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work. Only seven men out of the total number recommended
for employment actually refused the work offered them.
A few words of explanation are needed with regard to
the 531 men who were not recommended for employment.
Roughly speaking, about one-third of these were men of bad
character and unworthy of help; one-third did not require the
assistance for which they asked, the income of their respective
families, taken as a whole, being sufficient for their needs, and
the remaining third, classed as "stand over" cases, consisted
chiefly of married couples with no family dependent on them,
the wife earning some shillings a week.
Had the amount of work available been larger, many of
this last class would, no doubt, have been recommended, but
under the circumstances it was thought best to allow them to
stand over in favour of more urgent cases.
The inadequate
Supply of Work.
It will be seen from the above figures that
owing to the amount of available work being so limited the
men were obliged to wait for about two weeks, and sometimes
more, between their respective turns. The result was that unless
they were fortunate enough to obtain other work between
whiles, they were obliged to apply to the Guardians for relief.
It was with the view to avoiding any such contingency that
the original scheme was drawn up, and the failure of the conditions
first laid down caused keen disappointment, not only
to the men themselves but also to the local Committees. Two
of the Committees passed resolutions on the subject and one
sent a deputation to wait on the Executive Committee to
express their opinion that it would have been better to have
dealt satisfactorily with a limited number of cases than to have
spread the relief out over a large number in small doles which
were of no real benefit to any.
The applications have been classified so that they may
correspond as nearly as possible to the respective classes of
the census, viz.:—
Division 1. Census Class XII. Carpenters, joiners, bricklayers and
masons.
„ 2. „ „ XII. Plasterers, painters and paperhangers.
„ 3. „ „ XII. Plumbers, gasfitters and brass finishers.
„ 4. „ „ XIII. Construction of railways, roads, etc.
„ 5. „ „ VI. Conveyance of men, goods and messages.
„ 6. „ „ XVI. Skins, leather, hair, feathers, etc.
„ 7. „ „ XIII. Wood, furniture, decorating, gilding, &c.
„ 8. „ „ XVII. Paper, printing, books, stationery, etc.
„ 9. „ „ XX. Food, tobacco, drink and lodging.
„ 10. „ „ XXI., XXII. Gas and other undefined workers
and dealers.