Page:A letter on pauperism and crime.djvu/12

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8
PAUPERISM AND CRIME.

establishment where temporary employment could be provided.

A Deposit Department, where the working classes might make payments towards Government Deferred Annuities, for the support of their old age—the annuities to be established on a system which would not require the payments to be continued during the time the subscriber might be, from unavoidable causes, out of employ; also, where they might deposit all such sums as they were desirous of investing in the Government Savings' Banks.

An Emigration Department, where those, of the working classes, wishing to emigrate might make their desires known, and have all the necessary arrangements for their passage to and reception in the Colony made. Agents should be appointed in the Colonies to receive the emigrants, on their arrival, and to assist them in obtaining employment.

The Department and Colonial Agents should be prepared to grant Money Orders, to enable the working classes to remit to or receive from emigrants.

A Loan Department. This would prove the most important department of the whole, as on its judicious management the existence or non-existence of Pauperism would mainly depend. As a general rule, not a farthing should be ever given away; but money should be lent, free from interest, and received back at such intervals of time, and in such instalments, as the head of the department ascertains the borrower can pay without inconvenience. Persons should be attached to this department for the purpose of collecting the information necessary to enable it, efficiently, to discharge its most important