How the State's Role in Providing Welfare and Assistance Changed - Essay Example

290406 Show how the s role in providing welfare and assistance changed between 1834 and 1911 and offer reasons for this development. The purpose of this short evaluation is to examine the ways in which the British welfare developed between 1834 and 1911. Therefore this evaluation will basically explore the time period between the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 to the passing of the social welfare measures introduced by the Liberal governments of the early twentieth century. It will then offer reasons to explain developments in the states role of providing welfare and assistance to people that qualified for it. Very limited forms of social welfare provision in England and Wales can be traced back to the late fourteenth century when the first poor laws were introduced (Gardiner & Wenbourn, 1995 p.607). The Poor Laws of 1597 and 1601 passed in haste at the end of the Elizabethan era went on to form the basis of social welfare provision for over two hundred years (Hobsbawm, 1962, p. 300). These limited yet frequently required measures were administered with the priority of only assisting the paupers, the old, the unemployed, and the underemployed who were considered to be genuine (Schama, 2002, p. 420). Anybody that the Poor Law administrators believed to be undesearving of assistance had to find work, rely on the charity of others, turn to crime, or face starvation (Hobsbawm, 1975 p. 80). Sometimes to escape poverty in Britain, and to avoid the workhouse people emigrated to British colonies such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand to build a better live for themselves. The state was content to promote emigration because it strengthened control over colonies whilst reducing the number of poor people in Britain seeking welfare and assistance (Ferguson, 2003 p. 75) The politicians responsible for drafting and then passing the Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834 had the express objective of decreasing the cost of social welfare provision instead of broadening the scale not to mention the scope of the government’s involvement in society (Hobsbawm, 1962, p. 301). The Poor Law Amendment Act provided relief for the poorest and the less fortunate members of society but it came at a price for those people. It came at a price because the state in 1834 right through the rest of the 19th century aimed to tightly limit its role in providing welfare and assistance (Hobsbawm, 1987, p. 40). The restriction of state welfare and assistance measures to only the most desperate cases reflected the strong hold of classical liberal thought that the state should only intervene in economic affairs on a very limited basis (Eatwell & Wright, 2003 p. 27). In the years that immediately preceded the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act a trend had developed of providing poor relief in purpose built workhouses instead of giving people financial aid whilst they remained in their family homes (Morgan, 1993, p. 551). With the Poor Law Amendment Act the chief means of restricting and then reducing the cost of social welfare provisions was the network of workhouses, dreaded by the poor, and at first heartily approved by the local ratepayers who had to pay for the up keep of the poor (Schama, 2002 p. 421). The workhouses especially in urban areas offered the most desperate poor a roof over their heads in return for frequently hard labour, and at the cost of many family units been broken up (Roberts, 1996 p. 403). Despite causing high degrees of personal misery for the individuals and also the families that had resort to the workhouse just to survive the Poor Law Amendment Act did not reduce the over all financial cost of even the most rudimentary social welfare provisions (www.socyberty.com/History). Indeed as the levels of industrialisation, urbanisation, alongside population levels increased so did the amount of poverty within the country as a whole (Hobsbawm, 1987 p. 149). The process of industrialisation and the general population growth in turn raised the numbers of people living in abject and relative poverty that subsequently resorted to the nearest workhouse when they could no longer sustain themselves (James, 2003 p. 15). The draconian nature of the workhouses did not have the ability to make poverty in Britain disappear, it just made it more difficult for poor people to get help (Eatwell &Wright, 2003 p. 29). The Poor Law Amendment Act was thus not wholeheartedly supported by the bulk of the English and Welsh population (Scotland had its own equally unpopular equivalent system). Even some of the local ratepayers began to have their doubts about the effectiveness as well as the rising costs of the workhouses as the main institutions for the provision of social welfare (Hobsbawm, 1987 p. 201). On the other hand within four decades of the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act steps were taken via the government to make it more difficult for people to receive poor relief in their own homes or through the detested workhouses (Hobsbawm, 1975 p. 20). Politicians and to a certain the British press had reached the conclusion that the best method of reversing the demand for welfare provision was by actually making it harder to get poor relief courtesy of the Poor Law Amendment Act (Schama, 2002 p. 404). However from the 1870s there was also an increasing sense on the left of British politics that the Poor Law Amendment Act had to be reformed or perhaps even replaced in order to provide more effective poor relief and actual tackle the worst consequences of social deprivation (modern-british-history.suite101). The new Liberals, the trade unions, and eventually the Labour party all aimed to a large extent to increase state involvement when it came down to assisting people (Eatwell & Wright, 2003 p. 31). Specifically the young, the underemployed, the unemployed, the disabled, as well as the old required help to stop them suffering from poverty or resorting to the workhouses (Gardiner & Wenbourn, 1995 p. 608). The concern for offering greater levels of welfare stemmed from a desire to assist more people, no doubt made stronger by the gradual widening of the electorate (Hobsbawm,1994 p. 15). As the 19th century drew to a close Conservative and Liberal administrations had already increased state intervention by passing factory safety legislation, stopping the worst cases of child labour, and reducing working hours (Hobsbawm, 1987 p. 202). The decision to make primary school education compulsary would also proved to be an important aspect of reducing poverty and reversing social deprivation (Palmowski, 2008 p. 727). There was a European state, which had already introduced a greater level of state intervention in welfare provision, Germany. Pressure to increase state intervention had also risen after the severe economic recession of 1873 (Woodruff, 2005 p. 110). The New Liberals had their opportunity to expand the states role in offering welfare and assistance after taking office in 1905, especially in the wake of their stunning general election victory of 1906 (Comfort, 1993 p. 350). The Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell - Bannerman, alongside the Chancellor H H Asquith, the President of the Board of Trade David Lloyd - George, and Winston Churchill were all committed to increasing welfare assistance (Wilson, 2006 p. 10). The Liberals were strongly influenced by the German system of contributory welfare insurance schemes, although they introduced more modest measures (Palmowski, 2008 p. 727). From the perspective of the early 21st century the measures introduced between 1906 and 1911 were very modest, yet they were more pronouced than the limited assistance offered by the Poor Law Amendment Act (Wilson, 2006 p. 12). The welfare measures were delayed by the political controversy surrounding the 1909 Peoples Budget. Ironically the Conservative controlled House of Lords rejected that budget due to proposed land taxes rather the introduction of the new national insurance scheme (Schama, 2002 p. 505). The Liberals brought in the first old age pension schemes for people over 75, limited unemployment benefits, and labour exchanges (www.socyberty.com/History). The intention of these measures was to keep people that were unable to work out of the workhouse, and prevent their slide into poverty (Gardiner & Wenbourn, 1996 p. 607). These measures cost much less than the welfare state established after the Second World War, and indeed less than any of the battleships ordered by the Admiralty during the Anglo - German naval arms race (Wilson, 2006, p. 19). 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