The Sun.
London, England, 1834-10-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Two important months have now elapsed since the
appointment of the Poor Law Commissioners, and the
public is beginning to inquire what they have done,
and what they are doing. The answer to the first
question is not very easily given. It appears at first
sight to consist of an abundant list of negations. They
have not appointed any assistant-commissioners ; they
have not united any parishes for the administration of
the laws for the relief of the poor ; they have not di-
rected that the administration of those laws in any
single parish shall be administered by a board of guar-
dians ; they have not made any rules, orders, or regu-
lations to be observed in workhouses ; they have not
directed any parish or union to appoint and pay of-
ficers for superintending or assisting in the relief
of the poor, or the examining, auditing, allowing,
and disallowing accounts ; they have not declared to
what extent the relief of the able-bodied in any parish
or union may be administered out of the workhouse ;
they have not directed on what day, or in what form, a
register of the paupers of every parish or union shall
be made and kept ; they have not declared what
species of relief shall be considered as having been
given by way of loan ; they have not issued any rules,
orders, or regulations respecting the ;apprenticing of
children ; they have not called for the.accounts of any
trust or charity estates : in short, of all the powers
confided to them by the Act, powers under which, we
were told, that the libecties of England would expire,
the Commissioners have, as yet, exercised only one,
—that is, the power of franking their letters. We
do not, however, infer from all this, that their
time has been wasted, or even that it has been
employed less beneficially than. ,it might have
been. We know how much time it must take to
set such a machine as the Poor-law Commis-
sion fairly at work. Of the three Commissioners,
two were men most actively engaged in other
pursuits up to the very moment of their' appointments ;
and the third, as a member of the House of Commons,
had, during the last session, employment quite suffi-
cient to engross all his time. The Commissioners,
therefore, had, in a great measure, their business to
learn. And certainly, two months is 'a short time to
get a tolerable insight into the Workings of that
most complicated system, or rather, chaos, the ad-
ministration of the English Poor-laws. They had,
or rather have, to acquire not only a general view
of the whole subject, but also precise details as
to the state of every parish with which they
might think it necessary to interfere. Indeed, we
might say of every parish in the kingdom ; for
nothing but a detailed knowledge of the state of
a parish could justify either their interference or
their non-interference. It may be said, however,
that these details were to be acquired through the
medium of their assistant-commissioners. And,
therefore, that every day during which the Board has
unnecessarily suspended the appointment of assist-
ant-commissioners, is a day lost in the utility of the
commission. And in this we agree : but we are not
sure that a day has been lost. It is matter of noto-
riety that the applications for assistant-commisssioner-
ships have been more abundant than, even in this place-
hunting age, could have been expected. We are told
that they amount to 'seven or eight hundred. Nov, if
the post of assistant-commissioner were one requiring
mere routine qualifications, there would not, probably,
be much dificulty in selecting from such a number nine
perfectly unobjectionable men. But the situation is
one which demands a very extraordinary union of some-
what dissimilar qualities. It requires a knowledge of
general principles, and also familiarity with their prac-
tical application—great zeal, and yet great discretion—
the power to generalize, and yet readiness to at-
tend to the most trivial details— courage, pru-
dence, mildness, firmness—in short, almost every-
thing united that is most difficult to find
even separate. We certainly do not hope that
the Commissioners will be able, whatever be their
care, to obtain nine men perfectly fitted for such a
station ; but on that very account we are most anxious
that they should select from those who will accept the
office the nine that are best fitted, whether those nine
are all to be found among their seven hundred appli-
cants, or whether, as probably is the case, some of
them are to be searched for, and pressed into the ser-
vice. And we are not surprised that the commissioners
have taken two months' deliberation before making
any appointments. Much, therefore, as we regret it,
we do not complain of the delay which has taken place
before the Poor-law Commissioners have begun to
exercise their functions. We believe it to have
been perfectly unavoidable. But we must also
express our belief that the fair period of mere
deliberation is over, and the time for action
arrived, and that if it were possible that the Com-
missioners should continue in their present state
of apparent quiescence, not only would a great
opportunity of effecting extensive good be lost,
but that, in fact, the Poor-law Amendment Act would
work much less beneficially than it would have done,
if all the clauses relating to the Commissioners had
been expunged. It is true that the mere provisions of
the Act make very little alteration in the law as to
relief ; and, as Mr. Pratt has observed in the preface
to his edition, that, until the Commissioners shall pro-
mulgate their regulations, every form of relief which
was either legal or illegal before the Act was passed,
still preserves its lawful or unlawful character un-
altered ; and, therefore, that those parishes in which
the relief of the poor is well administered have nothing
to change, and those in which it is ill administered
should themselves immediately but temperately' set
about the work of reform. But if it be inferred from
these premises that the Act will work well without the
active interference of the Commissioners, that all they
have to do is to sit at Somerset-house and give advice,
which those to whom it is addressed may follow
or not, as they like ; and that they may safely
suffer all their attention to be engrossed by a con-
stantly increasing correspondence, we are convinced
that a more fatal error will never have been committed.
It is not necessary to repeat the evidence so often and
so triumphantly referred to in the discussions on the
bill, that a large proportion of the existing mal-ad-
ministration has been created or aggravated by the im-
mediate individual interest of the local administrations.
What effect can be expected from the clearest demon-
stration of the general mischief of allowance or pay-
ment of rents, if addressed to the shopkeeping or farm-
ing overseer, or to the vestryman who has covered with
cottages his half acre of common ? Not much good is
often effected by attempting to prove to an uneducated,
or even a half-educated man, that the conduct which he
has
.pursued until it has become a habit is adverse to
his interest. But what can we hope from proving to
him that it is adverse to the interest of the public,
admitting at the same time that it is favourable
to his own ? How much good would be
effected by the Commissioners of Police, if they
were to lecture the thieves on the mischief done
to the public by thieving ? The framers of the Act
never could have entertained so wild an idea as to
suppose that anything short of commands, enforced
by penalties, would check those abuses which have
their origin in fraud. If it had been supposed to be
possible that the Commissioners would continue qui-
escent, or interfere only by counsel and remonstrance,
those abuses would, without doubt, have been put
down by express and stringent enactments. But the
difficulty of applying any general enactment to the
whole country, and to abuses infinitely diversified, ac-
cording to the state of almost every district or even
every parish, induced the legislature to leave the task
of extirpating them to the Commissioners. Again,
the clamour raised by the London press against
the powers given by the to the commis-
sioners, has produced an exaggerated opinion as to the
extent of those powers. A vague idea has been
diffused that the Commissioners succeed to the
justices, and are to exercise all the powers which
their predecessors possessed Cr usurped. The ,
Poor-Law Amendment Act is, in fact, a code, as in-
telligible, we believe, as any code written in, Law
English can be made, but not.very-ea.sily understood
even by the educated, and perfectly- gibberish to the
illiterate. We are not sure that many, of the overseers,
or
.perhaps even of the magistrates, would very well
understand it, even if they were togive to it the time
and the attention which a long adti-complicated. Act
of Parliament requires ; and we believe that few have
given to it any attention at all. Every police report.