It runs up from one shilling and a half-penny in the pound
to one shilling and fourpence or one shilling and fivepence; there
is hardly one case in which the allowance is as much as two
shillings per week for each individual--I won't call them paupers--
each distressed individual.
Now, there is one point to which I would wish to bring the attention
of the committee in reference to this subject--it is a most
important one, in my appreciation. In ordinary times, when you give
relief to the poor, that relief being given when the great mass of
workpeople are in full employment, the measure of your relief to an
isolated family or two that may be in distress is by no means the
measure of the amount of their subsistence, because we all know that
in prosperous times, when the bulk of the working people are
employed, they are always kind to each other. The poor, in fact, do
more to relieve the poor than any other class. A working man and his
family out of employment in prosperous times could get a meal at a
neighbour's house, just as we, in our class, could get a meal at a
neighbour's house if it was a convenience to us in making a journey.
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