(ii.) _The Principle of Less Eligibility_
The Principle of "Less Eligibility"--that is, that the condition of the pauper should be "less eligible" than that of the lowest grade of independent labourer--(though, as we have shown, asserted explicitly in the 1834 Report only of the able-bodied) is often regarded as the root principle of the reforms of 1834. The Central Authority in 1907 applies this principle unreservedly to one class only, the wayfarers or vagrants. In respect of this class the application of the principle goes even further than was contemplated in 1834. As will be remembered, the Report of 1834 recommended that the wayfarer should be regarded merely as an able-bodied person, and offered maintenance in the workhouse, without compulsory detention or worse conditions than were afforded to other inmates. In 1907 the Central Authority orders the wayfarer, without discrimination of character or conduct, to be relieved only in a casual ward, under a regimen not only inferior to that of the able-bodied ward of the workhouse, but also, in food and amenity of accommodation, distinctly less eligible than the condition of the poorest independent labourer. Moreover, even this "less eligible" relief is accompanied by compulsory detention and a task of hard labour of monotonous and disagreeable character.
Exactly to what extent the policy of the Central Authority of to-day has avowedly departed from the Principle of Less Eligibility with regard to other sections of the able-bodied class it is difficult, in the absence of explicit statement, to determine. According to the Statutes, Orders, and Circulars now promulgated by the Central Authority, the able-bodied (not being wayfarers) may be relieved in three main ways, among which the local authority over a large part of England and Wales is left free choice, viz.:--(_a_) maintenance in the workhouse, (_b_) outdoor relief with a labour test, and (_c_) employment for wages[839] by the distress committee. To take first the maintenance in the workhouse, any attempt to restrict, either in quantity or quality, the food, warmth, accommodation, leisure or rest afforded by the workhouse down to the standard in practice attained by the lowest grade of independent wage-earners has long since been abandoned. It has, in fact, been discovered that the independent labourers of the lowest grade do not get enough food, warmth or rest to maintain themselves and their families continuously in health; whereas the able-bodied inmate of the workhouse is supplied, by the peremptory directions of the Central Authority, up to a standard which fully equals--if it does not exceed--the requirements of physiological efficiency.