Greater Expense of the Scotch System of Out-door Belief without Poorhouses.
The new Poor-law organisation in Ireland, I have no doubt, is, in fact, a large economy upon no previous organisation of the kind whatsoever. In respect to the provision for Scotland, I am apprehensive that, from the error of its principle, the change has been one of increased and seriously increasing charge. As showing the result of two different principles of administration, the experience of Ireland and Scotland present the best means of comparison, as having had no large growth of hereditary pauperism, as distinct from common mendicancy, generated under the long mal-administration of legal provisions for relief as in England. Scotland, then, with its three millions of population, had, in 1860, 120,000 paupers, or 4 per cent, on the population, an amount nearly equal to the accumulated pauperism of England, which was 4·7 per cent. Ireland, with upwards of six millions of population, had 95,000 paupers, or only 1·5 per cent, on the population. In Ireland the cost of the relief given was 2s. 2d. per head on the population. In Scotland it was 4s. 2d., or approaching that of England, which was 5s. 7½d. per head on the population. The average cost of relief per case relieved was greater in Ireland, the relief being there more full, it being 9l. 18s. 6d. per case, whilst even in England it was less than 7l., and in Scotland it was only 5l. England, which ranks highest in wealth, is the deepest in pauperism; under the system of partial relief, six-sevenths of the relief is out-door relief; Ireland which is the lowest in wealth, and which gives entire relief, or relief in the workhouse, in twenty -nine cases out of thirty, is the least burdened with paupers; whilst Scotland, which stands between England and Ireland in respect to wealth, where nineteen-twentieths of the cases are relieved out of doors, is approaching to England in respect to pauperism. The influence of the erroneous system on the population appears to be such as we should have anticipated. Mr. Briscoe, General Superintendent under the Board of Supervision for Scotland, having given evidence of the demoralising effect of out-door relief in the population of the Highlands, was asked, as a concluding question, "Then the effect of this out-door relief has been very demoralising, and has broken down the spirit of independence?" and he answers, "Not the least doubt about it; it has deteriorated to a considerable extent, truth, industry, morality, self-respect, self-reliance, the natural affections and independence of character; it appears as if the whole of the humbler classes had completely changed character; there is no shame whatever in demanding relief even among some of higher station. The state of things in the Highlands of Scotland is perfectly deplorable, and every person admits it."
