HC Deb 06 May 1851 vol 116 cc593-604
MR. GRANTLEY BERKELEY

said, the object he had in view was, if possible, to relieve the agricultural districts of an oppression which weighed them down, and remove an abuse injurious to the ratepayers and the poor. Some time ago he had occasion to refer to the state of pauperism in his own county—Gloucestershire; and he found that the returns showed upon the face of them a great diminution of pauperism; but he could not discover that the cost of relief was lessened. Upon further investigation he found, that whereas before 1846 a man and his wife and six children applying for relief with a sick child were returned as eight persons relieved, it had since been ordered that they should only be returned as three. There was also a great apparent reduction in vagrancy, owing to tramps not being admitted unless they consented to do a certain quantity of work. In endeavouring to ascertain the true state of the poor throughout England and Wales, subjects had come within his notice to which he was anxious to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board. The Poor Law and the Law of Settlement required revision; great cruelties were practised under them. Applicants were bandied from place to place without getting relief, and expense was incurred without the object in view being properly fulfilled. When he recollected the atrocities of Kilrush, he felt that he might well have included Ireland in his proposition. What he desired to effect was the equalisation of the burden; for, at present, one place would be found paying 17s. or 18s. in the pound, while another was paying only 4d. in the pound. The parish of Bishopwearmouth paid 19s. 9d. in the pound. He did not propose at present to deal with the rating of personal property; but it was known that the intention of the Act of Elizabeth was to render personal property liable to poor-rate as well as real property. There were other respects, also, in which a state of things such as could not have been contemplated by the Act of Elizabeth had arisen with reference to rating. An iron mine, for instance, yielding 10,000l. a year, might have near it a coal mine which did not give a return of 200l., yet the coal mine was assessed, while the iron mine was exempt. The distinction was unjust; but others than coal mines had escaped by a legal quibble, coal mines being the only mines mentioned in the Act of Elizabeth. The iron mines of Wales, Staffordshire, and other counties, and the copper mines of Cornwall, were all exempt from payment of poor-rate. If that property which was at present exempted were properly rated, the pressure of the poor-rate could he easily adjusted. As to the modes in which the present evils might be remedied, the clerk of the Stockport union, Mr. Henry Coppock, in a report dated 1844, after having dwelt on the evils which attended the Law of Settlement, said— What, then, is the real remedy, the humane and Christian-like remedy, for the evils of the present system? It is to make the relief of the poor purely national—to make every part of England where a poor man may reside really and truly his home—to prevent removal officers by law separating him from the place where his happiest days have been spent—to make the relieving officer the real messenger of charity—to relieve distress when and as soon as it arises—and to banish for ever those insane struggles and legal fights to decide from which particular local purse the necessary relief must be abstracted. He (Mr. G. Berkeley) wished to make it national, though not altogether as Mr. Coppock proposed. To check the expenditure was the great difficulty. Mr. Coppock said— The local authorities, the coroner, the magistrates, and the public press would be ample means to insure sufficient relief being granted to distress—more ample than what is insured at present; because, with a local board of guardians (irresponsible as it is) its local influence has power over local authorities, over the coroner, the magistrates, and the press—a power and influence which a paid officer would not possess. The proposed plan would, therefore, not lose in comparison with the present system. Any alteration, therefore, must be in favour of sufficient relief being immediately granted to distress. MR. Coppock proposed to make the poor-rate a charge on the Consolidated Fund. From that he (Mr. G. Berkeley) disagreed. He was for retaining local power to check unnecessary expense. He held in his hand also some clever suggestions by the Earl of Malmesbury, who proposed to take the average rate of the last seven years; to distribute to each union the sum it had expended on that average; and, if a union exceeded its average, to provide that a rate-in-aid be locally levied. Taking a seven years' average, however, would continue the abuse he desired to get rid of; and so far he ob- jected to the plan recommended by the Earl of Malmesbury. Mr. Hutchinson had furnished him with a plan to which there seemed to be no reasonable objection. It proposed one equalised rate throughout England and Wales. He referred to a Return No. 735, Session 1848, for the purpose of showing the great inequality that existed in rating:— While Chester, upon an annual value of property of 1,574,273l., paid but 1s. 0¼d. in the pound, and York (three Ridings) averaged 1s. 3d. in the pound upon property valued at 5,932,386l., Buckinghamshire, upon an annual value of property of 706,265l., paid 2s. 4¼d.; and Carnarvon, upon 174,175l., paid 3s. in the pound. In Clifton union, Gloucestershire, where there were twelve parishes, and the annual value of property assessed was 212,732l., the average rate in 1847 was 1s. 9¼d.; in Dursley union eleven parishes, with property of the annual value of 47,307l., paid 3s. 5½d. In the evidence taken before the Select Committee on Settlement and Poor Removal, he found it stated that Ryde, in the Isle of Wight, was assessed at the same rate now, when it was a rich and populous place, as when it consisted of only a few huts. The Isle of Wight was a model, on a small scale, of the plan he (Mr. G. Berkeley) advocated, all the parishes being united. Under the poor-law property might be reassessed; but reassessment was not compulsory. What he wished to have was a new assessment, and by amending a Bill now before the House, which had reference to the subject, he thought a remedy would be afforded without introducing new machinery, which he wished to avoid. To a union rating he thought there were just and general objections. It was said that an assessment so high as 1s. 6d. in the pound would inflict great injustice on localities paying a smaller amount. It appeared from a return, that in 388 unions the assessment was under 16d. in the pound; but there were 461 unions paying over that amount, so that a greater number would be benefited than could be injured by his plan. He was happy to be able to quote the authority of the noble Lord at the head of the Government, who, on the 26th of May, 1845, said, "that the freedom of industry should be promoted by a careful revision of the law of parochial settlement which now prevailed in England and Wales." He had proofs in his hand that property of the annual value of 21,958l. paid at present 428 times more in amount than similar property valued at 28,297l. He had proof that in 1843 mining property, paying to property and income tax, 1,930,700l., the greater portion of it, contributed nothing to the poor. He found, that in 1847 the property assessed to the poor-rate was in round numbers 67,000,000l.; the property tax in 1843 in round numbers gave a return of 85,000,000l. In Scotland, where personal property was rated for the poor, the difference between the assessment to the poor and the property tax was only 116,000l., the latter being the larger. Great objections were felt among many persons to interference with an old system, however unjust or partial; but he trusted that the time had come to give relief to the only class which was admitted to be in distress; and if his proposition were carried out, relief would be afforded not only to the agricultural interest, but to every one who contributed to the poor-rate. He therefore begged to move that the House should go into a Committee to consider the Resolution of which he had given notice.

MR. SPEAKER

said, he must remind the hon. Gentleman that he had put the Motion in rather a different form from that in which it appeared on the paper, and the House could not at once proceed to entertain his proposition in a Committee of the whole House.

MR. GRANTLEY BERKELEY

said, he would then propose to go into Committee on that day week.

Motion made, and Question proposed— That this House will, upon Tuesday the 13th day of this instant May, resolve itself into a Committee, to consider the following Resolution:—viz., That to alleviate a portion of the burthens from which the agricultural interest is at present suffering, through the payment of parochial Poor Rates, varying in many instances from 6s., 7s., 8s., 9s., to 13s. 10d. in the pound, there be levied an equalised Poor's Rate, in England and Wales, not exceeding 1s. 6d. in the pound, and subject to local government.

CAPTAIN HARRIS

seconded the Motion for going into a Committee of the House on this important subject, though he dissented from most of the details specified in the Resolution. He considered that it was a matter which, if taken up in a wise and fair spirit of legislation, might give essential relief to the depressed agricultural interest, whilst Free-trader and Protectionist could meet on this neutral ground of justice and fair play, without any sacrifice of their opinions or principles respecting the commercial policy. There was a conviction growing up in the mind of the country as to the necessity of laying a rate on all classes of property, and that opinion was corroborated by a passage in the report of Mr. Beckett, poor-law guardian, who had been appointed to inquire into the law of settlement. He said he had perceived in many quarters a strong feeling in favour of a national rate, to be made on all descriptions of property, for the support of the poor. The justice of that proposition had been acknowledged by the hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Treasury (Mr. Cornewall Lewis); and though he hesitated to pronounce an opinion upon it, and put forward the many difficulties that would attend such a plan, yet he said, in the course of his evidence before the Lords' Committee, that he was prepared to admit that, unless there was some reason in favour of a local tax limited to real property, it was more equitable to defray the expense out of a national tax that would come out of all descriptions of property. He (Captain Harris) believed that the plan which had been put before the Lords' Committee last year by Lord Malmesbury, was one that would effect the purpose they had in view. He believed by the system that noble Lord proposed they would be enabled to reach every income throughout the country, and make every man pay according to his ability for the support of the poor; while at the same time they retained the local management that was so essential for the working of the poor-law. His Lordship had ascertained the whole expenditure for the poor, for seven years previous to 1849, amounting to 5,850,000l., for Great Britain; and he then proceeded to show that a rate of fivepence in the pound, levied on every species of income down to incomes of 30l. a year, would meet that expenditure. The rate of poundage must, however, depend upon the general state of property; but it was thought that fivepence in the pound would be sufficient. It was proposed that the amount received should be paid into the Exchequer, and the Poor Law Board were then to ascertain, from each union and parish, what their expenditure had been during the average of seven years. That was easily ascertained, indeed they had it already in a paper on the table of the House. The Poor Law Board were to draw from the Exchequer the average sum for each parish and union according to the expenditure of those seven years. The election of boards of guardians was to be as at present—they were to be selected from the owners of real pro- perty, and upon them was to rest the responsibility of administering the law. If they exceeded the sum which was remitted to them, they would be called upon to levy a rate in aid on the real property within the parish. It was to be raised on the real property, because it had been found difficult to localise funded or personal property; so that if the expenditure exceeded the sum allowed, the rate in aid must be levied on the real property. Then came the question which had been raised by the hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Treasury, namely, what motive would there be for economy, for what was to be done with the surplus? In the plan put forward by Lord Malmesbury, he proposed that the surplus be applied to emigration; but it was said, Where there is a surplus, in that place emigration is least required. So that was not held a sufficient incentive to economise. The plan which had since occurred to the noble Lord was this—that the surplus in each case should be applied to the county rates. So there was a direct incentive to economy. He thanked the House for the attention which they had given him whilst he sketched out the main features of a plan, which, he felt convinced, if laid fairly before the public, would meet their approval, as it had already received the adhesion of many unions to which it had been submitted.

MR. BAINES

Sir, I hope that the hon. Member for West Gloucestershire, and the hon. and gallant Member who seconded him, will pardon me if I decline to follow them into many of the topics which they have introduced into this discussion. The law of settlement, the assessment of personal property to the relief of the poor, the ingenious plan of Lord Malmesbury, and other subjects upon which the hon. Members have touched, all involve questions of the greatest importance, which I shall be ready to discuss whenever they are brought regularly and distinctly before the House. At present, I shall confine myself to the specific proposition of the hon. Mover; but before I address myself to it, I hope the House will allow me to advert for a moment to the personal appeal which has been made to me, with reference to the accuracy of those Poor Law Returns, for which I must be held responsible. I think it a little hard that without previous notice of any kind, the hon. Mover should call upon me to explain the grounds of a change in the mode of preparing those Returns, which was adopted three years before I entered upon my office. Speaking from conjecture, however, I should say that the object of those who made the change was, as the effect has undoubtedly been, to obtain results of greater accuracy and comprehensiveness than under the former system. Besides, the hon. Gentleman forgets that the comparisons which have recently been made, in order to show the diminution of pauperism, have been made by comparing the Returns of 1847, 1848, 1849, and 1850, all of them years since the change in the mode of framing the Returns, so that the Returns of those years have really all been made upon precisely the same principles, and in precisely the same form, and, consequently, admit of a comparison in all respects fair and just. But I proceed without further delay to the Resolution before the House. That Resolution affirms the expediency of providing for the relief of the destitute poor of the country by means of a National Rate. I ask, is the House prepared to sanction such a proposition? Hitherto, a national rate has met with no favour in Parliament. In 1847, a Select Committee, of which my lamented predecessor in office (Mr. C. Buller) was chairman, investigated most fully the subjects of settlement and rating. When I state the names of the Gentlemen who acted upon that Committee, it will be seen that there were among them some of the ablest Members of the House, including several who are peculiarly conversant with the subject of the Poor Laws. The Committee consisted of Mr. Charles Buller, Sir James Graham, Sir George Grey, Mr. Henley, Mr. Bankes, Mr. Evelyn Denison, Lord Harry Vane, Mr. William Miles, Mr. Poulett Scrope, Mr. Charles Villiers, Mr. Round, Mr. T. Duncombe, Mr. Aldam, and Mr. Bodkin. The adoption of a national rate was recommended with great earnestness by several of the witnesses examined; yet such was the opinion entertained upon it by the Committee, that when they came at last to discuss the Resolutions to be submitted to the House as the result of their inquiries, no one Member appears to have made the slightest suggestion in favour of a national rate, or to have treated the subject as deserving a moment's serious consideration by Parliament. Two years afterwards, a proposition for a Committee to consider the expediency of a national rate was brought before the House by a noble Lord now deceased, then Member for Aylesbury (Lord Nugent); but the House thought it so dangerous to countenance even a doubt upon the subject, that the Motion was scouted on all sides, and the noble Mover finally allowed it to be negatived without a division. Various suggestions for the relief of the owners and occupiers of land have been recently made by the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli); they have been urged by him with the greatest ability and ingenuity, and with an earnestness which no one can doubt; yet I never heard from him a syllable in favour of a national rate. I repeat, then, that hitherto the scheme recommended by the hon. Member for West Gloucestershire has certainly met with no great encouragement in this House; and I shall be much surprised if the House now think it deserving of greater, in consequence of any arguments which have been used to-night. I beg their attention to the exact proposition of the hon. Member for West Gloucestershire. It is professedly for the relief of the agricultural interest, and this is to be effected by an equalised poor-rate throughout England and Wales of 1s. 6d. in the pound. Now there are in England and Wales upwards of 5,000 parishes (by which term I mean places maintaining their own poor), chiefly of an agricultural character, in which the present rate is less than 1s. 6d. In some it is loss than 2d., in others less than 3d., in others 4d., 6d., 8d., and so on. The immediate effect of the hon. Gentleman's proposition would be, at one stroke, to make the rates in those places double, treble, quadruple, in some more than sixfold, and in a few more than tenfold their present amount. On the one hand you may have a parish where the management has been careful and economical, and where every case of an application for relief has been strictly and vigilantly scrutinised. On the other, you may have a parish where the system of administering relief has been careless and wasteful—a system full of mischiefs, debasing and demoralising to the poor, and ruinous to the ratepayers. These two parishes, according to the hon. Gentleman, are at once and for all future time to be put upon precisely the same footing with each other. The economy of the one will have no reward, and the extravagance of the other will entail no penalty. And this is what the hon. Gentleman calls justice. He has spoken of union rating: this is not the occasion to discuss the merits of union rating; but it clearly differs from national rating in two most important particulars. First, the districts are such as experience has proved to be well adapted for a common management of all the poor within them: secondly, the areas of rating and of expenditure would be identical; the sum raised, whatever it might be, would be expended within the limits and for the benefit of the district raising it; and every person contributing to the common fund would, by himself or his representative, have a voice upon every question of expenditure. But, according to the scheme of the hon. Gentleman, a parish in Northumberland might be required to supply funds for the expenses of a parish in Cornwall, with which it could have no possible connection in the management of its poor, and over which it could exercise no possible check. Besides, in every equitable plan of union rating which I have seen, it has been considered necessary, that although equality of assessment throughout the union might be the ultimate object, such equality should be attained, not all at once, but by gradual approximation. Such was the plan advocated by some of the ablest Members who sat upon the Committee of 1847. But the plan of the hon. Gentleman contemplates an equalisation throughout the country, which shall be immediate as well as total. Such a transition must inflict the greatest injustice both upon owners and upon occupiers. Much has been said in recent discussions about the incidence of the burden of local rates; but no one can doubt, that although in the long run the charge necessarily falls upon the owner, it may also fall upon the occupier with grievous weight where the transition from one mode of rating to another is sudden and unexpected. But suppose this scheme of national rating to have been carried out, notwithstanding all these objections; how would it work? Let the House consider how much of wasteful extravagance in the management of the poor it would be quite sure to involve. What motive for economy would anybody have under such a system? If the penalty of careless and improvident expenditure is not to fall upon themselves, but may be cast upon others, who can expect any board of guardians to be at the trouble of carefully sifting the various applications made to them, so that while, on the one hand, cases of genuine destitution shall be relieved, care shall be taken on the other to detect and discourage the idle vagrant and the shameless impostor? Let the House consider whether every kind of jobbing would not arise among those who had the distribution of this fund. There would be a scramble for the largest share of the common booty. To say nothing of those who from sheer carelessness, or in the pursuit of a spurious popularity, would waste the fund; others would be found to revive the frauds practised under the old poor-laws, by eking out the wages of their own labourers from the rates, and making their official character subservient to their own pecuniary advantage. There would be throughout the whole land an indefinite increase of pauperism with all its enormous evils, social, political, and moral. When it was once understood that individual applications for relief wore not to be carefully sifted, multitudes, now self-reliant, would throw themselves upon the rates; those who are now struggling on the verge of pauperism would slide into it, and those who are in would never get out. The habit and the feeling of independence would be destroyed among the humbler classes; and what greater curse could be brought upon individuals, upon families, or upon the national character? But, after all, is the hon. Gentleman's scheme practicable in a financial point of view? He says that under no circumstances is there to be a resort to the Consolidated Fund, or a greater rate than 1s. 6d. in the pound. If there is not, the plan breaks down at the very first step. I hold in my hand a statement showing the total value of the property in England and Wales rateable to the poor-rates in 1847, (the latest return derived from official sources); it amounts to 67,320,587l. The amount levied last year under the head of "parochial poor-rates," out of which the county rates, borough rates, and several other rates are payable, was 7,270,492l. Now, what will a rate of 1s. 6d. in the pound (which is to be the hon. Gentleman's maximum under all circumstances) raise upon the total of the rateable property in England and Wales? Just 5,049,044l. to meet an expenditure of 7,270,492l. So that the hon. Gentleman actually starts with a deficit of more than 2,000,000l. And this is with reference to the present expenditure; what that expenditure might grow to in the course of a few years under such influences as I have attempted to describe, I defy any man to toll. But suppose the deficiency in each year to be no more than 2,000,000l., how is it to be met or provided for? Either the poor must starve—which I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not wish to see; or the deficiency must be made up out of the Consolidated Fund, though he declares that under no circumstances is that fund to be resorted to; or his rate must exceed 1s. 6d. in the pound, though it is part of his plan that in no case shall it ever exceed that amount. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will not suppose that I mean any personal disrespect to him; but I must say of his scheme, which I have a right to discuss with all frankness and plain-speaking, that one more rash and ill-considered was never propounded to a British House of Commons. But the hon. Gentleman, by way of reconciling Parliament to his plan, says that the fund collected by means of his national rate is to be expended under local management. I beg the particular attention of the House to this point. I think as highly of local self-government as the hon. Gentleman can. The funds for the relief of the destitute poor have always been collected in this country within the limits of each parish, and have been expended either within those same limits, or at all events within the limits of the union to which the parish belonged. By means of local self-government, those who raised the money expended it. In this way, notwithstanding many anomalies and faults in the poor-laws, a greater degree of economy, and a more effectual check upon pauperism, have been secured than could have resulted from any system of national management. I believe also that habits of local self-government have exercised the most beneficial influence upon the character of the country. One of my strongest objections to the scheme of the hon. Member for West Gloucestershire is, that I believe, if it were adopted, this system of local management would become utterly impracticable. So much of jobbery and of wastefulness would spring up in every locality, that the nuisance would ere long become intolerable, and the country would demand, as a less evil, that the central Government should undertake to raise and expend the whole fund. Yet what an alternative would this be! A whole army of stipendiaries, who must be appointed and paid by the Government, would be necessary to discharge the duties now performed by the local authorities throughout the 15,000 districts in England and Wales, which maintain their own poor. Besides, how, in times of trouble and general distress, could any Government withstand the pressure, if it were known to hold the strings of the purse from which the destitute poor were to be fed? I am persuaded that such a state of things would be pregnant with the most fatal consequences to public order and to all the best and dearest institutions of the country. Sir, upon all these grounds, and regretting only that I have been compelled to trespass upon the attention of the House so long, I think it my duty to meet this proposition with a decided negative.

MR. GRANTLEY BERKELEY,

in reply, said, that his Motion did not make it imperative that the rate should be limited to 1s. 6d., although, in his opinion, with proper management, it might be reduced to 4d. But even at 1s. 6d. the rateable property would be sufficient for the strict poor-rate, which was all he contemplated. However, his only object had been to raise the question, and therefore he should not trouble the House by asking it to divide.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.