Mr. Nassau Senior, and Miss Martineau,
were beginning to advocate the doctrine that no remedy could be found for
{224} the system of legalized poor relief short of its total abolition.
It was gravely contended by many reformers, whose guiding spirit was pure
love of humanity, that the best course for the Government to take would
be to abolish the poor-relief system altogether, and leave the really
deserving poor to the mercy of private benevolence. By such a measure,
it was contended, private charity would be left to find out its own, and
would, before long, find out its own, and the charity thus given would
carry with it no demoralizing effect, but would be bestowed, as all true
charity is bestowed, with the object of enabling those whom it helped to
help themselves after a while. The owner of an estate, it was argued,
can easily find out where there is genuine distress among those who
depend upon him, and can sustain them through their time of need, so that
when their hour of sickness or enforced idleness is over they may be able
to begin again with renewed energy, and work with the honest purpose of
making themselves independent. It was urged that the operation of the
legalized poor law relief could only create new pauperism wherever its
unwholesome touch was felt. It would impress on the well-inclined and
the industrious the futility of honest and persevering endeavor, inasmuch
as idleness could get itself better cared for than laborious poverty.
Idleness and immorality, it was argued, were well housed and fed, while
honest independence and virtue were left outside in cold and hunger.

[Sidenote: 1832-33--A commission on poor-law relief]

The study of political economy was even already beginning to be a part of
the education of most men who took any guiding place or even any
observant interest in the national life. Writers who dealt with such
subjects were beginning to find readers among the general public. Some
of the members of Lord Grey's own Administration had taken a close
interest in such questions. The whole subject of poor relief and its
distribution was one of the earliest which came under the consideration
of the Liberal Government after the passing of the Reform Bill. It was
clear that something would soon have to be done, and, as the Whig
ministers had a good deal of other work on their {225} hands, the natural
course, at such a time, was to appoint a commission which should inquire
into the whol