The Poor at Home.

Hastings Standard, Issue 135, 1 October 1896, Page 4

The Poor at Home.

The report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on distress through want of employment has been presented. The report was adopted by a majority of 11 to 1, Mr Rendell being the dissentient. It was agreed with regard to the labor test in workhouses that it is undesirable that the deserving poor should be mixed up in the stoneyards with the loafer or pauper class, and the local authorities should devise means for avoiding such association. It was also decided to recommend that special classes of skilled artisans, such as watchmakers, etc., unemployed, and in receipt of temporary relief, should not be put to stone-breaking or any other compulsory work of such a nature as would unfit them, in delicacy of touch or otherwise, from resuming their ordinary avocations. The Committee conclusively and unanimously decided that the proposal of farm colonies under State guarantees for the relief of the unemployed is undesirable and impracticable. It was agreed to recommend that under certain conditions political disfranchisement should not follow the temporary receipt of outdoor relief by the able bodied deserving poor ; also that where relief works were started by any local authority the rate of wages current in the district should be paid to such of the unemployed as fairly earn it. The Committee further recommend that by a modification of certain Acts of Elizabeth, William IV., and George 111., boards of Guardians should be enabled in certain cases, under proper conditions, to try experiments in the purchase or renting of land to provide work for the temporary unemployed.