The Shadow of Great Britain

”It’s just that...” Victoria raised her head and looked at Arthur, her eyes clearly filled with some frustration. ”I haven’t quite learned how to handle this kind of topic yet. If he were talking about books, or the nature of characters, the arrangement of plots, I could still respond to him a few words. But when he talks about those children, those women, suddenly it feels as though no matter how I answer, it seems too untimely.”

As she spoke, she furrowed her brow slightly. ”If I appear too serious, it feels like I’m making some sort of promise, but I cannot privately promise to alter such a significant law without consulting the Cabinet and the Privy Council. Yet if I merely listen, it seems too frivolous, too lacking in empathy. If you see Mr. Dickens, please be sure to pass along that I’m truly grateful he was able to inform me of so many social realities that day.”

”For Your Majesty to have such thoughts, to say such words...” Arthur was slightly taken aback, then immediately replaced it with a smile, speaking in a very slow rhythm, ”is already much more than most people would expect. As for the dilemmas you mentioned just now... truthfully, it’s not just you alone facing them.”

”That much I understand.” Victoria nodded. ”Lord Russell has indeed been working very hard lately.”

Hearing that Victoria had begun to show concern for the Home Secretary, Arthur couldn’t help but want to steer the topic back.

After all, in his opinion, whether it’s Russell or Melbourne, many of the troubles they have encountered thus far are of their own making.

The Whig Party, this liberal political party, has become increasingly conservative since coming to power, yet they are unwilling to abandon the banner of liberalism and dream that this banner will continuously garner votes for them.

Such a party, where the mind is disconnected from the body, would naturally exhibit symptoms of inconsistency in many policy implementations.

If the Whig Party wants to seek social stability, then they should decisively conservatize and directly retreat on the English Poor Laws issue. If they are willing to propose the Poverty Relief Law Amendment, in Arthur’s observation, the Conservative Party would not heavily obstruct this issue.

If the Whig Party continues to adhere to the governance program from the Parliament reform of 1832, then on the issue of the English Poor Laws, they ought to follow the opinions of the Poor Law Commission and swiftly act according to Edwin Chadwick, resolving the heavy financial burden caused by the Poor Relief Tax over centuries, even if this approach would cause social upheaval.

After all, the benefits of the new English Poor Laws are evident.

Before the new English Poor Laws were passed, the Poor Relief Tax was in fact collected and distributed by each parish on its own, leading to varied relief standards and a lack of uniformity. In certain rural areas, especially where outdoor relief was rampant, poor relief in fact became a wage subsidy.

The result was that local farm owners could suppress workers’ wages, because even if the wages didn’t meet the minimum living standard, the difference could be made up by the Poor Relief Tax. As more people did this, poor relief expenditures naturally began to structurally increase year by year.

Thus, for the Central Government, the Poor Relief Tax became an unpredictable, uncontrollable, yet continually expanding fiscal black hole.

Under the old system, a low-wage worker’s income often came from wages and poor relief subsidies. Thus, they might even live more stably than independent laborers. Employers were also more inclined to hire at low wages, transferring their labor costs to public relief.

But after the new English Poor Laws were implemented, scattered parish reliefs were unified into united poor law unions, and the previously disorganized poor law affairs were incorporated into a unified finance, auditing, and supervision system. Moreover, the new English Poor Laws clarified a core principle: poor relief is not a supplement to wage income, but the final means of relief.

From the perspective of utilitarian political economy, if the new law can be smoothly implemented, not only can it return labor to the market, allowing wages to truly reflect supply and demand, promoting the maturation of industrial capitalism, but also weaken local traditional powers, strip local gentry of their role as relief arbiters, sever the personal dependence between hired workers and landowners, strengthen the authority of the Central Government and Parliament, while also weakening the social base of the Conservative Party.

But the current issue is that, for the sake of liberal voters, the Whig Party is unwilling to humiliate themselves by directly proposing the Poverty Relief Law Amendment. On the other hand, as the ruling party, they are also worried about the social unrest caused by the new English Poor Laws, so they want to slow down its implementation, and if local opposition is intense, they are even open to standing still.

Such self-deceptive behavior is actually encouraging local self-determination, decentralizing the Central Government’s poor law authority.

As the heir to Jeremy Bentham’s teachings and an authoritarian liberal, Arthur is naturally dissatisfied with the results of such local decentralization.

However, if viewed from the standpoint of a long-term resident of the Poorhouse, whose conscience lies with York, and as a law enforcement official, although in the long run the short pain of the new English Poor Laws is far better than the long pain of the old ones, this cut is indeed too painful and idealistic.

Because of this, when deciding his position on the poor law issue, Arthur can only reluctantly see which side offers a higher bid.