§ MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he wished to ask the President of the Poor Law Board, If he can state the amount expended or authorized to be expended in the years 1867–8, 1868–9, and in 1869–70, for the erection or enlargement of workhouses, infirmaries, asylums, and schools, for the purposes of the Poor of the Metropolis?
§ MR. GOSCHENsaid, in reply, that the amounts authorized to be expended for the purposes enumerated in the Question of the hon. Member were, in the year 1867, £59,000; in 1868, £509,000; and in 1869, £392,000; making together, for the several purposes referred to, £960,000. Of this amount, £483,000 was for the asylums for imbeciles and smallpox and fever patients which are in course of erection by the managers of the metropolitan asylum district; £128,000 for schools, £183,000 for sick asylums and separate infirmaries, and £210,000 for new workhouses and enlargement of existing workhouses, including the erection of infirmaries, where the cost has not been separately shown, and also the erection of vagrant wards. The cost of mere transfers of property from one Union to another has not been included, as not affecting the aggregate charge for buildings. The expenditure authorized has been met by loans extending over from twenty to sixty years. The annual charge for interest and repayment of capital during the first few years will amount to about 1d. in the pound on the rateable value of the metropolis, and will be diminished each year in the proportion in which the capital is paid off.