Nassau William Senior

“ Or, we do not hesitate to ask, if the Government had never recognized such a class of the poor as that of State’s poor,—and, above all, if compulsory charity, in any form, had never been established by our laws, would there have been a twentieth part of the wandering poor which now exists in it, or by any means an equal proportion of poor of any kind with that which is now dependent upon the taxes which are raised for them? ”

“ There can be no doubt that the prospect of an asylum for the indigent creates amongst the working class a disposition to idleness and debauchery, whilst at the same time there are those who look down with disgust on their miserable brothers who are compelled to accept a public charitable support; and the shame which they consider attaches to a man who does it stimulates them to avoid the doors of an hospital by industry and sobriety. ”

“ And as a large proportion of the fund for the relief of the poor arises from endowments, the law may fix the legal settlement of every person, that is, his right to participate in the endowments of a particular parish, and allow him legal assistance in establishing it, without giving to him that indefinite claim which exists in those countries in which every person has a right to receive from the public subsistence for himself and his family. ”

“ On the industry of the labourers?—On their industry, most injurious, involving the levelling principle to a very great degree, lowering the middleman to the poor man, and the poor man who labours to the pauper supported by the parish. It tends to harden the heart of the poor man, who demands with all that authority with which the legal right to provision invests him. There is no thankfulness for what is gotten, and what is given is afforded with dislike and reluctance. ”

“ In fact, the man often separates from his wife, or the wife from her husband, or from the children, to be received into the hospital. In fact, many a one does not economize, but squanders what he has, and does not work in order to earn something, because he thinks that he always has the right of being received into the hospital as a last resource. In fact, in many places where there are rich hospitals and other foundations, the number of the poor is proportionably greater than in places where less is done for their support. ”

“ It is not to the encouragement given by public charity that the great number of premature and improvident marriages contracted in this country is to be imputed. With the exception of those between professional beggars, we owe the greater part of them, first, to the natural disposition of ignorant and rude persons to follow, without reflection, the passions of the moment, and, secondly, to the blind zeal with which the clergy and bigotted people encourage all kinds of marriages, with the erroneous idea of thus preventing the immorality and scandal of illegitimate connexions. ”

“ In England, [88] where the scale and the allowance system prevail, no condition whatever can be said to be imposed on the pauper. What he receives is a mere gratuitous addition to his income. Even where work is required, the hours are in general fewer, and the labour less severe than those of the independent labourer. And the workhouse, the most powerful of our instruments of repression, affords, in general, food, lodging, clothing and warmth, better than can be found in the cottage, and may be quitted at a day’s notice. ”

“ Another circumstance which renders compulsory relief less dangerous in the countries which we have been considering than in our own, is the economical situation of their labouring population. In England the great mass of the people are day-labourers, enjoying, where they have escaped the oppression of poor law abuses, high wages and steady employment, but possessed of little visible property, and seldom living under their masters’ roof. Such persons are not deterred from demanding relief by the fear of losing their property, since, where they have any, it is capable of concealment ”

“ Among all the Continental communities which recognize in the poor the right to relief, the only one which does not appear to provide the means of education, and to enforce their being made use of, is that in which pauperism has become absolutely intolerable, namely, the Canton de Berne; and even there any aubain (or person not entitled to bourgeoisie in the parish in which he resides) may be summarily ejected (unless possessed of landed property in it) , if it can be proved that he does not either send his children to school or provide otherwise for their education. ”

“ Now where slavery, in any of its forms, prevails, the right of the slave or villein to support is a necessary and a safe consequence. It is necessary, because a person who is not a free agent cannot provide for himself. It is safe, because one of the principal evils of pauperism, improvidence, can scarcely exist among slaves, and the power of the master enables him to prevent idleness and fraud. ”

“ What, on the whole, is the condition of the able-bodied and self-supporting labourer of the lowest class, as compared with the condition of the person subsisting on alms or public charity; is the condition of the latter, as to food and freedom from labour, more or less eligible?—Were I a Danish labourer, I would endeavour to live partly on my own labour, and partly on the parish, and I feel persuaded that a labourer so living in Denmark will be better off than one who gets no help from the parish ”

“ To what extent and under what regulations is work provided at their own dwellings for those who have trades, but do procure work for themselves?—or for such persons in agriculture or on public works? Every able-bodied man is supposed capable of providing for himself, and no such work or relief is afforded him. In winter, many poor women are supplied with a little work by the overseers of the workhouse, who give them flax to spin. ”

“ The poor man becomes stiff and sturdy; the rich man indifferent to the wants and sufferings of the poor one. He feels him a continual pressure, at moments inconvenient to relieve, and under circumstances where he would often withhold if he could, partly from dislike to the compulsory principle, and often not regarding the case as one of real charity, and disapproving, as he naturally may, of the whole system of poor laws’ administration. ”

“ We cannot wonder, then, that the administration of the poor laws in the canton of Berne has become so irregular and so mischievous. The effects of the subdivision of the inhabitants into so many corporations have become more and more apparent. The principle of permanent and hereditary unions necessarily clashed with the principle of mobility and change which governs all our social relations. The welfare of the public necessarily gave way to that of the particular corporations, and the private interests of the corporations or parishes rendered them selfish and mutually hostile. ”

“ It is evident that, with respect to pauperism, the present situation of the Canton de Berne is in the highest degree painful. The evil is not temporary or partial: it arises from no external or accidental sources: a considerable portion of the population is attacked by it, and it is spreading itself, like a moral blight, over the whole community. ”

“ The allowance at first proposed is very small; but it is ready money, and public competition enables the parish to make it still smaller. The poor victim falls into the hands of a rapacious and needy family. We may conceive how deplorable his situation must always be. That it is sometimes supportable can be attributed only to a benevolence not yet entirely stifled in the hearts of our people. Cases even have occurred in which the proprietors, by allowing their inmates to work for themselves, have given them habits of industry, and bred up their children to be good workmen. ”

“ In many places there is not always an opportunity to obtain work for daily wages, with private persons, especially in winter, and for women and children; or at least the wages at different times of the year, and for many kinds of work, are too small to support a family, and when public institutions for giving employment are in question, great prudence is necessary, that while one person is provided with work and wages, another may not find the source of gain interrupted or cut off by which he has hitherto obtained a livelihood without the assistance of the magistrates. ”

“ As the Canton de Berne appears to be the portion of continental Europe in which the burthen of legal relief is most oppressive, Holland appears to be that in which pauperism, unaided by a legal claim, is the most rapidly advancing. ”

“ The dread of poverty is diminished, and he who is half-poor works less instead of more, so that he speedily becomes a complete pauper. Those who are young and capable of labour are less economical, always having the poor rate in view, as a resource against want ”

“ As the clergyman of the parish is the president of the poor committee, he becomes involved in transactions peculiarly unsuited to his sacred calling, sometimes even compelled to resort to the extremity of distraint to compel his own parishioners to pay the allotted proportions; and thus does the moral influence of him, who should be a picture of the God of love, become every day less and less powerful. ”

“ Either an increase of the evils of pauperism, or a clearer perception of them, has induced most of the States during the last 10 years to make, both in their laws for the relief of the poor and in the administration of those laws, changes of great importance. They consist principally in endeavouring to avoid giving relief out of the workhouse, and in making the workhouse an abode in which none but the really destitute will continue. Compared with our own, the system is, in general, rigid. ”

“ It has ever been the prevailing opinion in this Republic, that the principal duty of the State towards bettering the condition of its poorer classes, rests upon a due regard to this school discipline, and that it tends in its practice to prevent the frequent recurrence of application for relief in the same family; the descendants of which, without such control, would habitually and irrecoverably become, in their turn, dependents upon public charity. ”

“ Labour hitherto has not much increased in Greece; the labourers are industrious, frugal, and attached to their relations.
I may add, that in consequence of the vast extent of land in Greece in comparison with the number of its inhabitants, the latter apply themselves mostly to agriculture and the care of flocks, by which means they procure ample means of subsistence; and the few manufactures which exist in Greece being all made by hand, sufficient employment is to be procured by every individual. ”

“ As a rule, no persons fully able to work can receive assistance; they are therefore forced to seek out employment, and may be generally presumed to succeed. If they get but a moderate portion of work, very trifling earnings place them in a situation much more eligible than that of the pauper maintained in the poor-house. ”

“ It is not only made obligatory upon the house and landowners to contribute to the parochial fund, but also upon servants and labouring mechanics; in short, upon all persons, without distinction of religion, who are not on the parish themselves, and whose circumstances are such that they can afford to pay the contribution in proportion to their incomes, without thereby depriving themselves of the necessaries of life. ”