The parochial system versus centralization: statistics of "Close and open parishes:" effects of settlement and removal.

KNIGHT (Frederick Winn)

Beschreibung

Part I. Results of statistical examinations. Part II. Probable effects of Mr. Baines' Bill. London. Shaw and Sons. 1854. 148,x,113,[1]pp. Original brown printed wrappers. A very good copy in the original state as issued. * Frederick Winn Knight, late secretary to the Poor Law Board. In 1854 M. T. Baines, President of the Poor Law Board introduced a Bill proposing complete Union chargeability. This adopted the direction taken by Chadwick and would have involved the complete abolition of the power of removal of the unsettled poor. Knight is utterly opposed to this proposal and vigorously defends the parish system against Chadwick's centralisation. In the second part Knight provides a short history of the poor law and the Act of Settlement etc. with reference to the earlier writings of Sir Frederic Morton Eden, N. W. Senior, Edwin Chadwick etc. Chadwick's plan (as embodied in Baines's Bill) is described in the "Contents" as "Abolish all existing unions. Divide England into quarter county unions or districts. Equalize the burden of the poor's rates even between these quarter county districts. Abolish all unpaid guardians and local authorities. Place the management of local rates and the relief of the poor in the hands of paid officials. In fine 'Sweep away the whole parochial government of England, and place it in the hands of a highly paid 'bureaucracy,' like that of France and Austria." To Knight this plan would introduce a "dominant and overbearing bureaucracy" giving ministers "unlimited patronage". It would erode "the independence of the upper and middle classes and bring to the poor "unmitigated hardship and distress." It would destroy the settlement of the poor which had long shielded them from the "power of their superiors, and. from the rigour of cruel vagrancy laws. " The proposal is linked to the introduction of a centralised system of police (also Chadwick's doing) and is seen as the end of freedom and the beginning of despotism. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 24859

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Titel: The parochial system versus centralization: ...