The Sun.
London, England, 1870-03-31 00:00:00

THE EVIGRATION MOVEMENT.

!WEDNESDAY.

A meeting of the British and Colonial Emigration Cora-
xcdtitee was held at the Mansion House to-day, Alderman
Sir, J. C. Lawrence presiding. There were present—
Lord Alfred Churchill, Alderman Sir D. SalCmons, Mr.
Dixon, the Corporation agent for Canada, and others.
The committee have made arrangements for assisting the
emigration of a large number of deserving unemployed
workmen and. their families to other fields of industry
during the approaching season. The first steam.
'Nip, the Medway, will leave London for Quebec on the
14th of April Ivit!l 300 adults, and she will be fob
lowed at fortnightly intervals by other steamers, each
carrying about the same number. • The Ganges.
screw
steamship, has also been engaged to take 400 or 500 adults
to Canada, and will leave on the 28th April. By these
means, it is hoped, that at least 4,000 persons will be
aided in their desire to emigrate during the mouths of April
and May • A letter was read from Mr. Pease, M. P. for
South Durham, stating that •he was willing to engage
100 men in connection, with his ironstone mines in the
North, and pay their expenses from London.—Canon
Brown said he could find him 100 men in Woolwich.—
Mr. Douglas Pox said he was acquainted with the
locality, and he knew that men were wanted for other
mines as well.—A letter was read from the Secretary of
the Ontario Government, from which it appeared that
the building trade Was very brisk in Toronto. There was
not a street in which bricks had not been laid down for the -
erection of houses in the spring. The proceedings shortly
afterwards terminated.

THE LONDON SOCIETY FOR THE
SUPPRESSION OF MENDICITY.

WEDNESDAY.

The first annual meeting of tn.° society formed in
London for organising charitable relief and suppressing
mendicity, was held to-day, at Willis's Rooms, under the
presidency of the Right Hon. the Earl of Derby. There was
a large and fashionable attendance, amongst
the noblemen and gentlemen present being the Earl
of Lichfield, the Bishop of Winchester, Lord George
Hamilton, Sir 0. E. Trevelyan, K.C.8., and many
others.

The report of the Council referred to the necessity
which had long existed of establishing- some organi-
sation of voluntary charity side by side with the
organisation of the Poor Law. With such variations as
local circumstances and opinion might suggest, the fol-
lowing principles had beeen maintained in their integrity
—That there should be in each Poor Law district a
recognised centre of charitable operations, to which all
persons deserving of assistance by private benevolence
might be referred, independently of all denominational
or other differences. That charitable agencies should
exist in each district, not to work independently
of each other, but with a due recognition of
the province of each, That all cases which belong
properly to the Poor Law should be handed over to the
guardians, and the only cases in which temporary aid is
likely to prove of permanent benefit, are to be left to the
operation of private charity.
The EARL of DERBY, in opening the proceedings said,
after some preparatory observations : Now, I suppose
we shall all be agreed as to the permanence, and
increase of pauperism in this country, and
especially in London, it is a subject which calls for the
serious attention of every one who cares either for the
welfare of our population or for the honour of our
country. The facts which we have to deal with are
simple, although the inferences which may be drawn from
them vary almost indefinitely. There is certainly
no want of wealth in London ; that is a proposition which
does not require proof. The mere land on which this
metropolis stands, taking a square of ten miles, north and
south, east and west, each way from St. Paul's, has been
estimated to represent a capital equal to the whole
amount of the National Debt. There is no want of libe-
rality; in point of fact, it has been told over and over
again that the amount of money given away in London
is enough to feed and clothe comfortably every
person in it who can by any stretch of the meaning of
words be considered either a pauper or to he in a state of
destitution. (Hear, hear.) It has been shewn upon evi-
dence, which, so far as I know, has never been disputed,
that, excluding relief derived from rates, something like
five millions yearly is given away in London for charitable
purposes of one kind or another, and including
rates the amount would bo between seven and
eight millions. (Hear.) Now, at that rate we ought
to be able to feed and clothe, well and comfortably, at
least four hundred thousand persons, for the national
income calculated at between six and seven hundred mil-
lions, does not give as average of much more than £2O per
head, and of course if they are treated simply as paupers
the cost of feeding and clothing is considerably less. Yet
what is the state of the case ? Pauperism is increasing
more than either charity or wealth. (Hear.) In 1858 it
included three per cent, of the populace of London, and
in 1868 it included five per cent., and we all know that
not a week passes, and hardly a day, without our seeing
in the newspapers some case recorded of death from star-
vation. Yet the revenue has not fallen off ; the
depression of trade, which, no doubt, has been
severe in some employments, and in some
localities, has not caused any large decrease—indeed, I do
not think it has cansed any decrease at all—in our exports
and imports ; and our consumption of articles of popular
luxury, which is the surest measure of the
degree of comfort enjoyed at any given time by the
working classes, has considerably increased. Now, that is
briefly the state of things we have to deal with, and it
admits to my mind of only one explanation. By want of
organisation, by want of proper supervision and control, by
excessive laxity and absence of discrimination between
the deserving and undeserving, we are pauperising year
by year, an increasing riumLer of our people. (Hear.) I do
not now speak of the operations of the Poor Law, as it
is rather beyond the scope of the present meeting. I
speak of private charity, and especially of the charity
which is not given through the medium of an organised
society ; and the first thing I wish to point out is this; the
excessive laxity in this direction produces precisely the
same effect as excessive severity in depriving those who
really deserve assistance, because wherever money is given
• away lavishly and loosely, there will be a scramble
for it. (Hear.) The most clamorous, the most importu-
nate, the most hardened, those who have most completely
thrown off all remains of modesty, will get all, and those
who maintain their self-respect will be left to starve.
(Applause.) But more than this, I firmly believe that by
our lax and careless way of dealing with these matters we
are putting into the heads of a large number of
the working classes the notion that it is all
nonsense attempting, however high their wages
may be, to lay by for the future. (Hear.) If work is plenty
they say they will live well, and if work fails,
it is the business of society generally to keep them. I
believe truly that the reasonable expectation of charitable
relief which exists in the East-end of London has been
the means of bringing in vagrants from all around, and has
actually raised the rent of lodgings within the area in
which the relief was distributed. (Hear, hear.) Now, we
cannot afford to go on in this way for ever--(hear, hear)—
and to set the whole thing right it is not necessary to use
the pockets so much as the brains. (Hear, hear.)
The object is simple : we want to sift the grain
from the chaff, to leave the vagrant, the
tramp, the professional beggar, and the utterly and
hopelessly shameless person to the stringent rules and
strict discipline of the Union, and to such persons the dis-
cipline ought to be stringently enforced; while to those
who suffer by no fault of their own, we desire that a large
and generous indulgence should be shewn. (Applause.)
Now it is not enough for that purpose merely to teach
people that benevolence is one thing and 'beneficence
another, or merely to declaim in a vague manner against
indiscriminate giving. (Applause.) Until people feel
sure that the deserving poor will and can
obtain relief, it is no use talking to them ;
they will give indiscriminately ; that is to say, they will
. give, although they know the chances are ten to one that
those they help are imposters, because they do not like to
suppose that the person to whom they refuse help may
starve and die. (Hear.) It is in vain to argue against a
feeling like this ; it exists, and always will exist. (Hear.)
If you wish men and women to do what they ought, and
not allow themselves to be preyed upon by rogues, you
must, therefore, supply them with an easy test by
which they can distinguish between rogues and honest
men. It is hard to argue that everyone, whatever his
station, should give a personal attention to those matters.
Each must devote himself to his particular sphere ; the
division of labour is the very characteristic of modern
society, and it applies to charity as to everything else--
(hear). The duty, therefore, which confessedly requires
to be performed, and which, as it seems to me, individuals
cannot perform, is one which naturally devolves upon
.organisations formed for the purpose. (Hear.) Now,
what is that the organisation which we are met to support
to-day is intended to do? In the first place, if properly
established, it ought to put an end to that growing
nuisance, street begging. (Applause.) Only lay it down
as a rule never to give to a beggar in the streets, and that
nuisance would, I think, speedily disappear. (Hear.)
• Having alluded to the way in which it was proposed to
carry out the objects of the society, the noble lord concluded
by saying that the principle of action was an experiment,
but a hopeful experiment and in his judgment it deserved
at least to be fairly tested. What the result would be
must, of course, be left to the experience of the future.
(Cheers).
On the motion of Mr. A. MILLS, the report of the
Council was unanimously adopted.
Sir C. TREVELYAN then proposed " That this meeting,
approving of the plan for organising charitable relief now
submitted, pledges itself to Maintain and extend the
p
machinery required in all parts of the metropolis."
The Bishop of WINCHESTER seconded the rosolution,
which on being submitted to the meeting was carried nc)a
Coll

---The Rev. Dr. BARRY next proposed :—" That the co-
operation of the several charitable agencies now at
work in the metropolis for promoting the true welfare
of the poor is of 'the most essential importance,
and that no satisfactory remedies for the evils of an in-
creasing pauperism can be devised till such co-operation
Las been attained."
Lord Mahon seconded, and the Hon. and Rev. G.
Talbot, and Mr. G. Howell supported the reolution,
which was carried.
A vote of thanks to the chairhaox terrahulted the pro,
Gooding%