Great Britain. Royal Commission on Poor Laws and Relief of Distress; Poor -- Great Britain; Poor laws -- Great Britain
We left Mr. Goschen and the Poor Law Board much impressed with the value
of systematic and organised co-operation with voluntary organisations in
order to avoid the combination of outdoor relief with any other source
of income. In 1873 we find an interesting report by Miss Octavia Hill on
official and voluntary agencies in administering relief, which the
Central Authority published and commended.[829] But, in spite of Mr.
Goschen, the boards of guardians by no means invariably accepted the
doctrine of never giving outdoor relief in aid of other pecuniary
resources. The Brixworth Guardians, indeed, as part of their strict
policy, refused to accord any favour to the person having an allowance
from a friendly society; but even they seem to have made up from the
poor rate the amount necessary for full maintenance. Most other boards
of guardians, however, as the Central Authority was officially informed
in 1873, reckoned, by a rough compromise, the friendly society pay at
half its amount,[830] in flat contradiction of the dictum of the Central
Authority of 1840 and 1870.[831] This course was incidentally reproved
by the Central Authority in 1888. "The guardians," it was stated, "are
bound to take into consideration all the means of support possessed by
the applicant; ... if ... the allowance from the club or society appears
to the guardians to be inadequate to meet all the requirements of the
case, they should take such allowance into account in determining what
amount of relief is required to relieve the destitution of the
applicant."[832] It was, however, apparently found impracticable to take
any official action; and there is, until 1894, scarcely any later
mention of the subject.[833] The policy of "all or nothing," which Mr.
Goschen had suggested as a counsel of perfection, was, in fact, not
persisted in by the Local Government Board. The practice of making up
insufficient incomes, whether derived from charity, from property or
friendly society allowance or annuity, or even (in the case of women)
from earnings, continued; not infrequently with the explicit sanction of
the Central Authority.[834] In 1894 the policy of supplementing other
resources received a partial sanction from Parliament. By the Outdoor
Relief Friendly Societies Act 1894, boards of guardians were legally
empowered if they thought fit, to ignore the fact that an applicant for
relief had a friendly society allowance.[835] This gave a legal sanction
to the usual compromise of counting such an allowance at half its value,
and thus giving the thrifty person half the advantage of his thrift. It
is difficult to see how the case of a person having a small friendly
society allowance could be logically distinguished from that of a person
having other means or sources of income insufficient to maintain him.
Presently the Central Authority expressly extended the new doctrine to
other forms of saving. In 1903 it declared that relief in supplement of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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