The Vagrancy Problem.: The Case for Measures of Restraint for Tramps, Loafers, and Unemployables: With a Study of Continental Detention Colonies and Labour HousesDawson, William Harbutt
History
The Vagrancy Problem.: The Case for Measures of Restraint for Tramps, Loafers, and Unemployables: With a Study of Continental Detention Colonies and Labour Houses
Dawson, William Harbutt
Poor laws; Poor laws -- Great Britain; Tramps; Unemployed
As in Germany, so in Switzerland, it has been found that the existence
of these Relief Stations, far from encouraging vagabondage, has
exactly the opposite effect, thanks to the stringent control which
is exercised. The genuine seeker after work knows that he can
claim accommodation free, while the idle vagabond knows that his
non-possession of a way-ticket inferentially proclaims him to be a
pest, whose proper place is the Labour House, and he makes himself
scarce. Excellent as is the work done by the Relief Stations, however,
it is held that they will be still more efficient when private
enterprise, where it still exists, is superseded by public organisation
and administration, and this is the inevitable goal of the system. It
is obvious that only when the Stations altogether pass into the care
of the Administrative Authorities will it be possible to secure that
uniformity of management which is so desirable. It is also probable
that more will be done to bring the Stations into closer relationship
with the labour organisations. Each may be regarded as complementary,
the one to the other, though it has not hitherto been possible to
secure systematic co-operation between them.
CHAPTER XI.
RECOMMENDATIONS OF RECENT COMMISSIONS.
It is now desirable to review the attitude towards this question of
three Commissions who have considered and reported upon it during the
past seven years--the Viceregal Poor Law Reform Commission for Ireland,
appointed in 1903, the Departmental Committee on Vagrancy appointed
by the President of the Local Government Board in July, 1904, and the
Royal Commission on the Poor Law, appointed in December, 1905.
The Irish Viceregal Commission, in their Report published in 1906, came
to the following conclusions:--
"Our opinion agrees with that of the majority of witnesses examined
before us, that people who are travelling about the country without
employment, without any means of their own, and who have to support
themselves by mendicancy or recourse to the Poor Law, or by sleeping
out, should be brought by the police before a court of justice. If
they could not then, or through the police or other agency after
remand, give satisfactory evidence (documentary or other), to the
court, of their being habitually hard working and self-supporting,
there should, we suggest, be power conferred upon a Court of
Jurisdiction to direct them to a Labour House in which the inmates
should, as is said to be the case in Belgian establishments, be
required to make or produce the food, clothing and necessaries for
such an institution. We think that, at all events to begin with, four
such Labour Houses might be established for Ireland, and that four
disused workhouses might be set apart for the purpose."[69]
[Footnote 69: Report of the Vice-Regal Commission on Poor Law Reform in
Ireland, Vol. I., p. 55.]
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