The subject of pauper labour generally is one of the most difficult topics that the social philosopher can deal with. It is not possible, however, to do more here than draw attention to the salient points of the question. The more comprehensive consideration of the matter must be reserved till such time as I come to treat of the poor specially under the head of those that cannot work.
By the 43 Eliz., which is generally regarded as the basis of the existing poor laws in this country, it was ordained that in every parish a fund should be raised by local taxation, not merely for the relief of the aged and infirm, but for setting to work all persons having no means to maintain themselves, and using no ordinary or daily trade of life to get their living by.
It was, however, soon discovered that it was one thing to pass an act for setting able-bodied paupers to work, and another thing to do so. “In every place,” as Mr. Thornton truly says in his excellent treatise on “Over Population,” “there is only a certain amount of work to be done,” (limited by the extent of the market) “and only a certain amount of capital to pay for it; and, if the number of workmen be more than proportionate to the work, employment can only be given to those who want it by taking from those who have.”
Let me illustrate this by the circumstances of the scavaging trade. There are 1760 miles of streets throughout London, and these would seem to require about 600 scavagers to cleanse them. It is self-evident, therefore, that if 400 paupers be “set” to sweep particular districts, the same number of self-supporting labourers must be deprived of employment, and if these cannot obtain work elsewhere, they of course must become paupers too, and, seeking relief, be put upon the same kind of work as they were originally deprived of, and that only to displace and pauperize in their turn a similar number of independent operatives.
The work of a country then being limited (by the capital and market for the produce), there can be but two modes of setting paupers to labour: (1) by throwing the self-supporting operatives out of employment altogether, and substituting pauper labourers in their stead; (2) by giving a portion of the work to the paupers, and so decreasing the employment, and consequently the wages, of the regular operatives. In either case, however, the independent labourers must be reduced to a state of comparative or positive dependence, for it is impossible to make labourers of the paupers of an over-populated country without making paupers of the labourers.
Some economists argue that, as paupers are consumers, they should, whenever they are able to work, be made producers also, or otherwise they exhaust the national wealth, to which they do not contribute. This might be a sound axiom were there work sufficient for all. But in an over-populated country there is not work enough, as is proven by the mere fact of the over-population; and the able-bodied paupers are paupers simply because they cannot obtain work, so that to employ those who are out of work is to throw out those who are in work, and thus to pauperize the self-supporting.
The whole matter seems to hinge upon this one question—
Who are to maintain the paupers? The ratepaying traders or the non-ratepaying workmen?
If the paupers be set to work in a country like Great Britain, they must necessarily be brought into competition with the self-supporting workmen, and so be made to share the wage fund with them, decreasing the price of labour in proportion to the extra number of such pauper labourers among whom the capital of the trade has to be shared. Hence the burden of maintaining the paupers will be virtually shifted from the capitalist to the labourer, the poor-rate being thus really paid out of the wages of the operatives, instead of the profits of the traders, as it should be.