CARDINAL MANNING ON OUTDOOR RELIEF.
Earl Comptoi* contributes an article to the January number of tho Fortnightly Review on the distress in Londo.i, in the course of which ho suggests that there should be an exhaustive enquiry into the causes, extent and character of that distress and also an to the criminul and seraierimiiial classes; that by way of iinmediiito and temporary remedies there should bo relief works of a remunerative character ; and that by way of permanent remedies there should be free registries, pauper farms, as in Holland ; organised colonisation, prevention of foreign pauper iin mi ".'ration ; technical ediicntion ; free elementary education; extension of the penny-dinner system : Londo'i local government reform ; extension of powers to a: nint outdoor relief; organisation of nharitabio agencies ; prohibition of overtime work in Government employment; prohibition of sub-lotting by Government contractors; enforcement of Sanit.ary Acts and extension of the range of the Factory Acts ; more stringent legislation against wholesale clearances; and industrial villages. Following Lord Com [item's article is a note by Cardinal Manning on outdoor relief. His Imminence justifies the view that under the Poor-law men have a natural right to work or to bread, and holds that relief should bo given to men in their own homes. Tho obligation to feed the hungry, he s'lys, springs from the natural riifht of every man to life, and to tho food necessary for tho sustenance of lifi\ So strong is this natural right that it prevails over all positive laws of property. Necessity has no law, and a starving man has a natural right to his neighbour's bread. On this foundation, all Poor-laws from Queen Elizabeth to the present day repose, as tho text of those laws abundantly proves. The statute of Elizabeth 43, c. 2, which is the foundation of the present Poor-law, provides for compulsory assessment, and for the four following purposes ; "1. For the setting to work of children whose parents cannot support them. 2. For setting to work of all such persons, married or unmarried, having no means to maintain themselves, and who use no ordinary and daily trado of life to get their living by. 3. For providing a convenient stock cf flax, hemp, wool, thread, iron, and other ware or stug to set the poor on work. 4. For the necessary relief of the lame, impotent, blind, and such others amongst them, being poor and not able to work." This law extended the mutual liability of maintenance to grandfathers and grandmothers. Such a provision, his Eminence says, shows what vigilant care was exercised to maintain the domestic life of the people, and all the obligations and cliaritien which arise from the relations of kindred and of homos. But the Cardinal fails to "recognise in these statutes an administration of the law by which the old and the helpless are removed from their children and their kindred into a workhouse as a condition of relief, Rtill less the refusal of out-door relief, except on the same condition whereby a family is sold up, their home broken up, probably never ajjain to be reconstituted, and the whole family, old and young, charged for ever upon the rates. This condition in known at this time to be absolutely refused by an immense multitude of our suffering and deserving poor ; they will endure any privations of hunger and cold rather than break up their home, with its natural and Christian charities, the only possession and happiness left to them in life, by going into a workhouse. Stonebreaking and cran-working are well enough as a deterrent for loafers and criminals, but the workhouse is a cruel deterrent when offered to familiea who, by a wise assistance in time of need, may be carried through the straits of winter when in want of work. Both the spirit and tho letter of the statutes of Elizabeth provide for the relief or the employment of such as bo lusty, who, having their limbs strong enough to labour, may be daily kept, in continual labour, whereby they may every one of thorn get their own living with their own hands. This provision is made even for those who may not be deserving. How much more does it include the deserving and the willing to work who are thrown out of employment by winter, which suspends a multitude of trades and industries, or by tho vicissitudes which so often paralyse tho employers of labour ! Tho indiscriminate refusal of out-dour lolief paupoii-os those who break up their homos and go into the Workhouse, aggravates tho poverty of those who refuse to break up their homes and go into the Workhouso, aggravates tho poverty of those who refuse to broak up their homes, multiplies tho number of those who are idle, because they are not relieved by work, and drives multitudes into tho dangerous classes who become desperato and hardened."
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Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2450, 24 March 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)
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810CARDINAL MANNING ON OUTDOOR RELIEF. Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2450, 24 March 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)
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