrent benetit therefrom. What is dontemplated by that phrase?—Well, I think in this particular case that clause, which is a common form clause, has not very much application, except so far as that 300/. a year for nursing might perhaps be applied in some way in relief of the rates. It might have the effect of guarding against that. I do not think the clause is particularly applic- able to such a scheme as this. 562. Whether periodically or recurrent to an individual would it operate as a relief of the I'ates ?—Yes, but a pension is excluded here. They may grant the pension as a reciirrent benefit. Of course, thait is the whole object of the scheme. 563. It did not convey anything to me at all. I merely asked for infonnation to ehicidate the point, for to me it conveyed nothing at all?—I think it is not, as I say, particularly applicable to this case. It is a common form which we put in in cases where there are doles and so on ; there are no doles here, but I think it may have some effect as regards the nursing provisions. It is not a very effectiA^e clause in this case, I admit. Chairman., 564. You said there had been no friction so far as you remembered between the Charity Com- missioners and the administrators of the Poor Law, except, I think you said, sometimes with regard to almshouses. Did not you ?— I think sometimes trustees try to' remove people from the almshouses to workhouses or infirmaries. There may be a little disagree- ment then, but there is nothing serious or very general. 565. Two bodies dealing with the same poor, they sometimes came to a disagreement?—Yes, but there is nothing very much in it sO' far as we know. 566. Then with regard to what you said about a pension authority being dissociated from the Poor Law altogether, might not the same diffi- culty occur, and, perhaps, in a greater degree; they would be both bodies dealing with the poor all over the country. Might there not be some inconveniences arising from having the same body dealing with two classes of people ?—Yes. From my point of view I should think the in- oonvenience of bringing them together would be greater perhaps; but that is merely a question of the balance of advantage and disadvantage. I quite see the difficulty. Mr. Hedderwiclc. 567. Have you ever employed a parish council as an elective body for the appointment of trustees?—Continually—universally. 568. And I presume with satisfaction ?—Yes, we have no difficulty about it at all; in fact we are bound by the Act of 1894 to take care—^or rather to recognise—the parish councils as elec- tive bodies. Sir Walter Foster. 569. And they have done their work satisfac- torily ?■—Yes, so far as I know.
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