PAUPERISM
843
PAUPERISM
Paley affirms that the claim of the poor is founded on tlie'law of nature, because all things having been originally common, the exclusive possession of property was and is permitted on the expectation that every one should have enough for subsistence, or the means of procuring it. We may doubt whether this opinion is sound, notwithstanding that it has the advocacy of some of the ablest English thinkers, and that even such an unbelieving mind as Mill approved it, but we cannot doubt that the Poor Laws rest upon moral and j)o'itical considerations of great weight. If statesmen cannot contemplate masses of poi*lation in a condition of semi-starvation without anxiety and fear. Christians certainly should not sutler society to be thus endan- gered so long as the ethical principles of Christianitv can be brought to influence not onlj' the private life of the individual, but all conditions and numbers. For the successful, i. e. prompt and general alleviation of all suffering and want, the State lias stejjped in to enforce obedience to an admitted moral obligation, which might otherwise be recognised by the conscientious and dis- regarded b}^ the sellish. This is the purpose of the mod- ern Poo7- Lau's. Different states have different methods by which this principle is evolved in practice. The gen- eral practice is for the State to delegate to the parochial authorities the proper execution of the Poor-Law prin- ciple, supplying homes called workhouses for those who are homeless, and affording assistance in money and pro- visions for those who are temporarily or permanently out of employment. The charges which are brought against this system are many, and some of them are serious enough to require consideration here.
It was the wise rule of Napoleon the Great that the first duty of a charitable institution is to prevent the need of charity. Hence he favored domiciliary visita- tion, or what is technically called in the science of pau- perism "out- door relief." In England, on the other hand, the maxim of the State is that the poor have a riglil to relief, or, in other words, that charity is a fund on which they can confidently depend. By Napoleon's principle, the object of charity is the reduction of pau- perism ; by the English, relief is the privilege of the poor, regardlcssof the consequences. Potb systems have been tried nearly all over the Continent, and it is quite clear that Napoleon's rule alone is adapted to modern society, and should govern in the dispensing of charity. Few things degrade men in their own estimation so quickly as the habit of relying on alms for support. The diciiie plan Jo?- developiiiff manhood is to mal-e self- exertion a stern necessiti/. But Avhen the State makes a working man sure of charitalile support in time of need, it takes from him the sharpest spur to self-exer- tion; it tempts him to form unthrifty habits; it teaches him to lean on its support in his possible emergencies, instead of stores provided by his own economical fore- thought for the sure-coming " rainy day." This feeling demoralizes him by sapping his self-respect, his pride of character, and his sense of manly independence. In other words, legal provision making his support certain, pre- pares him to become a pauper whenever the battle of life waxes hot. That this is not a mere theory, but a con- densed statement of historic fact, can be shown by ref- erence to the painful results of the English poor laws. Those law^'^, strangely enough, were made necessary by the abolition of serfdom in the 14th century. At first they were wisely framed, making provision for the "impotent poor" only, and for the punishment of va- grant laborers. Gradually, however, they gave birth to the idea of the " right of all persons to claim relief of the State." Then came the erection of almshouses, and the establishment of "poor rates." Finalh', the idea culminated in a law, passed in 1782, granting out- door relief through the agency of the State officers. The effect was to multiply the number of paupers with fearful rapidity, and, as a writer in the Westminster Revieio has aptly said, to bring the " country almost to the verge of ruin. . . . Poor rates rose to such an extent that it
became hardly worth while in some instances to retain the land in cultivation." So clearly did this peculiar provision for out-door relief tend to increase the num- ber of paupers, that in 1834 an act was jiassed chiefly aiming " to check out-door relief, . . . and then, within a few years, both rates and pauperism decreased to no small extent."
The maxim of INIalthus is {Kssay on Popidation, ii, 430) that " it is in the highest degree important to the general happiness of the poor that no man should look to charity as a fund on which lie may confidently de- pend," and it is a good one to be adopted by those who regard charity as a Christian obligation; but with this maxim should be coupled a recognition of the obliga- tion upon society to make education rjeneral and free. It is a noteworthy fact that both in England and in France pauperism has been on the increase, although the efforts have been most persistent for its diminution ; and it is further evident that in countries where educa- tion is general, free, and obligatory, as, e. g. in Germa- ny, school training has acted as a direct counter-agent to ])auperism. It may reasonablj' be supposed that, " had the ' right of education' been as familiar an ax- iom with the English masses as the 'right of relief,' we should not now hear of a million paupers in a popu- lation of 22,000,000, and know that the problem of pau- perism presents itself as an almost insoluble question to the best of the English reformers" (Charles L. Bruce). The influences of workhouse or almshouse life are per- nicious in the extreme to the occupants. It is of the very first importance to society that pauperism should not be inherited and transmitted, from the familiar scientific principle that inherited evil is intensified in each new generation. It has been found that places of refuge for the poor, as such, are the propagattjrs of pauperism, inasmuch as they take from its occupants all self-respect and independence. Hence in our day France and England, as well as Germany, are abandon- ing the workhouse system, and are adopting, or are tak- ing steps for the adoption of what is called the "out-of- door relief" principle; but the relief is given by a local relieving officer, and that in time to prevent absolute dependence, or, as it may be really stated, to prevent the needy from acquiring the habits of pauperism.