It is unnecessary for us even to refer to the disastrous chaos into which the Poor Law and its local administration had in 1832 fallen, or to the events which led up to the celebrated Royal Commission appointed in that year. Their report, presented in 1834, and the Poor Law Amendment Act of the same year, together form the starting-point of all subsequent legislation and administration.
The proposals of the Commissioners of 1834 were either formal "recommendations," exceptionally displayed in prominent type, or suggestions scattered among the pages which purport to summarise the evidence. For instance, the famous "principle" that the situation of the pauper should not be made "really or apparently so eligible as the situation of the independent labourer of the lowest class" is not a "recommendation," but occurs only as an assertion in the course of an argument.[6] We have therefore included, in the following statement of "the principles of 1834," all dogmatic assertions of this nature, as well as the formal recommendations.
The most revolutionary principle of the Report of 1834—the fundamental basis alike of the Act of 1834 and of the policy of the Central Authority—was that of national uniformity in the treatment of each class of destitute persons. It was this principle that was in most marked contrast with the previous practice, under which each parish or union had pursued its own Poor Law policy. It was this principle that furnished the ground for the very existence of a Central Authority. The Commissioners recommended that there should be uniformity in the administration of relief in the different parts of the country, in order—
(a) To reduce the "perpetual shifting" from parish to parish;
(b) To prevent discontent among paupers; and
(c) To bring the management more effectually under the control of Parliament.[7]
For this among other reasons the recommendation seemed to the Commissioners to follow, "as a necessary consequence, that the Legislature should divest the local authorities of all discretionary power in the administration of relief."[8] But they did not put this recommendation into large type. What they put into large type was the recommendation that there should be a Central Authority to control the administration, directed to frame and enforce regulations, "as far as may be practicable ... uniform throughout the country."[9]
It is to be noted that the uniformity proposed by the Commissioners was a geographical uniformity in the treatment of particular classes of paupers, both indoor and outdoor, in different places, not an identical treatment of all paupers, or of all the paupers in any one place. We shall deal presently with their varying recommendations with regard to particular classes. But in two categories they proposed a further uniformity, a uniformity in the treatment of different individuals in a class. They emphatically pointed out that any attempt to discriminate according to merit, in the award of outdoor relief, is dangerous and likely to lead to fraud.[10] This proposed further uniformity of treatment among individuals in a class, it will be seen, is expressly limited to the amount to be given as outdoor relief. It is not repeated in that part of the Report which deals with classification in institutions, nor does it apply to the decision as to whether or not outdoor relief should be given at all. A further uniformity recommended by the Commissioners was that of identity of treatment of the able-bodied, whether deserving or undeserving. To this we shall refer in connection with the able-bodied. It is to be noted that the Commissioners do not explicitly apply it to any but the able-bodied.[11]