Glimpses into the Abyss Part 6

XI. REFORMS HAVING REFERENCE TO VAGRANCY.

Having endeavoured to make it clear how essential to organised society is a proper treatment of the vagrancy question, it remains to consider what reforms are necessary in England. It must be remembered that we cannot adopt wholesale the policy of any other nation. We must work out our own salvation. It is not possible, if it were desirable, to have the individual as much under Government surveillance as in Germany for example. Individualism and liberty of the subject are deeply rooted in English soil.

It will be well if we first outline the objects to be aimed at.

(1) There should be at the bottom of society a _provision for dest.i.tution_ to be _earned_ by honest work, sufficient to deter from beggary and crime. This provision should be meagre but not worse than prison fare. (See note 23.)

(2) There should be provision, ample and sanitary, for migration.[54]

(3) For women there should be some provision more eligible than vice.

(Appendix IV.)

(4) It is a national mistake to recognise a tramp cla.s.s of women.[55]

(5) Those willing to work should be sorted from those unwilling.[56]

(6) It should be so arranged that the public understand there is _sufficient_ provision for dest.i.tution, and are themselves deterred from promiscuous charity.[57]

(7) Some place of detention other than prison should be provided for vagrants convicted.[58]

(8) It is desirable also to provide labour colonies for defective industrials.[59]

In discussing the _method_ by which such reforms can be brought about we must recognise that there are many "lions in the path." It is not certain that the necessary reforms can or will be carried through by Government. In other countries an example has been set by private enterprise, and has afterwards been adopted or subsidised by Government.[60] We must, however, recognise that our English problem is a huge one, that we have to make up for years of neglect, and that evils are acc.u.mulating.

The great majority of our population live in towns. Vagrancy is therefore one of our town problems, closely woven with the unemployed problem. But we have not the great advantage possessed by many Continental towns, that the Poor Law is under the control of the munic.i.p.ality. In Copenhagen, for instance, the four burgomasters control education, poor law, charity, munic.i.p.al labour bureau, and old age pensions, as well as munic.i.p.al organisation. This gives unity to city life. The new legislation in connection with the unemployed gives power to the _Munic.i.p.ality_ at present mainly permissive, yet the _Poor Law_ is still separate, also the magistracy often works against the poor law by the extreme leniency of their sentences. A poor-law officer cannot be sure of convictions.

If lodging-houses are provided this falls to the munic.i.p.ality also.

There seems to be great need for unification of authority, and a thorough over-hauling of our poor-law system in view of modern conditions. It is also to be feared that the old traditions with regard to treatment of tramps are very deeply engrained in the minds of poor-law officials. The labour yard also is very seldom run on true business principles, and it would be difficult to create through the length and breadth of the land a thorough reform of the tramp ward, as difficult as it has been found already to secure uniformity.[61]

Nevertheless, to create entirely new machinery when expensive buildings already exist seems foolish.[62] The imperative need for reform, however, calls for Government action, and so urgent is the call for a _universal_ system, and so large are the issues at stake, that it would seem to be the best to recognise the whole matter as a cause for Government interference. It might be best if both the migratory and the unemployed questions were recognised as calling for a new Department of Labour, and the tramp ward or its subst.i.tute placed under the new authority.[63] In the case of the Poor Law Reform of 1834, Poor Law Commissioners were given wide authority to work radical reforms and unify the parishes for poor-law purposes. Something like this seems to be again necessary, but with still wider national needs in view.

These, for instance, are some of the reforms necessary:--

(1) To arrange definite _national_ routes of travel, and settle the migration stations along these routes, including ration stations (unless mid-day ration is given on leaving a station).[64]

(2) To close _unnecessary_ tramp wards, and publicly notify the available routes.[65]

(3) To arrange for centres of population some plan by which a man may make use of the tramp ward for three or five nights, and search for employment.[66]

(4) To arrange a national system of Labour Bureaux.[67]

(5) To arrange the incidence of taxation for support of the stations.

The Poor-law Unions might be debited in proportion to percentage of vagrants over last 10 years, and deficiency nationalised, or tramp wards transferred to police.[68] (Appendix I.)

(6) To secure sufficient sanitary accommodation in every large centre and on national routes, both for the dest.i.tute and for the _bona fide_ working man.

(7) To make uniform the supply of rations, the accommodation, and the task of work, and see that the latter is on a proper business footing.[69]

(8) To arrange for public charity to flow into authorised channels, and discourage promiscuous almsgiving.[70]

(9) To provide detention colonies for the confirmed idler, vagrant, and habitual drunkard, if committed by the magistrate.[71]

(10) To arrange a system to distinguish between the idle and the "willing to work" unemployed.[72]

In addition to this, the facts in relation to unemployment show, that there are periods of good and bad trade, leading to wane and flux of employment.

Thus the wave from 1886 to 1893 in skilled trades was as follows:--

[Ill.u.s.tration]

It will be seen that unemployment almost disappeared in 1890. There are also seasonal waves, summer and winter. It is for the equalisation of such differences that some provision must be made, as well as for the care of the "industrial invalid." In times of depression individuals are thrust out who become a burden on the country all the rest of their lives, either by idleness, beggary or crime. It must not be forgotten that each of these _at present_ costs the community a far greater sum than they would cost if provided with labour. Therefore:--

(11) Arrangements should be made whereby, by work specially arranged to coincide with seasonal unemployment, the national cost of the incapable, the inefficient, and the temporarily unemployed could be minimised. (See "How to Deal with the Unemployed": Chap. V., "The Labour Market," by the author.) (Brown, Langham & Co.)

(12) It would only be possible for _Government_ to carry out such large schemes of afforestation or of reclamation of waste lands as would effectually grapple with the whole problem.

There is, however, one question we must briefly deal with in considering either private or public action.

It is said that if employment is found for the unemployed, if vagrant and other colonies are formed, the result will only be to displace by their products other workers. There is, it seems, a kind of vicious circle, by which, for example, if prisoners made brushes, other brushmakers are displaced, and so on.

It is forgotten that every day new and extensive businesses arise, and their compet.i.tion with others is not regarded as an evil. (These often undersell, colonies need not.) But besides this it has been found by investigation into the working of German labour colonies that their products do not disturb the labour market. To a great extent the colonists are engaged in supplying their _own_ need.[73] Kropatkin also shows how the more careful cultivation of the land enables it to maintain a larger population. To place the waste man on the waste land seems to be true social economy. It must be remembered also that, to the extent to which a pauper is made self-supporting, the money that before supported him is set free. If, for instance, the cost of a pauper could be reduced from 12 (English workhouse) to 5 (Belgian labour colony), 7 would be set free for other expenditure. The weight of the Poor Law is heavy upon us. In London alone indoor paupers rose from 29,458 in 1857 to 61,545 in 1891. Besides this, enormous sums are spent in charity,[74] which forms as it were an additional tax on the well-disposed. An effective law dealing with idleness would tone up our whole population, and dispose many to work. The home market would improve as taxation was lightened. We must go to the _root_ of social disease.

The Continental system of providing an incentive to labour in the shape of a very small wage is well worth consideration.[75] It makes government easy and provides for sifting one cla.s.s from another. It is not sufficiently recognised that undesirables act as social microbes. If they can be got to live under restraint, much evil is averted. The modern organization of labour is such that it ought to be possible to place our Poor Law on a sound economic basis, instead of the present haphazard system. The cost of administration as it is, goes up by leaps and bounds without adequate return.[76]

I have outlined above the _national_ reforms necessary. But we are slow reformers, and it may be well to indicate reforms _immediately_ possible. These are outlined in a series of articles published last March in the _Poor Law Officers' Journal_. They include changes in administration of the tramp ward, such as the provision of a diet equal to the lowest prison fare, suitable drink, and a mid-day ration, a proper bed or hammock, absolute prevention of overcrowding, clean water for the bath, and thorough carrying out of Local Government Board precautions for cleanliness.[77] With regard to women, I strongly advise admission to the workhouse proper, detention of children, and the appointment of a lady protectress in connection with each workhouse, whose duty it would be to investigate cases of need. Women should not be allowed to tramp the country. A detention colony is badly needed, and proper provision for the feeble-minded. In the case of women the moral danger is a grave additional reason for prevention of vagrancy.[78]

I also recommend an _immediate_ modification of our tramp-ward system, which would sort vagrants into two cla.s.ses. By early admission and a half-task of work, the wayfarer might be enabled to earn one night's bed and board and go on his way, having a way-bill for his route. The unemployed town-dweller might be given an identification note enabling him to return for from two to three nights and to seek work meanwhile.

If he did not find it he could have a way-bill to another town. The idle man who came late would be detained _two_ nights with double task.

Identification marks would be taken. If a man fell into the hands of the police for offences against the law he would be deported to a vagrancy colony.[79]

These changes would only need:

(1) The formation of one experimental vagrancy colony.

(2) Local Government Orders modifying the present tramp ward regulations.

They are therefore _immediately_ possible, pending a further national reform movement.[80]

As, however, even this would require a good deal of discussion and delay, it would be well if the admirable suggestions made by Mr. J. H.

Jenner-Fust at the Conference on Vagrancy, held at Lancaster on Sept.

1st, 1905, could be carried forward. He suggests a combination of unions, for relief of the casual poor, (under sect. 8, Poor Law Act, 1879). A joint committee holding office three years could be formed.

This committee would have power to acquire land and erect buildings, and maintain inmates, etc. If a combination of several counties were effected, a 1_d_. rate on No. 11 district and Ches.h.i.+re would produce 129,000. Such a committee could arrange to dispense with certain workhouses and rent or lease others, to arrange for rules of travel, uniform administration, keeping children from vagrancy, the way-ticket system. Also for "test-houses" for the "work-shy" able-bodied. Perhaps also for a labour colony, as experiments must be tried.

The Conference pa.s.sed a resolution in favour of farm or labour colonies under State control, or under control of the guardians of a county, for detention of the habitual tramp, and also in favour of the provision of a mid-day meal.

A committee was appointed to give effect to the resolutions, to consist of representatives from each union in the conference district.