POOR RELIEF.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12710, 19 March 1904, Page 4

POOR RELIEF.

A special meeting of the council of the Charity Organisation Society was held at the Royal United Service Institution, Whitehall, when Mr C. S. Eoch (the secretary of the society) read a paper on “The Elberfeld System and its Place in Poor Relief.” Mr Loch, in the first part of his paper, summarised the regulations of the “Elberfeld” scheme. A central committee (“the town poor committee”), he said, supervised the administration of the legal poor relief of the town, and consisted of nine members and a chairman chosen by the town council, ■ The committee had under its charge the care of all persons who needed help and Were proved to have a claim on the civil parish for poor relief. As to local organisation, there are, for example, in Crefeld, in the province of Dusseldorf. at least 32 district superintendents and 448 almoners. The town was divided into 32 poor relief districts, each with a district committee, and the districts are sub-divided into almoners’ sections. A district superintendent has charge of 14 almoners’ sections. Atlcr dealing with the duties of the district superintendent and the almoner, and the administration of the outdoor and indoor relief, Mr Loch spoke of the development of the organisation for public relief in Germany and England. He said that the presumptions as to the adaptability of the people to an Elberfeld scheme in Germany and in England were very different. In this country the people had to acquire a sense of voluntary and personal responsibility in regard to poor relief, which in Germany had never been lost. The two principles of the Elberfeld system were to individualise and to decentralise. It seemed to him that the following courses lay before them. It was possible to introduce a system of almoners, with districts,, etc., on charitable lines. This was done in Edinburgh about the year 1857, but, quickly organised without trained workers and a high standard of charity, it almost as soon fell to pieces. It was possible to introduce the system in close relation to outdoor relief as at present administered in a normal union. To do tins, as it was done in Edinburgh, by districts and without a long preparation, would probably fail now as it did them. The fact that the scheme might now be closely connected with the outdoor relief granted by the board of guardians would not save the position. It was possible, too, to introduce the system on the lines adopted in Boston, U.S.A., where the work of charity was dissociated alike from the Poor Law and also,almost entirely from other relief. That charity was the charity of the friendly visitor. The family in distress might or might not be in receipt of poor relief. In any case the provision of relief was held to be the duty of other agencies. The problem of the visitor was the ultimate independence of those whom he befriended. < This system was probably in many ways the best, and it was consistent with a large, or indeed an entire, withdrawal of outdoor relief, as the methods of charity were improved and outdoor relief dwindled. Again, it was possible to introduce tho scheme on the lines now adopted by the Charity Organisation Society. On that method the assistance required in individual cases, in accordance with the plan of help—not allowance relief merely, as official out-relief must almost necessarily be—was connected more and more with the work of almoners or friendly visitors, as education in these matters made progress. Lastly—a very serious venture indeed in a place like London—the relieving officers might be withdrawn to other work, and the problem of outdoor relief might be in some manner simplified so as to be brought within the scope of almoners on lines similar to those adopted in Berlin. If this were done, it should be clone very slowly. In his opinion, however, if the scheme was applied to English conditions, it implied, not merely what might be called “the introduction of the Elberfeld system,” but a remodelling of our whole Poor Law and, what'ever might be the outcome of proposals of that nature, he urged that in any event charity should be organised on lines parallel to the Poor Law, and should not be merged in it. It should develop its work on the method not of allowances, but of discriminating individual and personal help; and, in any case it should not be made an instrument for introducing a still larger system of outdoor relief, but should be used, as it now might be in competent hands, as a means of preventing the extension of outdoor relief, and of substituting for it means and methods that led away from the Poor Law and from public dependence.