(4) It is a national mistake to recognise a tramp class of women.[55]
(5) Those willing to work should be sorted from those unwilling.[56]
(6) It should be so arranged that the public understand there is sufficient provision for destitution, and are themselves deterred from promiscuous charity.[57]
(7) Some place of detention other than prison should be provided for vagrants convicted.[58]
(8) It is desirable also to provide labour colonies for defective industrials.[59]
In discussing the method by which such reforms can be brought about we must recognise that there are many "lions in the path." It is not certain that the necessary reforms can or will be carried through by Government. In other countries an example has been set by private enterprise, and has afterwards been adopted or subsidised by Government.[60] We must, however, recognise that our English problem is a huge one, that we have to make up for years of neglect, and that evils are accumulating.
The great majority of our population live in towns. Vagrancy is therefore one of our town problems, closely woven with the unemployed problem. But we have not the great advantage possessed by many Continental towns, that the Poor Law is under the control of the municipality. In Copenhagen, for instance, the four burgomasters control education, poor law, charity, municipal labour bureau, and old age pensions, as well as municipal organisation. This gives unity to city life. The new legislation in connection with the unemployed gives power to the Municipality at present mainly permissive, yet the Poor Law is still separate, also the magistracy often works against the poor law by the extreme leniency of their sentences. A poor-law officer cannot be sure of convictions.
If lodging-houses are provided this falls to the municipality also. There seems to be great need for unification of authority, and a thorough over-hauling of our poor-law system in view of modern conditions. It is also to be feared that the old traditions with regard to treatment of tramps are very deeply engrained in the minds of poor-law officials. The labour yard also is very seldom run on true business principles, and it would be difficult to create through the length and breadth of the land a thorough reform of the tramp ward, as difficult as it has been found already to secure uniformity.[61] Nevertheless, to create entirely new machinery when expensive buildings already exist seems foolish.[62] The imperative need for reform, however, calls for Government action, and so urgent is the call for a universal system, and so large are the issues at stake, that it would seem to be the best to recognise the whole matter as a cause for Government interference. It might be best if both the migratory and the unemployed questions were recognised as calling for a new Department of Labour, and the tramp ward or its substitute placed under the new authority.[63] In the case of the Poor Law Reform of 1834, Poor Law Commissioners were given wide authority to work radical reforms and unify the parishes for poor-law purposes. Something like this seems to be again necessary, but with still wider national needs in view.
These, for instance, are some of the reforms necessary:—