Crooks told the audience it was no wonder that Lansbury and he got angry at times over our iniquitous Poor Law system. Such was the injustice of the rating system in London that Poplar—which was spending out of the rates per head of population less than half what West-End districts like Kensington and Marylebone were spending—appeared to outsiders to be extravagant. If those West-End Boroughs had Poplar's poor to look after, their rates, instead of being about 7s., would be about 15s. in the pound. The poor of Poplar were London's poor; yet the cost of looking after them was borne mainly by the people of Poplar. London was the only city in the world where those who grew rich on the labour of the poor were able to segregate themselves in favoured quarters, and escape their obligation to help the aged poor unable to work longer.
He went on to show the iniquities of our Poor Law system from a national standpoint. About £28,000,000 a year was raised in the name of the Poor Law. Of this only £14,000,000 had any connection with the Poor Law at all. And how were the fourteen millions spent? The poor got seven and a half millions, while the remaining six and a half millions were spent in administrative charges. That meant that every 5s. given to the poor out of the rates cost the ratepayers another 4s. 9d. to give it. No wonder that Bumbledom became nervous when Guardians urged that the poor rather than officials should receive more of this money raised for the poor. The Local Government Board Inspector, when deploring that Poplar's expenditure on the poor had gone up during the last ten years, might have added that during the same period the cost of collecting rates in the City had gone up from £11,000 to £23,000. It seemed to be all right when officials got the money, but all wrong when the poor got it.
"I believe in being a true Guardian of the poor, and not merely a Guardian of the Poor Rate. We in Poplar have preferred to save the lives of the poor rather than the rates. Even then we have administered with remarkable economy; for Poplar's rates would not be high if London as a whole paid its proper share towards maintaining London's poor. We in Poplar, however, have not allowed an unjust rating system to prevent us from doing our duty to broken-down old people, to the starving and to the unemployed. We agree with Carlyle that 'to believe practically, that the poor and luckless are here only as a nuisance to be abraded and abated, and in some permissible manner made away with, and swept out of sight, is not an amiable faith. To say to the poor: Ye shall eat the bread of affliction and drink the water of affliction and be very miserable while here, requires not so much a stretch of heroic faculty in any sense as due toughness of bowels.'"
From Stockport, where he had been addressing one of a series of public meetings in the Midlands, he wrote:—
"How good the people are! Whenever I mention Poplar, it is truly inspiring to hear the magnificent response. Last night the moment the word passed my lips an audience of two thousand cheered like one man. It sometimes overwhelms me almost. Who am I to deserve it?...
"I am sometimes told that I affect to despise my critics. You know better, of course. But, really, after such experiences as these, I can't help laughing at them when I think of their ponderous official pronouncements against my policy and of the equally ponderous lectures read to me by certain sections of the Press and the Church. When will the Press and the Church, and 'all who are put in authority over us,' come to learn what the mind of the people really is, and begin to interpret it rightly? I know the heart of the people to be true. That is why I laugh and go on my way confident that the little piece of well-doing I have aimed at on behalf of the poor and the unemployed will in the end put to 'silence the ignorance of foolish men.'"
If his meetings were inspiring, the same can be said of his correspondence. Public men, in various parts of the country, including Guardians, wrote to congratulate him on the brave stand he had made against the forces of Bumbledom. From other quarters he had many encouraging letters.
Canon Scott Holland wrote: "You know how your friends feel for you in this cruel trouble. We need not tell you how we trust you, and believe in you, and stand by you."
"You have made many lives happier and better by your work on behalf of the poor," wrote a high official from a central Poor Law establishment. "I thought it might be a comfort to you to know we feel indignant that you have been rudely assailed."
It was encouraging also to receive a note from a prominent Woolwich Conservative. The writer commenced by saying that although he was a political opponent, and would continue to be so, he had the greatest respect for Crooks personally, and wished to assure him that he did not agree with the attacks that had been made on his Poor Law policy.