HC Deb 06 April 1865 vol 178 cc859-61

Bill, as amended, considered.

LORD ROBERT CECIL

said, he desired to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Poor Law Board to the clause which he had moved in his (Lord Robert Cecil's) absence and in his behalf, but which he thought the right hon. Gentleman had materially altered. He did not complain of that, because the clause, as it originally stood, would not, perhaps, have been capable of practical administration. His desire was to place upon the statute book by means of that clause a declaration that the guardians of each parish were bound to admit the destitute poor for whose benefit the Act was passed, and that it should not be a matter of discretion whether they received them into the workhouse or not. If such a declaration were inserted in the Bill, then the authorities would be bound under a penalty to admit the poor man whenever he should apply; whereas, at present, public opinion was the only influence that wa3 brought to bear for the relief of the poor in the way which legislation prescribed. He did not mean to impugn the conduct of the guardians in the London parishes as a whole—he believed that they desired to do their duty—but he feared that a good deal of cruelty was practised by the inferior officials, and that there was great suffering among the poor of the metropolis in times of severe weather or distress in consequence of the hardheartedness of those in whose hands the practical administration of the law was placed. He had been informed on good authority that more than once poor persons bad been sent away from workhouses on the plea that the wards were full; and yet Returns had been made to the House of Commons from those very workhouses by which it appeared that not a single applicant had ever been rejected. He would not name the workhouses in question for this reason, that the charge depended upon the statement of poor persons, who, having left the neighbourhood, could not now be brought forward to verify it; but he had heard on authority which he could not question that those persons were trustworthy, honest men. What he desired now was to bring this failure in the operation of the law—and a very serious one it was—under the notice of the right hon. Gentleman with the view that the attention of the Board might be turned to the subject, and that hereafter, if it were possible to do so by legislation, measures might be taken to provide a remedy. At present he did not intend to move any Amendment to the clause; but he desired to obtain from the right hon. Gentleman the assurance that he would establish some practical supervision of the operation of this Act, and enforce as far as he could upon the workhouse authorities the necessity of their admitting all destitute persons who applied within the time prescribed by the Act, unless there were some good ground for their non-admission. He wished also to allude to one other point. The Return laid upon the table of the House exhibited an enormous difference in the amount of diet allowed to the paupers. In some workhouses a ridiculous amount of relief was granted; while in others the allowance was comparatively liberal. Such a state of things, however, tended to create between the different parishes a competition of parsimony; because guardians would endeavour to reduce their scale of relief to the amount afforded by their neighbours, in order to prevent an influx of paupers into their parish. In the clause of which he had originally given notice he had inserted a provision relating to this matter, but it had been struck out by the right hon. Gentleman. He hoped, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman would, at all events, exercise the powers which he already possessed to secure a uniformity of diet.

MR. C. P. VILLIERS

said, he was glad that the noble Lord was satisfied with the course which he had pursued on the previous day, because, according to the noble Lord's admission, he had accepted the practicable portion of the Amendment suggested by the noble Lord, and omitted only that portion which, according to the noble Lord's own statement, it would have been impossible to carry into effect. The noble Lord said he desired to put on the statute book a declaration that the guardians were bound to relieve every destitute person who applied for relief. That duty existed now. By the state of the law at present the guardians were obliged to admit everybody seeking relief, and the Poor Law Board already had power to enforce this course upon them, as far as they had any authority at all to interfere in the proceedings of boards of guardians. The noble Lord had very fairly admitted that he had no evidence to prove that the guardians had neglected their duty in this respect, nor had any proof upon tins point been adduced by any one else. That was the case with the Poor Law Board. Charges to that effect had undoubtedly been made, but no proof had, in any instance, been forthcoming. His hon. Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton) had, on the previous day, mentioned a case which had come under his own notice. His hon. Friend had been told by a man who asked him for relief, that he had been to the workhouse, but had received nothing, and that the wards were full. Anxious to test the truth of the statements, his hon. Friend accompanied the man to the workhouse, and not only found that the story was untrue, but that the man himself was an arrant impostor. It was in the absence of such inquiry that letters, reflecting upon the conduct of Boards of Guardians, were written to the leading journal of the country. He believed that the guardians were desirous of providing adequate accommodation, and for this reason they desired that this Bill might be made permanent. In answer to his inquiries, he learned that the police had refused about seventeen or eighteen persons; but their reasons for so doing were, that in all the cases the applicants for relief were drunk, disorderly, riotous, or had money in their pockets. He did not, however, believe that any really destitute person had been refused j and now that the Act was made permanent, even better provision than existed hitherto would be made for the relief of paupers. He was not aware that any further improvement could be effected by this Bill.

Amendments made.

Bill to be read 3° To-morrow.