This kind of co-operation between voluntary agencies and the Poor Law, in the pecuniary relief of the same individual, is, as we need hardly point out, in direct contravention of the principle enunciated by Mr. Goschen in 1869. Nothing, in fact, has been done since Mr. Goschen's Circular that is even in the direction, so far as domiciliary relief is concerned, of the entire allocation of particular cases to one kind of organised aid or the other. On the other hand, there has been, since 1871, an almost continuous encouragement of another kind of co-operation, namely, the use, by the Poor Law Authority, of institutions under voluntary management for the maintenance and treatment of particular classes of paupers, at the expense, wholly or partially, of the poor rates. The number of paupers who are technically in receipt of outdoor relief, but who are, in fact, maintained in specialised voluntary institutions, is always increasing. Certified schools for children of all denominations, and with all kinds of defects; certified sanatoria and convalescent homes for the sick; voluntary hospitals of all kinds and sorts;[838] industrial and reformatory institutions for the able-bodied; asylums for the crippled and the epileptic, and the various kinds of "Farm Colonies" are all now admitted as laudable experiments, expressly authorised, systematically inspected, and extensively subsidised, in the curative treatment of destitute persons. We may infer that it is in institutional treatment of this sort rather than in domiciliary relief that the Central Authority maintains the principle of co-operation with voluntary agencies that Mr. Goschen laid down.
CHAPTER V
It is unnecessary to attempt to summarise the policy of the Central Authority from 1847 to 1907, in the manner adopted for the inaugural period, 1835 to 1847. The policy of the last sixty years is so complicated and diversified that we could hardly compress it further than is already done in the foregoing analysis, without making it unintelligible. We propose, therefore, to end this report by examining to what extent, in our opinion, the Central Authority has, in 1907, departed from "the principles of 1834"; to what extent it has evolved other methods of dealing with its problem—methods based on principles that were neither advocated nor condemned, because they were not thought of, by the little group of ardent doctrinaires who conceived and carried out the reforms of the new Poor Law; and, finally, to what extent it has left the local authorities without guidance as to which of the competing principles they should adopt in their everyday task of relieving the destitute.
A.—The Departures From the Principles of 1834
The principles of the 1834 Report, to which different people will assign different degrees of scope or importance, are, as we have shown, three in number. We will deal successively with the Principle of National Uniformity, the Principle of Less Eligibility, and the "Workhouse System."
(i.) The Principle of National Uniformity
The Principle of National Uniformity—that is, of identity of treatment of each class of destitute persons from one end of the kingdom to the other—for the purpose of reducing the "perpetual shifting" from parish to parish, of preventing discontent, and of bringing the parochial management effectually under central control, is, in 1907, with one notable exception, in practice abandoned. Uniform national treatment is to-day obligatory with regard to one class only of destitute persons, the wayfarers or vagrants. Whatever may be the diversity of practice amongst boards of guardians, the policy of the Central Authority for the vagrant is, uniformly throughout the kingdom and without exception, indoor relief, in a specially appropriated ward, with prescribed "deterrent" treatment as regards diet, task and detention. For the able-bodied male person, seeking relief in his own parish—the very class for whom the 1834 Report most passionately postulated national uniformity of treatment—there is, in 1907, no uniform policy. The universal "offer of the House" was apparently found to be impracticable even in the first decade; and by 1852 the Central Authority had settled down to the division of England and Wales into two geographical regions, in one of which outdoor relief to the able-bodied male applicant is (with minor exceptions) prohibited, whilst in the other region boards of guardians are not only permitted, but even advised, to meet the recurring times of distress, and of pressure on the workhouse accommodation, by the grant of outdoor relief against a task of work. With regard to that section of the class of able-bodied who may be intended by the indefinite term "unemployed," there is to-day, under the Unemployed Workmen Act 1905, a third alternative policy, in itself capable of endless variety from place to place, with which we shall have to deal under the head of principles new since 1834.