It was no easy matter to have brought this great work of a statutable poor relief to its present advanced state, without exciting stronger feelings of opposing party than any which fortunately have yet been elicited; but it may well be doubted if things would go on in the same quiet and businesslike manner if Guardian meetings were to be open to the public; and if there be any evil connected with the exclusion complained of, we may safely conjecture, at least, that it is the lesser of two—less than that which would arise from the jarrings and discord of party on a subject which, above any other, calls for unanimity, and should awaken only the feelings of a common benevolence and patriotism.
We may now advert, in the last place, to the ameliorations in our social condition which may be expected to arise when the new system shall have been put fully in operation. In the first place, a reproach will be wiped away from our country, which certainly existed against it so long as it could be said that no law existed in it for the relief of the poor. Destitution will then be provided for, and mendicancy will be without excuse. It is true that there is no direct provision in the act for the restraint of beggary, but a legalised provision for the destitute is indirectly a law against it, and must operate most powerfully as such. When people are taxed to maintain the poor, they naturally become unwilling to open their purse-strings, unless with great reluctance, at the solicitation of mendicants; the trade of mendicancy declines; and those who would still cling to it are forced, if of the class of the able-bodied, to apply themselves to some means of profitable industry, or to resort to the workhouse for subsistence. The Poor-Relief Act is thus, indirectly, a law against mendicancy, and in this point of view is calculated to work most beneficially, and greatly to alter the face of things in Ireland.
But it is also a law of positive economy to the country. The support of the destitute not being abandoned to casual charity, but conducted systematically by persons appointed to bestow their exclusive attention to it, and all rateable parties being under a legal obligation to contribute in due proportion to their circumstances, there cannot be a doubt that a less expenditure will suffice under such management for the maintenance of the really destitute than if the work were left to mere voluntary benevolence, and no means existed of compelling all classes fairly to share the burden among them.
Many persons have felt a terror at the idea of the taxation they supposed they should have to suffer under a poor-law; but the great probability, nay, almost the certainty of the matter, is, that it will be a considerable saving to them. The present rate in Dublin is 1s. in the pound for the year, on a very moderate valuation, and much more than half the rate is borne by landlords.[1] This, however, appears to be beyond the intention of the law as to town property, for which inordinate rents are not usually obtained; but the result is within the control of the Guardians, who may revise the valuation whenever they propose to levy a new rate.
The expense of the relief, even under higher rates, would be less, far less, on those who have hitherto supported the poor, than the outlay which they have annually made for that object; and now they will have the satisfaction of knowing that what they give is given to the destitute poor; that all is well applied, none misspent, and every part so economized in distribution, that the sum contributed relieves a greater number of poor than the larger sum formerly given in alms.
It must also be considered, that the poorer classes subsisting by labour will be relieved by the workhouses from the continual encroachments of beggars on their scanty meals, and the still more scanty means of lodging possessed by them. Let the opponent of such a provision for the poor—if any reflecting person in the country can on public grounds be opposed to it—let him, we say, contemplate the hard lot of the labouring classes, compelled by the importunities of beggars not only to give up a considerable share of the food actually insufficient for themselves, but also to divide their beds or their children’s beds with persons of the lowest habits, and thus see their families deprived of food, of rest, health, and morality; while a large number of the wealthy classes remained listless and inaccessible within their closed doors, or were exercising their better feelings in a distant land.
We do not accuse the wealthy members of society, as a class, with indifference to the wants of the poor: we but refer to a contrast between their security against the intrusion of mendicants, and the defenceless state of the labouring classes—a contrast which doubtless must have been ever present to the mind of the poor working man: and we do this to show how much the wealthy will gain by a law which provides safe means for its application in relieving poverty.
The expense, then, which we are now incurring, is not a new charge, but a wise and equitable distribution of one heretofore borne by portions of the community in very disproportionate shares, without having any tendency to obviate the mendicancy by which it was created, but, on the contrary, having a direct tendency to foster and increase that most demoralizing of all the conditions in life.
Be the expense what it may, it cannot tend to induce a more extensive reliance on the public provision than mendicancy has encouraged: nay, we maintain, that when the law shall have been for a short time in full and general operation, the number of unemployed and dependent poor will gradually decline. But expectation must have a little patience: the machinery for sustaining in orderly and decent comfort upwards of one hundred thousand human beings, cannot be created otherwise than by a very gradual process. This is not a clime in which men and families can be encamped: when they are to be lodged, durable structures must be provided, and for this work much time is necessary. We are sure that no time has been lost; nay, we regard the progress made as among the most accelerated public labours of this or any other country.
In the mean time, the law is not without working out much good for the labouring classes. Workmen of every grade have been busily employed in the construction of workhouses since the spring of 1839, for which object government has advanced upwards of a million of money, free of interest, for ten years after the commencement of relief in each Union.