THE FAILURE OF THE CASUAL WARD. BY MR JESSE HAWKES, In the days when agriculture was more prosperous, and before manual land-labour had so largely been displaced by machinery; when factory work was less highly organised and a less important industrial factor than is now the case, there may have been a real need for the casual ward as a resting-place for the destitute seeker for employment. Three-quarters of a century ago the thrown-out skilled worker had, in most cases, no trades union fund to fall back upon, or organisation to assist him in his search for the locality where labour-demand was greater in his line. And at that time he could not travel fifty miles in an hour, at a cost of 4s. 2d., but must use up two days of exhausting tramping to cover the distance. To-day the skilled worker has means of ascertaining in what localities there is a likely demand for his labour, and under ordinary conditions he will not use ten shillings' worth of time in tramping to save the cost of a four-shilling railway ticket. For the genuine skilled labour-seeker the need for the casual ward, if it ever existed, has almost passed away. Industrial development, trades union development, and railway development have made it not only unnecessary, but, as a rule, unwise for the out-of-work skilled man to take to the road. As to unskilled casual labour, where is it to be found? Is there a demand for these workers, and, if so, is that demand supplied? Apart from the hands regularly employed, the extra work provided by the farmer is mostly of a season character, and skilled at that. And so regularly does this class of work come round, that it is taken up by "regular occasionals rather than by "casual" occasionals. The farmer will employ a raw, strange, "casual" hand only under hard necessity. His is usually the most expensive labour to employ. Does the tramp find casual labour in populous places? Very rarely. Every town has its hands-inpockets men, pensioners and others, who are always to be found at certain street corners, ever ready to take the quick shilling or a pint of beer for casual work. This sort of man is a standing institution in every town and in most villages too. Observation of facts points to the conclusion that casual labour is a negligible quantity, and that what little there is is amply provided for by local "snappers-up" of odd jobs. The casual ward exists to meet the case of the man temporarily destitute, but with a reasonable expectation and desire of soon becoming again independent. The temporary feature is the essential feature-the temporary supply of a temporary need; and in so far as such temporary need still exists, there is room for the casual ward or a similar though more efficient institution. But what have been the main results of the establishment of the casual ward? So far from contributing to the efficient relief of temporary disability, it has become a most powerful factor in establishing permanent disability. With a laudable desire to assist the tramp in his search for work, it has turned out to be the very thing to give him a distaste for work, by giving him facilities for living without it. To thousands begging has become an easy and pleasurable profession, and the tramp, so far from being an honest seeker for useful employment, has become a permanent tourist, finding nightly hospitality at the ratepayers' hotel and at the ratepayers' expense. By plausible appeals to the tender-hearted he fills up the wants of the day, as a legal claimant upon organised public hospitality he fills up the need of the night. Temporary nightly shelter in each of thirty casual wards suffices to make him a permanent pensioner upon the public purse. The very man who of all others needs the wholesome discipline of regular daily labour, is deliberately, though unintentionally, assisted by the State to shirk his elementary responsibilities and become an expert in the art of living upon the labour of other people. Born, it may be, with a strong love of this sort of British liberty, an elaborate State organisation effectually fosters his crooked and dishonest tendencies. With the United Kingdom as his roaming ground and a nation of dupes for his manipulation, he plays the game with a master hand, and becomes an accomplished sponger, perhaps handing on as a legacy a fearfully augmented problem for his dupes to deal with, in the shape of a family of children born "on the road." Some two years since the Master of the Malling Workhouse reported the detention of a family of tramps through the birth of a sixth child during the night following admission to the casual ward. Upon inquiry it was found that this family had been known as habitual tramps during the whole lifetime of the eldest child, a girl of fifteen. So far as the country Workhouse casual-ward visitor is considered, there is evidence that an appalling proportion are habitually on the road. Appended to this paper will be found tabulated returns kindly obtained by my Board from upwards of thirty House Masters. It was thought that the Masters have the best opportunities of forming a sound judgment upon certain phases of the tramp question, and, for whatever it may be worth, here is the gathered evidence of a number of experts working in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey. It will be noted that nineteen out of thirty-four Masters report that at least half of the casuals admitted to their wards are more or less regular visitors; whilst twelve of the nineteen report two-thirds or more under this heading. Seventeen Masters believe that fewer than five per cent. are genuine seekers for permanent work. It is therefore fair to conclude, if the average experience has thus been gauged, that a very large proportion of casual ward users are habitual tramps; and, I think, also a fair conclusion that, whatever other influences may be in operation, the chief immediate cause of this habitual vagrancy is to be found in the existence of the casual ward the easy facilities it gives for this life. system and Here, then, is an institution established with a most laudable object, but which appears to have done much more harm than good. An honest attempt to save men from starvation has resulted in a wholesale demoralisation more disastrous and deplorable that starvation itself. This is failure indeed! There must be a cause or causes for this failure. Can they be found? And can a remedy be found? Perhaps a search for the one may suggest the other. At first sight it is very difficult to see where the wrong is. It can scarcely be wrong to provide a bath for a dirty man, a bed for a homeless man, food for a hungry man, and work for a workless man. The casual ward does all these legitimate and desirable things, yet with the result we have seen. At once the inquiry suggests itself: Is it a case of doing the right thing in the wrong way? Is it a case of the wrong application of a right principle? No one will, at any rate, quarrel with the principle of finding work for the workless man. "There is extant a letter" (I quote from the "Encyclopædia Britannica ") "addressed by Lord Burghley, in the sixteenth century, to a justice of the peace for Somerset, which shows that the great evils arising from habits of idleness amongst the poor began then to be understood, and strengthens the idea that one great object of the legislative provisions for the poor made about that time was to prevent able-bodied men from remaining unemployed. As to the nature and kind of relief given under the Poor Laws the great distinction restored rather than introduced by the amendment of the Poor Law system in 1834, was giving all relief to able-bodied persons or their families in well-regulated Workhouses (that is to say, places where they may be set to work, according to the spirit and intention of the statute of Elizabeth), and confining all outdoor relief to the impotent-that is, all except the able-bodied and their families." The Workhouse, then, according to the intention of the law, is, for the able-bodied, whether casuals or not, a house of Work. But the mere provision of work is not necessarily a helpful thing. The convict prison is also a house of work, but there is a vital difference between "hard labour" as a punitive task, and similar labour for hard cash. Who but knew, in earlier days, the difference between five hundred lines as an essay with a possible prize at the end, and five hundred lines as a punishment? Or Are we here finding our way to the crux of the difficulty? The work found for the casual is often of the nature of a punitive task. He is set, it may be, to pound stones into small gravel, and he does it with the consciousness that the increased value of the gravel is out of all proportion to the amount of work he is compelled to put into the process of conversion. he is set to pick oakum, and he knows all the time. that the picked oakum sells for less than the unpicked; it therefore can, to him, be nought but a punitive task. If the casual needed any training or confirming in an abhorrence of work, the casual ward provides that training and makes it most effectual. Do not mistake me. I am not advocating the pampering of the confirmed lazy lout. A solution of this problem will certainly not be found upon those lines. On the other hand, a solution will not be found without taking human nature into account. I put it to you, therefore, as a practical question: What is the |