Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society (12 december 1885)

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

This article is a report of the Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society published in the Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle on 12 december 1885.

The report is about the lecture on "Pauperism" read by Rev. E. K. Kendall and attended by Arthur Conan Doyle on 8 december 1885 at the Penny-street Lecture Hall (Portsmouth) where he spoke at some point.


Report

Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle (12 december 1885, p. 2)

Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society

The second ordinary meeting of this society for the current session was held on Tuesday evening at the Penny-street Lecture Hall, Portsmouth. There was a comparatively small attendance, and some discomfort was experienced by the low temperature of the room. The President (the Rev. H. Maxwell Egan Desmond, M.A., F.R.G.S.) occupied the chair, and the company included the following gentlemen:— General A W Drayson, F R A S, Captain Bamber, Surg-Major W M Harman, Rev E K Kendall, Rev E M Johnstone, M A, R N, Dr J Watson, Dr Conan Doyle, Dr R Emmett, Dr C C Claremont, Dental-Surgeon W H Kirton, Messrs G Ollis, A Howell, W Inglis, R N, J M Ollis, R N, W Milln, C Foran, H J Orchard, W Watkins, F H Wollaston, G F Bell, Dr J Ward Cousins (Hon Sec). The following gentlemen were elected members of the Society:— Surgeon-Major W M Harman, B A, and Mr Wiles; the following gentlemen were nominated for membership:— Lieut-General T N Haward and Colonel T Bryson.

The Rev. E. K. KENDALL, M.A., late a Guardian of the Poor for Kensington, read a thoughtful paper on "Pauperism." He said that we seemed at last to be waking up to the fact that we had in our midst a vast population who lived more or less upon their neighbours, and that poverty on the whole more than kept pace with the increase of population. The increase of wealth in this country seemed to have the effect of multiplying those who were more or less a burden upon the rates, and the problem was how such people were to be accepted as a necessary evil, and provided for accordingly. It was peculiarly difficult to take a wise and calm view of the subject of pauperism, and yet on the lowest grounds the matter was not one that could be neglected. Discontent it was to be feared was on the increase, and might become dangerous. Those who now lived partly on their neighbours were beginning to think of a further division of property, which they supposed would give them a larger share; those who had sunk into a state of great hardship from causes over when they had no control were apt to be clamorous, and might be dangerous. It was often said that pauperism might be referred entirely to the operation of the Poor Laws, especially the system of out-door relief; and there were those who went back further still, and laid the blame on the monastic establishments, which, absorbing, a preposterous share of the wealth of the country for so-called religions uses, inaugurated a system of alms-giving and doles to keep the newer in their hands. After pointing out that the monasteries, with all their faults, came into existence because the then state of society justified their existence, the essayist said it was doubtful whether we, under such very different conditions of life, were acting much more wisely than the monasteries did. Regarding the Poor Law system, he said it was obvious that it did in itself tend to lower the wage rate. As to the agricultural labourer, peasant proprietary was a doubtful benefit to a country, especially where skill and capital were required to work the land; but no doubt things at present tended to a more independent position for the labourer so soon as he was able to occupy it. But social improvement could never wholly do away with that which was the secret of our excellence as a nation, as well as of much of our misery, namely, the strain of competition. Education, however, might do something for, us, and emigration might do more. Still there were those who preferred the miserable wages of pauperism to honest work, and it was probable the operation of the Poor Laws tended to develop this principle, and the question was how to apply the spur to the indolent without pressing unduly the willing horse. He thought first that outdoor relief should be rather the exception than the rule, for the plan of supplementing earnings by weekly allowances, however alluring at first sight, was most pernicious in tendency. (Applause.) The workhouse provision stopped all thought of laying by for old age, as to receive parish relief a man must have no resources of his own. Selfishness and want of filial duty were directly promoted by the system of outdoor relief, while the standing rule of some Guardians to allow a widow so much a week for her children prevented many a labourer from making any provision in the event of his death. If it was necessary to provide for children in such a case, they should be taken away from home to be fed and educated. In the investigation of some cases of poverty charity organisation societies might do good service, but those who really required and deserved relief were often unwilling to seek it from them, because of the searching inquiries made. Personally the speaker doubted the success of what were called provident dispensaries, to which the healthy would not, and the unhealthy could not contribute. He failed to see, too, why one particular class of society should be provided free of cost with even the necessaries of life. Provision should be made for lunatics and cripples, and that surely at the cost of imperial rather than local taxation. To men who could work, but were out of work, ne need hardly say that no relief should be given out of the rates in cash. The labour test was still unsatisfactory, stone-breaking and oakum-picking being unremunerative and unsuited to the mechanic and artisan, while there was the objection to Government or parochial workshops that they would undersell tradesmen and perhaps overstock the market. The real remedy was one that it was not hopeless to supply; there was work to be found somewhere, and the labourer must learn to find it out. He was not one of those who sympathised with the notion that emigration would be a sovereign cure for pauperism, and to send emigrants faster than they were wanted was to do mischief. Emigration was needful not so much to keep down pauperism as to develop our own resources. He did not sympathise with those who considered that private charity, being uncertain in its operations, was pauperising in its tendency, and he believed the amount of private charity dispensed was grossly exaggerated. In conclusion, the essayist said he had not aimed at that which was sensational. (Applause.) He had tried to show that the Poor Laws should neither crush with severity nor demoralise by unreasonable liberality. He would cultivate an independent spirit, although he did not for a moment undervalue the administration of Christian charity. The higher law of love should mollify the hard necessity and the struggle for life. (Applause.)

The Rev. E. M. Johnstone initiated the discussion, and said that the Poor Law had a vast antiquity, adducing in proof of this statement an extract from a "ritual of the dead" written thousands of years B.C. with reference to a defunct Egyptian. The great legislator from whom Christian legislation was taken, namely, Moses, also enunciated a law of remembering the poor. After tracing the history of the Poor Laws in England, the speaker said that last year the sum of £8,500,000 was expended in the administration of the Poor Law in England and Wales alone, giving an average of 9s. 9 1/2d. per head of the population. He reminded them that although pauperism could not be checked altogether there were the deserving and the undeserving poor. (Applause.) — Dr. Watson expressed himself in favour of Canon Blackley's scheme for the compulsory saving of £10 between the ages of 17 and 21, so that a provision might be made for old age. — Mr. Orchard would abolish for ever the most forbidding titles poor-house and workhouse, and adopt for the institutions which now bore those names the designation of houses of industry, or — as they called them in America — friendly inns. He thought, with the exception of Denmark, England and was the only country that considered a compulsory poor-rate indispensable. If we could only have in every locality a voluntary and representative association, whose aim it should be to see that the deserving poor were really helped and that the idle and profligate did not impose upon the benevolence of the charitably disposed, they might do better work than the charity organisations now existing. (Applause.) — Dr. Conan Doyle thought that if a man became a pauper through adverse circumstances and in spite of his endeavours, he had a direct claim on the State. There was in England a great deal of ground that might be reclaimed from the sea, and of marsh land that might be cultivated, and the Government might step in and organise regiments of tramps to march about and carry out this work. He proposed a vote of thanks to the lecturer. — Dr. Claremont seconded, and thought the bread winner and his family should be relieved while he was unable to work through illness. The working-class deserved the greatest credit for the efforts they themselves stud put forward in the formation of friendly societies and kindred organisations. His experience was that abuse of outdoor hospital relief was very rare. — The Hon. Secretary believed it would be better to make a distinction between the really deserving poor, those who were unable to work, and the class of impostors and vagabonds. And yet people in going to the Unions would be struck with the way in which these classes were mingled together. — The Chairman said, with regard to the question "What is the cause of poverty in this country?" that he knew of no subject of more profound interest not only for the benevolent mind but also for the statesman. He expressed his pleasure that the cause of Irish poverty had been taken up by that earnest worker, Mrs. Ernest Hart, and said he thought we had it in our power to alleviate poverty to a great extent by legislation, and a great deal of it was attributable to unwholesome laws. Education and the consequent refinement of the poor would amalgamate the English people, so that they would become one nation, and there would be no different classes, but all would work for the same end. He thought, too, that legislation would further that mighty result which he believed was the intention of the Creator when He called us one family, and that poverty might probably be eliminated entirely from amongst us, while we should become more united, and the enormous wealth of the country should be distributed to the whole people to the best advantage. — The resolution was carried unanimously, and the Rev. E. K, Kendall, in response, said he was sanguine enough to hope that the operations of the Poor Law would become very different to what they had lately been, and the more grievous phases of pauperism pass away. (Applause.) — The meeting then separated.