Two theories are sometimes seriously brought forward as means by which the problem of hungry children could be dealt with. One is that if only the poor could be induced to cut down their families to fit their incomes there would be no problem. The other is, that if only the woman with 20s. a week knew how to spend it she could feed, lodge, and clothe her family with perfect ease. The first of these two ideas—if it ever possibly could be put into practice—would find a cure for poverty by the dying out of all the poor people. The man with 20s. and less could not even marry; the man with 25s. might perhaps marry, but could have no children; the man with 30s. might have one or two children—one is tempted to say “and so on.” But the people with incomes over the income-tax level do not nowadays as a rule err on the side of too large families. Many people with the comparatively enormous sum of £10 a week hesitate to have more than one or two children. It is obvious that were the children of the poor limited according to wage there would be no corresponding advance in the size of the families of the rich. It is not only that the nation would shrink, but the wage-earner would automatically cease to reproduce himself. It seems an heroic way of curing his difficulties. Obviously as a palliative in individual cases the plan of limiting the family according to wage appeals with great force to the well-fed and more fortunate observer, but as a national measure to deal with poverty it fails to convince. That a man with 24s. a week is unwise to have six children is perfectly true. But, then, what sized family would he be wise to have? If he were really prudent and careful of his future he would, on such a wage, neither marry nor have children at all. He could in that case live economically on 20s. a week and save the 4s. towards his old age. But we cannot expect Professor Bowley’s 2,500,000 adult men to act on those lines. The fact is they want to marry and they want to have children. As either of these courses is unwise on 24s. a week, they are in for a life of imprudence anyhow. The very facts of their poverty—close quarters and lack of mental interest and amusement, and, above all, lack of money—help to make the limitation of their family almost an impossibility to them.
The other suggestion has been already dealt with in previous chapters. It is always worth while, of course, to teach an improvident and stupid woman to be careful and clever—if you can. But to put down all the miseries and crying wants of the children of the poor to the ignorance and improvidence of their mothers is merely to salve an uneasy conscience by blaming someone else. It is almost better to face the position and say, “The poor should not be allowed to have children,” than to pretend that they could house, clothe, and feed them very well on the money at their disposal if they chose.
In Schedule A in the First Report of the Departmental Committee, with respect to the Poor Law Orders, a diet for a child of over two and under eight years is given, of which one day in any workhouse might be as follows:
Breakfast.—Bread, 5 ounces; fresh milk, ½ pint.
Dinner.—Roast beef, 1½ ounces; potatoes or other vegetables, 4 ounces; fresh fruit-pudding, 6 ounces.
Supper.—Seed-cake, 4 ounces; cocoa (half milk), ½ pint.
No mother on 20s. a week could secure such food for her children. It is not supposed that the Departmental Committee appointed by the President of the Local Government Board would prescribe an extravagant diet, and it seems terrible that the children of the hard-working honest poor should be fed on a diet which is about half that prescribed as the most economical and very least that a healthy workhouse child should have. In this report it has been decreed that the workhouse child needs milk. Half of its evening and morning meals are to be of bread and milk. Further, “milk” is specially notified as meaning “new milk, whole and undiluted.” If the workhouse child needs about a pint of whole and undiluted new milk a day, as well as other food such as vegetables, fruit, bread, and cocoa, so does the child outside the workhouse. No scheme of porridge and lentils will do for a child without milk, and milk is expensive. When the mother has fed the bread-winner in accordance with his tastes and with some semblance of efficiency, she has no chance of being able to afford even a half-ration of milk for her children. When she has balanced the problem of housing against that of feeding, and has decided on the wisest course open to her, she has still to put her children three and four in a bed. She cannot separate the infectious from the healthy, nor the boys from the girls. She can never choose a sanitary and healthful life. She can only choose the less of two great evils.
No teacher of domestic science, however capable, can instruct girls scientifically and in detail how adequately to house, clothe, clean, warm, light, insure, and feed a family of four or five persons on 20s. a week in London. The excellent instruction given by the L.C.C. teachers is based on budgets of £3, 35s., or of 28s. for a family of six persons. It was realised that to teach girls how to manage inadequately would be false teaching. If the scientific and trained teacher cannot solve the problem, the untrained, overburdened mother should not be criticised because she also fails. The work which she is expected to do is of supreme importance. It would be enlightened wisdom to enable her to do it.