§ (VOTE ON ACCOUNT.)
§ Postponed proceeding resumed on Resolution reported, "That a sum, not exceeding £30,889,000, be granted to His Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the Charges for the following Civil Services and Revenue Departments for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1913."
§ Motion made, and Question again proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREWhen interrupted by the Private Bills, I was criticising the general attitude of the Local Government Board with regard to Poor Law reform, and was referring to its inability to carry out those measures of Poor Law reform on which there is practically a unanimous opinion on all sides of the House. An important instance of this is the treatment of children by country boards of guardians. In dealing with that, I want not merely to ask the representative of the Local Government Board if he holds out any hope of being able to deal more successfully with that problem; but I also want to reply to the Noble Lord the Member for Bath (Lord A. Thynne) and the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Hill), who sit on these benches. Their remedy is the transference of the control of all Poor Law children to the local education authorities. As at present constituted, I consider the local education authority quite incapable of dealing with all the problems connected with Poor Law children, especially in rural districts. Where you have children boarded out, either within or without the union, it seems to me that it will be impossible to ask the local education authority to deal with those children who are on outdoor relief. I think it is most undesirable that you should add to the duties of local education authorities the problem of administering outdoor relief under the present conditions. The Noble Lord asked the President of the Local Government Board what he proposed to do with the 904 children, very nearly a quarter of a million, who are in receipt of outdoor relief. I believe it is better that those children should be looked after and inspected, and that they should be generally under the care of the existing boards of guardians until the local education authorities are differently constituted from what they are at the present time. I think there is a misapprehension in all quarters of the House in regard to the children. I think it is to the personal credit of the President of the Local Government Board that the children have been removed to a very large degree from the workhouses.
I should like to inquire whether the right hon. Gentleman considers that the treatment of Poor Law children is still in the experimental stage. He says the treatment of vagrants is in the experimental stage, but I should like to know whether the treatment of Poor Law children is still in that stage. Surely it has got beyond that; surely we have sufficient evidence of the working of the Children's Order to show that the existing attempt at Poor Law reform has solved in a very large degree this problem. Why, then, cannot the remaining children be removed from the workhouses? We have heard that there are 8,000 children still in the workhouses. Can the right hon. Gentleman hold out any hope or give any undertaking that these 8,000 children will be removed from the workhouses? I do not know how many of these 8,000 children are under three years of age. It is rather important that we should have the number, because children under three years of age cannot be removed when their mothers are in the workhouses. But, beyond that, I think the working of the recent Local Government Board Order shows that the child problem is soluble, and that even under the existing system of administration the Poor Law child has an infinitely better chance than it has had in previous generations. All talk about Oliver Twist, all the sentimental utterances we hear, are rather wasted upon the children's side of the question and should be diverted into other important channels. The particular point on which I wish to press for an answer is as to vagrancy. I know experiment is being made in London, but I cannot understand how that experiment in London is going to provide evidence and material which will enable Poor Law reformers to deal with this problem outside London or outside the Poor Law. In London the treatment and classification of 905 vagrants is to be taken out of the hands of the Poor Law authority and put into the hands of the Asylums Board. In most of the districts, in districts where the vagrancy problem sometimes needs the greatest classification and is most in need of treatment, there is nothing in the least comparable to the Metropolitan asylums. Perhaps one of the most discreditable and one of the most barbaric portions of the whole Poor Law systems to-day is the condition of the casual wards in the country workhouses throughout the Kingdom.
Unless the vagrancy problem is regarded not only from the point of view of London, and the big towns, but also from the point of view of those who wish to classify and do something to remedy the greatest evil, that of the tramp class, that problem will never be solved. I admit that London, as the President of the Local Government Board said in his speech tonight, gets the residuum: it is the place to which at any rate during a portion of the year most tramps come. One of the causes of vagrancy is undoubtedly the condition of the casual wards of country workhouses. There are men going about the country to-day who have been in hundreds of casual wards of the workhouses in this country and who have acquired astonishing skill in getting through their task. But the task varies considerably in some workhouses. That is a side point, however. At any rate, the system in these casual wards is purely deterrent and not curative. The ticket system is not universal, and an enormous amount I believe can be done, even within the existing administration of the Poor Law, to mitigate both the rigour and the utility of the existing treatment of vagrants. I quite agree that you can never solve all these Poor Law problems by legislation. Members of the Labour party opposite and even some of my hon. Friends on these benches are too apt to think that, by changing people and bodies to administer the Poor Law, they are going to solve the Poor Law problem. Those problems will always be with us, whatever the authority is, as questions of minute administration and questions dealing with individuals. That is why I often regret the insistent demand made upon the President of the Local Government Board when these Debates come on once or twice a year, for rather extravagant schemes of Poor Law reform. I believe still more is to be accomplished 906 under the existing system, with the assistance of boards of guardians, in the direction of Poor Law reform. If the President of the Local Government Board is anxious, as I believe he is anxious, to ward off the day when a large and sweeping legislative reform of the Poor Law system will be introduced, then I think increased speed is required in dealing with some of these Poor Law problems.
There is one other question in connection with the Poor Law to which I will call attention, and that is the necessity of dealing with the feeble-minded. The question of dealing with the feeble-minded under the Poor Law is a very difficult one, because the Poor Law guardians at the present moment do not quite know where they are. I understand that in the other House a Bill is being promoted by the West Riding of Yorkshire to provide a new Asylums Board there. In spite of that fact, I think the Asylums Board will have to control the asylums in which are the pauper lunatics, and the guardians will be utterly disregarded, and have no voice in the matter, no representative whatever, though they are to continue to pay for the maintenance of the paupers within those asylums. The whole treatment of pauper lunatics requires drastic overhauling. I hope, therefore, in order to relieve the minds of the guardians themselves, that the Government will not delay introducing their Bill dealing with the feeble-minded. It is most important, in the interests of Poor Law administration, that the Bill should not be long delayed now that it has been promised. I do not know whether it will be possible for the President of the Local Government Board to-night to give some indication to the board of guardians that their responsibility with regard to pauper lunatics will be abolished; or, if their responsibility is not to be abolished, and if the board of guardians are to continue to exist, that those boards will have some voice in the control that is to be given under the Bill which is to be introduced. That is, I am perfectly certain, a very considerable grievance. I desire to say a word about the question of outdoor relief. Nearly all Poor Law Debates in the end centre around the question of outdoor relief. The last step the right hon. Gentleman has taken in Poor Law reform has been to deal with the various outdoor relief orders. It is very easy to get up and advocate more generous outdoor relief, and also easy to say that it will become extravagance and pauperising unless adequate control is maintained. It seems to 907 me that even under the new Order the problem of outdoor relief administration is in no way solved, and that that Order is not the last that we have heard of outdoor relief or the problem connected with it. I should like to know if the Local Government Board have heard from any of the local boards of guardians opinions expressing regret that that Order has been introduced
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREI am glad to hear that. I am anxious to know whether in the future administration of outdoor relief that Order will prove an absolute guarantee against the revival of the scandals connected with the administration of outdoor relief. Those scandals are, practically speaking, two. There are the lavish promises which are made very often in contested elections, and there is the tendency of certain boards of guardians with certain political theories to be indiscriminate for political purposes in the grant of relief. There is then the other problem of the subsidising of the worst form of labour. Perhaps the very worst evidence before the Poor Law Commissions of 1834 and recently has been that of those cases of the grant of outdoor relief to old women and old people, thereby enabling them to be employed by employers at disgracing wages. There was a famous case, which I think has been quoted in this House, in the Majority Report of the last Poor Law Commission, dealing with the glove-workers in Leicester, where old women were employed stitching gloves for a wage sometimes of 2s. per week, simply and solely because they were receiving outdoor relief, which enabled them to have employment and just enabled them to live. That is one of the most serious problems with regard to outdoor relief, and I want to know whether this Order has done anything to solve that problem.
I should like also to know if the present President or his representative can hold out any hope of reducing the number of boards of guardians and of amalgamating those small unions, and of effecting reform in the body administering the Poor Law, because that is the essential thing, without legislation. I think it is most important that we should have an answer on that point, because those of us who are interested in this question are 908 most anxious to know on what lines the Government propose reform. I make this remark in no party spirit, and with no desire to advocate either the Majority or the Minority Report, but, simply to ascertain the lines of development. The right hon. Gentleman called himself an evolutionary, and I would like to know the lines on which the evolution of the Poor Law is to develop.
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREHow is the right hon. Gentleman going to carry that out? Can it be done by administration, and will he take into consideration the enormous difficulties that confront unions that are partly urban and partly rural, which seems to me to be one of the greatest difficulties in administering the Poor Law. There is the way in which the interests of the county borough in the middle of a rural area, if he is going to make big unions with a half-million population, conflict with interests in those areas. I think we have certainly progressed in the last few years, and, whether boards of guardians or any other authority are likely to administer the Poor Law, although there must be deterrents to some degree, yet a more curative treatment is necessary in all Departments, and more so than has been possible under the rigid formulas of the Act of 1834. I am afraid I do not see to any large extent that curative treatment in Poor Law Orders, but I hope it will be a time in any future Order that may be issued. I think that there is no reason why a reduction of this Vote should be moved.
§ Mr. C. BATHURSTI desire to draw the attention of the President of the Board to two matters which I have brought to his notice on former occasions, and upon which so far neither I nor the House have had very satisfactory assurances. The first is with regard to the loan for the purpose of adapting and equipping small holdings. The right hon. Gentleman must be well aware that there are many experts in the matter of the length of time that both wood and iron can be preserved, who entirely differ from the experts who advise him with regard to the length of those loans which, he prescribes. I do not profess myself to be an expert, but I have had some considerable experience with regard to temporary buildings and also with regard to the means of giving to them as long a life as possible. 909 In referring to the schedule of the length of years during which a loan, is permitted, I find that for fencing creosoted under pressure, which is the best way of preserving wooden fencing, a term of fifteen years is allowed. I also find, as regards buildings made of creosoted timber, or, as it is rather vaguely expressed, "otherwise chemically treated," that if it is situated upon a brick floor and has an appropriate roof, that only twenty years are allowed for the period of the loan. In my own experience I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that there are buildings in my own district made of good creosoted timber which were put up thirty years ago, and are just as good to-day as they were then. If wood is properly creosoted under pressure, not merely painted with creosote, it ought to last for from thirty-five to fifty years without any danger of decay. Then I find similar buildings which are roofed not with tiles or slates, but with corrugated iron, estimated as having a life of twenty years only. The length of life of a building roofed with corrugated iron depends entirely upon whether that iron is properly painted with red oxide or some other preservative to ensure its protection against oxidisation. The same applies to bar iron fencing, which is given a life of from fifteen to twenty years, according to its strength. That on the face of it is perfectly ridiculous. The life of such fencing, even assuming that it is not treated in the usual way, must be at least thirty or thirty-five years, and if it is tarred or painted, as every provident owner would treat it, its life is quite fifty or sixty years. I cannot understand why the right hon. Gentleman groups all the structures together, in many cases regardless of the material of which they are made, and in every case regardless of the measures taken for their protection and preservation. Why should it not be possible to grant easier terms with regard to such structures in all cases where an undertaking could be given by the county council, and correspondingly by the small holder to the county council, that every five or ten years, as the case might be, the structures should be treated in the usual way, so that their life might be preserved over the usual period? At the present time, the right hon. Gentleman, consciously or unconsciously, owing to the quite insufficient period of the loans, is the great stumbling block to the development of small holdings, in consequence of the great difficulty which the county councils find in 910 obtaining loans for equipment and adaptation. I am certain that if the right hon. Gentleman would for once in a way forego the guidance of his own so-called experts, and take a roving commission in various parts of agricultural England, to find out for himself what is the actual life of these structures as demonstrated by experience, he would be as fully convinced as I am that, particularly as regards buildings creosoted under pressure, at least ten years, and as regards iron fencing at least twenty years, might be added to the periods of the loans without in any way running risks. Another item to which I wish to refer is pipes for water supply. The loan in these cases depends upon the diameter of the pipes, and not on the much more important factor of the nature of the water passing through the pipes. For instance, in districts where there is a considerable amount of iron in the water, and still more where there is a considerable amount of lime in it, the corrosive effect of the water is very much greater than where only soft water runs through the pipes. The right hon. Gentleman must be prepared to admit that it is very difficult to defend on principle the grouping of these pipes simply according to diameter, and in no sense according to the conditions prevailing in the particular districts as to the quality and chemical character of the water passing through the pipes. Surely with the help of his inspectors it might be possible to differentiate these loans to a much greater extent according to the actual circumstances in the different districts. In that way much greater justice would be done, and local authorities would have a much greater incentive than at present to see that proper care was taken of the various structures for which loans were granted.
I should like to ask what the right hon. Gentleman proposes to do with regard to certain Reports issued from time to time by his Department. I refer to two very valuable Reports issued about a year ago, one on the presence of sulphate of lime in baking powder, which was described by his experts as a dangerous constituent, and the other on the bleaching of flour by means of nitrogen peroxide. In several countries of Europe and also in Australia stringent measures are taken by the Departments, having the management of these matters to prevent the adulteration and bleaching of flour through the medium of nitrogen peroxide. Surely the time has come when the right hon. Gentleman, with his Departmental 911 equipment and the valuable Reports which he has issued from time to time on these subjects, might afford guidance to the un-instructed public generally as to the danger of these constituents in articles of food, and do something to check the amount of adulteration and, as I suggest, the amount of unconscious poisoning going on at the present time. There is also a Report issued lately from the Department relating to the nutritive value of foods. Some months ago a lead-able work in demonstrating the valueless-ness of white or, as I prefer to call it, anæmic bread—bread the flour of which has been robbed by artificial means of its most nutritive constituents through their being removed in the process of roller-milling, caught by the first sieve, and handed over to the pigs as the finest pig food. To my knowledge the germ of wheat and the first two skins that cover the wheat berry possess the most nutritive qualities of the whole of the grain of wheat—qualities which were undoubtedly intended by nature to add to the value of the most important food of man, and not to be cast aside in the process of milling and given to the pigs. I, for one, am very grateful to the "Daily Mail" for the crusade which it carried on in favour of standard bread, as they termed it, and when the right hon. Gentleman has issued from his own Department a few months ago a Report emphasising, I will not say the value of that crusade, but at any rate the undesirability of discarding these valuable nutritive constituents of the grain, surely it is only right that, as the head of that Department, he should take some steps to prevent this particular form of adulteration, which, through ignorance is, I believe, a cause of serious malnutrition and the consequent evils to the teeth which have been emphasised as the result of the medical inspection of school children. I should like to know what steps the right hon. Gentleman is going to take to put a stop, if he can, to this particular form of adulteration—adulteration which consists not in adding any noxious foreign material, but in removing from what nature provided as a complete food its most valuable constituents. I hope the right hon. Gentleman, who did not, doubtless from lack of time, give me an answer when we discussed this matter eight months ago, will be good enough to give me a reply this evening.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
912§ ADJOURNMENT—Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Gulland.]
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at Thirty-four minutes before Ten o'clock.