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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Personal Volume

No. V. — "The Poor."

page 32

No. V.

"The Poor."

"Ye have the poor always with you "—Mat. ch. xxvi., v. 2.

I have heard from many visitors to Europe who hailed from our Southern Colonies, that what impressed them most in their visit was the poverty in the big cities. It is always in evidence. You meet in certain quarters of all large cities some who are badly clothed, and badly fed, and their residences are overcrowded, and the beneficent sun rarely enters their dwellings. Suppose you are in London, and you take a walk to the East End on a Sunday, and stop on your way at Middlesex Street—formerly known as Petticoat Lane—you will see hundreds of people in the street, chaffering, Belling food, clothing, etc., even old books. If you have with you one who has been medically trained, he will point out to you, first this one and then that one, telling you that they have been, and are, starved. Others you will see that have been the victims of many diseases. If you express surprise he may tell you of some of his experiences in the slums; how as a medical student he had to learn practical midwifery by visiting many houses, and what did he seel He will tell you there is abject poverty in the majority of homes. In some cases no food, in many very scanty clothing, and the absence of necessary utensils. Even a wife about to become a mother is often without food, far less the other things deemed necessary in the homes of our poorest. Children are seen who are emaciated, in rags; and as for bedding and beds, they have to be content to sleep on a floor, covered with rags. Go to the Embankment on a winter night, and you will see page 33 thousands homeless. Look at many of the children in the slums, and you will be forced to say they have little chance of living decent or happy lives. What you see in the slums oppresses you, and you will probably come away with the idea that the fight against poverty is hopeless, and will say that we will have the poor always. What are they but the "chips" in Nature's workshops, and they are sacificed for the higher kinds of human life.

You will, however, soon get rid of this pessimism if two things are kept in view, the advance made since 1834 and the many agencies that are organised to uplift the poor. These things must impress you. After all, and notwithstanding the growth of big cities, pauperism has declined in the past 30 years. In the years 1871 to 1879, the average per 1,000 was 31.2. From 1896 to 1905, the average fell to 22.2. Surely that is a big advance. Then the agencies of help have enormously increased. Not to mention the good work done by General Booth's wonderfully organised Salvation Army, the agencies outside of these are numerous, enthusiastic, well-organised, and run on business lines. You meet "settlements," as they are called, in many quarters. These settlements are managed by University men, who have the love of humanity in their hearts. They give aid, and shelter, and instruction to the needy. They try to find work for them, and train them and lead them to habits of work and self-reliance.

I spent one afternoon in the Browning settlement in South London, at Walworth. The head of the settlement is F. Herbert Stead, the brother of the world-renowned W. T. Stead. He is a M.A. of Glasgow, and was a distinguished student in philosophy, and here he is wearing his life out to help those who much need assistance. Their hall is the old Independent Church, where Robert Browning often sat in his father's pew. Then there are settlements connected with English Universities, and the devotion of many trained young Englishmen for the poor has not been paralleled in the history of the race. Perhaps one of the most pathetic, and at the same time the most hopeful thing in the mass of misery, is the page 34 helpfulness of the poor to the poor: out of their penury they give assistance to their neighbours. "What a wonderful thing is human brotherhood."

The better English people, I may say the mass of the English people, are quite alive to the problem of poverty, and are searching for a solution. Though the report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, published in 1909, is sad reading, it has many joyful and hopeful passages. The world is getting better. The reports fill three large volumes, without counting the volumes of evidence, and if anyone wants to study the question of poverty in Britain, he should read the reports, both of the majority of the commission and of the minority. They differ much in some of their recommendations, but in many things they agree. To me, after reading the 1623 pages of these reports, the thing lacking is that little is said of the causes of poverty, and in both reports the recommendations are more how poverty is to be dealt with than with measures striking at its cause. If a farmer has a farm on a portion of which he yearly sows seed, and ho complains that weeds come up, would he not be better to spend some time in cleaning his seed than in eradicating the weeds? The problem is difficult. In 1906, 817,012 persons received poor law aid, not including persons in lunatic asylums, for mere casuals. The percentage per thousand of estimated population at same age was 23.6, or about one in every 43 people of the age relieved got poor law assistance. The average cost per head was £15 12s 6d per year. There is a good deal of space taken up in both reports in treating of "unemployment" as a cause of distress, but what leads to "unemployment?" Does not inefficiency play a big part in unemployment? And what if men and women are inefficient through inheritance of physical, mental, or moral weakness, and have their wills weakened by a drug habit? The expenditure on the poor on education and public health has grown to about £60,000,000 a year, but the expenditure on alcohol alone is more than double that amount, and any use of alcohol is pure waste, and page 35 leads to inefficiency. The United Kingdom consumes about three times as much alcohol per head as New Zealand does. Then in England the wholesale cost per year for tobacco, and the duties thereon, are about £17,000,000. If the retail cost were estimated, it would be seen how much more is spent on tobacco than in helping the poor, or in poor law relief. Is it any wonder that the cry of poverty is heard in the land where there is such useless expenditure ?

What does the Royal Commission propose? A vigorous campaign to put down luxury, waste, drug habits, to deal with degenerates in a medical way, and to look after the increase of the unfit? Not at all. The main recommendations of both are merely administrative. It is related of the famous physician, Dr. Abernethy, that he was attending a wealthy lady who had been ailing for a long time. One day his patient said to him: "Dr. Abernethy, you do not seem to me to strike at the cause of my disease. I am very disappointed." "Madam," said the doctor, "do you really wish me to strike at the cause of your trouble?" "Certainly," said the lady. The doctor, who always carried his cane, said, "Very well," and approaching the lady's sideboard, smashed all the decanters which were not empty, saying: "These are the cause of your trouble." There were no Dr. Abernethys on the Royal Commission, though the Commission were able and fearless men and women. Let any one, for example, compare these long reports with the reports of the late Dr. McGregor, in 1888, 1892, 1895, etc., and they will easily decide which are the more masterly, and which have grasped the evils which have to be remedied. Very shortly put, the majority suggested that the present administration should be altered, and large poor law areas created, etc. Practically, the proposals made were those carried out in New Zealand under the 1885 Hospital and Charitable Aid Act and its amendments. They suggest improved technical education, the creation of labour exchanges, or as we term them, bureaus. We have attempted both these. The loafer is to be treated as a quasi-criminal, and the real hard- page 36 working man benevolently assisted through industrial institutions and labour colonies. The minority report, which was signed by four of the Commissioners, the Rev. Prebendary Russell Wakefield (since made a dean), Messrs. Chandler and Lansbury, and Mrs. Sidney Webb, who recommended a change in the administration by, as was recommended, enlarging areas and making the local authority the controller of the poor law expenditure; that those asking aid be classified into the able-bodied and the non-able-bodied, and that special committees of the local authorities should be created with specialised work, such as the Education Committee, the Health Committee, the Asylums Committee, the Pensions Committee. Their main suggestion was in dealing with the unemployment. There is to be a Minister for Labour, and under him a Department with six divisions, namely: The National Labour Exchange, the Trade Insurance Division, the Maintenance and Training Division, the Industrial Regulation Division, the Emigration and Immigration Division, and the Statistical Division. Salvation, one old Church Father said, comes not by argument, and it is, I think, doubtful if poverty will vanish by the creation of a labour officialdom. No doubt most of the suggestions are admirable: Afforestation, land reclamation, etc., are all admirable, but after reading the reports and hearing many of the poor law reformers in Britain, I missed much a Dr. Abernethy.

Let me add that I saw a great improvement in the slums in the East End of London, and in the slums of Edinburgh, and I was told that Glasgow and the other big towns had greatly improved. There seemed less drinking, less poverty, better streets, more open spaces, and in a word a more civilised people. That this is not mere appearance is proved by the great fall in the death rate. In some towns it is only about half of what it was 50 years ago. That the people are more keenly alive to the problem of poverty, and more agencies at work than in the year 1860, is evidence of an improvement, for it tells of a quickened public conscience, and a recognition that we are our brothers' keepers.