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/0t^^t^£4^H^^^uJj(?f^ f(((,

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'^ruW^

The

Relation of Economic Study

Public and Private Charity.

Inaugural Lecture,

JAMES MAYOR,

Professor of Political Economy and Constitutional History, University

of Toronto.

■ -^^

H^*^i

>,',;^«^ '/'I

1 r.

1 1 •

i i ♦

. .. ; .'i

THE RELATION OF ECONOMIC STUDY TO
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE CHARITY.

THE REIyATION OK ECONOMIC STUDY TO
PUBI^IC AND PRIVATE CHARITY.*

The purpose of this paper is the discussion of certain as-
pects of the study of economics, especially this question : —

Of what avail is the study of economics in the practical
work of dealing with the problems of poverty ? In putting
the question thus, I am, perhaps, making too great a con-
cession to those who demand from study of any sort im-
mediate results in hard cash or some equally obvious medium
of exchange. Such persons must always remain strangers
to the pleasur^is of the pursuit of truth for its own sake
rather than for the sake of the profit that it brings, and
strangers also to the real enjoyment derivable from the getting
of knowledge ostentatiously useless.

Among the numerous inconsistencies in which we are apt
to detect each other, there is the inconsistency of feeling
more interested and excited about things remote than about
things near ; and at the same time demanding in connection
with things near, that every thought about them shall pay
in some definite form. We expend our compassion and our
money in sending missionaries to the heathen of other coun-
tries, or in alleviating the miseries of Russian Jews, or
Christians of the I^ebanon, while we manifest some impa-
tience at the demands upon our time and our purses for the
service of our next-door neighbors. The closer things are
to our vital interests, the less they interest us. We see too
much of them, and have them thrust in our eyes until we
are weary of them. Things that are familiar bore us to
death, even though we may run the risk of their doing us to
death in some other way. The commonplace does not excite

• Inaugural i:«ecture deUvered before the University of Toronto. February 6th,

1893.

(34)

Relation op Economic Study to Charity. 35

us, because it is commonplace. What excites us is the novel,
the uncommon, th-, unfamiliar. Now, here, perhaps, is the
reason for the prevalence of the notion that political economy
is "the dismal science." Because it deals with the common
place, because it has to do with the familiar, it is dismal,
and for no other reason.* It is true that economics opens a
new window through which we may, if we will, look out
upon life ; but the window is glar.ed with no garish colors,
there is no inviting label to make us aware of the treasures
that lie within.— There is indeed a label which is tradition-
ally repellent — hence the popular view which, like most pop-
ular views, is partly justified and partly erroneous, that eco-
nomics is a dull affair, that it is a study by dull people, of
dull people, for dull people.

In so far as economics is regarded as dismal because of its
relation to every-day life, there is no help for it; in so far as
it is dismal because it throws little or no light upon practical
problems, there is no excuse for it. I^et us see how far and
in what way the study of economics can throw light upon
practical affairs. But first— What is the relation between
practical affairs and science of any kind ? Is it not this ? The
region of practical affairs is the region of action— it is the
region of art in the widest sense. The region of science is
the region of thought, of action too, no doubt, in the sense
of experiment and observation, but still essentially the
region of thought, of logical continuity, of guarded progress
from one proof to another, of careful employment of theories
and hypotheses. In science we think and talk about its
principles and classifications. In art we have no occasion
to talk— we have to do it. Art like charity, is to be done,
not to be talked about. It were childish to discuss the oppo-
sition of science and art, —the opposition of theory which is
in the region of science to practice, which is in the region
of art. They are not opposed, one is the complement or the
fruition of the other. Two theories may be opposed as twa

• Cf. Helps " Social Pressure." p. 255.

AnnaivS of thb American Academy.

methods of practice may di£fer, but there is no such oppo-
sition, in reality as that which underlies the phrase " It is all
very well in theory but it does not work out in practice."
Where this phrase is employed : v will be found that there is
something loose in the theory, some error in the method of
working in the practice, or a total want of harmony between
the conditions presupposed in the theory and those which
actually accompany the practice. In any case it is a loose
and inaccurate phrase suggesting an opposition which has no
counterpart in reality. Science and art, theory and practice
are then not opposed, though they are diflferent. One is con-
cerned with executive power — with action, with the etnotions,
with the muscles, and the other with thought, with orderly
arrangement, with opinion, with criticism.

Now, though political economy is held by some to be an
art as well as a science, and perhaps rightly so held, we
must not confound the methods of the science of political
economy with those of the art of political economy. The
science of political economy is the province of the economist,
the art of political economy is the province of the statesman,
or the practical administrator in civic, national or inter-
national economic affairs.

The functions of the two classes of persons vary widely ;
the two classes may be of mutual aid, they may be of
mutual hindrance. The two functions require different
orders of mind, different aptitudes and different studies.

An excellent economist may make an indifferent states-
man, not because "what is all very well in theory will not
work out in practice," nor because the study of economics
is of no use to a practical statesman; but, because the qual-
ities which have enabled the economist readily to grasp
scientific principles are not those which as a statesman he is
called upon to exercise. Power to grasp scientific principles
is a valuable quality in any man ; but the statesman must
have other qualities beside, he must have the capacity and
the habit of control, he must have the magnetic power to bind

Relation of Economic Study to Charity. 37

men together and to lead them his way. He must be a
man of action. It were as unreasonable to demand of
the economist administrative ability as to demand of the
statesman intimate knowledge and grasp of scientific prin-
ciples.

Yet it is of the greatest importance for the economist to
know, and to know exhaustively, the methods of practice,
however little he may share in them, as it is for the states-
man to know, and to know exhaustively, current theories of
political action, however little he may be able or desirous to
take a share in thinking them out.

The statesman, politician, town councilor or other rep-
resentative of the people who takes part in public economics
and who, nevertheless, passes the study of economics by on
the other side does so, not because there is any opposition
between sound theory and sound practice, but rather because
being a man of action he has no aptitude for abstract think-
ing, and no wish to trouble about it. The average man
does indeed confine himself to one or other sphere of
activity — to practical government or to the study of systems
of governments.

It will perhaps now be evident that objections to the econ-
omist because he is not practical are as valid as, and no more
valid than, objections to the politician because he does not
oflFer unbiased statements of theories of government instead
of party speeches.

AH this may seem rather elementary, yet, perhaps, at no
time has there been more need to emphasize this distinction
between science and art than there is now. If we are to
build up a science of economics we must do so with our eye
on, but with our minds and voices away from, the market
place or the hustings. We must have as little emotional
interest in this or that theory, or this or that policy, as we
should have in the examination of the evolutions of an oyster
feeding under a microscope or in the discussion of the
succession of the rocks in our neighborhood.

Annaw op the American Academy.

One has often tried to get some account of a battle or of a
Ciimpaign from a private soldier, but always without success.
He knows only marchings and counter-marchings, knows
that one night he lay behind a hill and that the next moru'
ing his regiment charged over a plain. This is all. Any
student of history knows more of battles than the soldiers
who were there, who are not students o history.

Thus, in the turmoil of party politics, in the midst of the
struggles of Conservative and Liberal, Republican and Demo-
crat, N. P. and "grit," we here at least may be tranquil,
but observant. The onlookers see most of the game.

This then is the r61e of economic science in the study of
practical problems, it is to give a man that sane and all-
round view which our dual system of party government
tends to prevent him from having ; it is to show a man
that the result of his action is at the best uncertain, but that
in proportion as step by step he reasons rightly and com-
prehensively, he is the more likely to bring his action to
good issues. The study of economics makes a man modest,
would make even a politician modest. For it brings him
into the presence of the vast social and material forces with
which in any action on the large scale he has to reckon. It
makes him realize how complex are the issues of life, how
numerous the cross-currents, how many forces may conspire
to defeat his best aims.

And now, in this attitude of theoretically the most perfect
independence, the most absolute indiflference to the imme-
diate or remote results, the uttermost absence of what the
world calls "sentiment," let us regard the problems of
poverty.

The first question we must ask about poverty is — What is
the meaning of the word ? The dictionary does not help us
much, though it gives us a number of synonyms. While
every one has a general idea of what is meant by the expres-
sion, we should find considerable difference in ideas as
to what constitutes poverty. If our scientific method is to

Relation op Economic Study to Charity. 39

avail us at all, it must first oflFer us the means of obtaining a
more definite idea of the range and meaning of poverty than
is offered to us in the language of every-day life. It must
provide us with some gauge for determining the degree of
poverty and with some method by which we may discover
where poverty comes in in the general scheme of things and
what brings it there.

Like all early inquiries, the early inquiries into poverty
regarded it as an isolated fact which might be considered
apart from the other facts of life, and described it as a disease
due to one or two specific causes, and capable of being dealt
with by one or two specific remedies.

But just as the study of physiology, — che study of
the normal action of the functions of the organism preceded
pathology, —the study of the morbid action of the
organs, so the scientific study of diseases of the social organ-
ism — social pathology we may call it — was necessarily pre-
ceded by study of the normal action of the economic functions.
It was necessary for us to have the study of the wealth of
nations before we could have the study of the poverty of
nations.

Technically the study of wealth is in the departments of
production and distribution — the study of poverty is in the
department of consumption.* Poverty is unsatisfied need.
The need is there, the resources to satisfy it are not there.

Poverty is thus the condition of those who live at a low
level, whose food, clothing and shelter are relatively inade-
quate — relatively inadequate — for if they were absolutely
inadequate, those who found themselves in that condition
would perish — inadequate relatively to the resources and
consumption of those who are living at a higher level.

Poverty is simply the shady side of life, and we cannot
understand that unless we understand what life is and how
it is now being lived by the people. We must, therefore,

* While ina>lequate production or a defective system of distribution may pro*
duce poverty, neither will determine the depth and range of it.

Annai^ of the American Academy.

look upon the study of poverty as bein^ part of a large whole.
This is the central idea of the modern study of poverty. It
is a part of the study of the economic life of the people as a
whole.

The methods that are now being employed in the study
of poverty are simply the methods by which other sciences
than economics have succeeded in enlarging the domain of
knowledge, viz.^ observation, induction and deduction.
The same order of skill with which beasts, birds, fishes and
insects have been classified and arranged is at last being
brought to bear upon mankind. It is beginning to be
possible to understand ourselves.

This orderly scientific method is rather the outcome of the
general movement than the offspring of a single investiga-
tor. It has, indeed, not sprung into existence in a moment ;
but is rather a development, many workers having been
devoting themselves to a close and systematic study of
economic life, some of them even without being aware of the
importance of the work they were doing.

I desire to suggest the need of adequate coordination of
the results of such inquiries, rather than to make a pre-
mature attempt at coordination. It seems essential that the
order of facts whose interpretation is desired should be
widely understood. This order of facts may perhaps be
most effectually gathered from an account of two diflferent
but parallel investigations.

One of the leaders in the new method of the study of
society was Frederic lyC Play, who, in 1829, began the series
of family monographs which has been carried on by his
disciples over the period of sixty-four years that has
elapsed since then. It is not my purpose to give an ex-
haustive account of the method of I^e Play. I shall en-
deavor merely to indicate so much of it as may sufl&ce to
show its place in the study of the problem of poverty.

The chief feature in the method of I^e Play is the compre-
hensiveness and minuteness of its view of social life. It

Relation of Economic Study to Charity. 41

takes as its starting point the idea that the unit of society is
the family, and that the plexus of social forces can only be
inductively studied by means of microscopic observation of
a great number of these units. The family, then, must
be examined in detail with scrupulous care, and its en-
vironment, heredity and characteristics exhaustively cata-
logued.
Thus, the three chief heads under which the investigation

must be carried on are these :

1 . The external condition of the family.

2. The status of the family, with its record of heredity.

3. The means and mode of existence of the family
It is the business of the observer to note :

I. THE EXTERNAL CONDITION OF THE FAMILY.

The Place of Habitation, —The features of the district ; the
municipal government ; the provision of open spaces ; means
of transit ; the physical characters of the district ; climate
and natural resources.

The Chief Industries.— "th^ mode in which these are or-
ganized—domestic or capitalistic ; exportation and importa-
tion from the district ; mode of land ownership ; division of
property ; state of commercial property ; number of popula-
tion, and trades of these.

2. CIVIL STATE OF THE FAMILY.

Constittition of the Family —l^a.mes and places. of birth
and death of members of the family.

Pension and Moral A^a*//^.— Religious belief of the family
and of the population in general ; influence of the clergy ;
details of religious practices ; private observances ; domestic
worship ; public worship ; sacred images ; ceremonies at
marriage, birth and death.

Domestic r?y/«/?J.— Attachment between homes; influ-
ence accorded to the wife in domestic affairs ; deference
accorded to aged parents— measures taken to secure for them

Annai^ of the American Academy.

a happy old age ; remembrance of dead parents ; affection
to offspring — measures taken for their development, moral
and intellectual ; treatment of domestics and animals.

Social Virtues. — Charity ; devotion ; disposition to hospi-
tality ; spirit of conciliation in dispute ; politeness and
harmony in social relations ; guild relations, friendly societies,
corporations, trade unions; deference and attachment of
family to employer ; relations with devotees of other religions ;
toleration.

Moral Habits Relative to Mode of Existence. — Inclination
to own property in house, furniture and in clothes ; tendency
to simplicity ; temperance in food and drink ; inclination to
save ; terms of investment of saved capital ; mode of trans-
mission of property to the period of old age and of death ;
tendency to remain in place of habitation or to emigrate
temporarily or permanently.

Principal Traits Characterizing Intellectual Development. —
Knowledge communicated by primary instruction and by
religious instruction ; special facts relative to the education
of children ;• the relation of the exercise of their trade to
intellectual development ; use of museums in this connec-
tion ; attachment to tradition, or tendency to innovations in
methods of labor ; relation of workmen to masters ; the
attitude of the family to civil and political institutions.

Hygiene.— '^\\& habitual state of health of the family;
practices of ablution ; cleanliness or otherwise of clothes and
houses.

Medical Sen 'ce. — Aptitude or ignorance of head of family
or of the wife o administer medical relief or to act as nurse ;
superstitious or archaic practices or theories regarding care
of health ; care of health of children bj" parents ; infant in-
surance, bearing upon health and life of children.

Rank of Family. — Relations of family with other families
of employers or workmen in same locality ; conception of
status of family by itself; relation to strangers; sociD-bility
or otherwise of family.

Rei«ation op Economic Study to Charity. 43

3. MBANS OF SXISTENCB OP THE FAMILY.

Property Possessed by the Family. — Immovables, movables,
money, investments, tools, arms, domestic animals.

Subventions. — Charitable relief; payments by friendly
societies or trade unions during sickness or want of employ-
ment ; drugs ; use of hospital, school and church, so far as
these are free.

Labor. — I,abor executed by the workman and his family
for an employer ; labor executed by the workman and his
family for his own behoof.

It will be seen at once that here is something larger than
simply an economic investigation ; it is rather a sociological
investigation of the most comprehensive character. It is,
indeed, more than that, for it involves as well, topogfraphy,
the study of the physical environment. While the details
of the investigation are not such as might be undertaken by
the economist in the strict rendering of the expression, every
one of the points has its bearing upon the economic condi-
tion. The economic condition is indeed the resultant of
these various forces and the condition cannot be understood
without an investigatioti into the way in which it has been
produced. It may seem a hard saying, yet it is true, that
what we know about the economic condition of the popula-
tions of our large cities is mere vague surmise, depending
upon the statements of a few persons in each city, untrained,
as a rule, in rigid methods of induction, who form their
conclusions from a field of observation, limited by their own
casual experience. What we do need is detailed and con-
tinuous investigations along the lines I have sketched, with
competent co-ordination of the results.

The method of I^e Play is no visionary scheme, but is now
being applied to the study of populations in several widely
separated areas. Le Play's own monographs deal with society
in some of the European countries and in the East, and the
accumulation of material for co-ordination is still being car*
ried on by the Le Play societies.

Annaw op thk American Academy.

By far the most important, in point of positive results of
the applications of modem scientific methods of research to
the study of society, and specially to the problems of pover-
ty, is the work of Mr. Charles Booth upon London. Mr.
Booth has carried on his investigation, independently of the
Ifi Play method, and on diflFerent, though somewhat similar,
but less systematic, lines. He has conceived the idea of
making an exhaustive study of the population of London —
from an economic point of view. With this object he has
already by the aid of an army of assistants, thoroughly ex-
plored a great part of London. He has made a careful
investigation of a vast number of families and has gleaned
not all, but a large number of the relevant facts about them.
He has classified these facts and drawn certain provisional
conclusions from them. His work is indeed, in most ways,
a perfect model of what such an investigation should be.
The conditions of each great city are so different from those
of every other that not until we have before us similar in-
vestigations of other cities shall we be entitled to form
definite conclusions about the poverty in them.

Early in Mr. Booth's investigations he found it necessary
to devise a classification which might serve as a standard for
the measurement of different degrees of poverty.

The standard is as follows : —

A. The lowest class of occasional laborers, loafers and
semi-criminals.

B. Casual earnings — very poor.

C. Intermittent earnings, ) ^ , , „ ,.
, D. Small, irregular earnings, J^og^ther. the -poor."

E. Regular standard earnings — above the line of poverty.

P. Higher class labor.

G. Lower middle class.

H. Upper middle class.

These divisions are of necessity arbitrary. In different
places, or at different periods in the same place, they would
be denoted by different pecuniary amounts. Each division

rl^

Relation of Economic Study to Charity. 45

is, however, sufl&ciently permanent in its central idea for prac-
tical purposes. In I^ondon, in 1886-89, when these inves-
tigations were made, the ' ' poor, ' ' Classes C and D comprised
those who have an income of from $4.75 to $5. 10 (iSsto 21s)
per week for a moderate family ; Class B comprises those
who fall below this amount. * The * * poor ' ' may be described
as living in a state of struggle to obtain the necessaries of life;
while the very poor "live in a state of chronic want."

Here, then, we have a gauge by which to measure the
standard of comfort of the people. The gauge is readily
adjustable to any locality. What we need to do is by a
general inquiry to fix the amount of the money wages ap-
plicable to each class with the relative numbers in family and
then proceed to discover by minute inquiry what the standard
of comfort is in each family over the different quarters of
a city. This inquiry involves a vast amount of time and
trouble, and must be repeated at moderate intervals ; but
without such an inquiry our knowledge of the people, of
their standard of comtbrt, of what constitutes poverty,
and the extent of it is quite vague and indefinite.

The results of Mr. Booth's investigations into the economic
condition of a certain portion of the people of I^ndon re-
veal many interesting points. In the district chosen by
him for investigation in the first instance, East lyondon and
Hackney, comprising an area of about seven square miles
in the east of I^ondon, bounded on the south by the river
Thames, on the west by the city and on the east by the
P'^ :;1ar marshes, there are about 900,000 inhabitan\*'s. Of
these 64.8 per cent were above the line of poverty and 35.2 per
cent were below it. Of this 35.2 per cent, or 315,000 persons
below the line of poverty, only 6000 were inmates of instita-
tions, so tliat over 300,000 persons were living in poverty in
this area — one-third of the population.

But of these 300,000 persons living In poverty, 128,000,
or nearly one-half, were earning regular low wages; 74,000.

• C. Booth. "Life and I<abor in Bast I«ondon.'" Vol. I, P. 33.

Annai^ of the Ambrican Academy.

or about one-fourth, were making irregular earnings; ioo,ooo»
or one-third, were making casual earnings; while 11,000, or
4 per cent of the poor, or i}{ per cent of the whole
population of the district, belonged to the lowest class of
occasional laborers, loafers and semi-criminals.

Here, then, it is clear that in studying the problems of
poverty we have to deal not alone with those who claim
public relief as paupers, or who claim private charity as
beggars, but with the great army from which these classes
are constantly recruited, the army of those who live at or
under the line of poverty — a great army living at a depressed
rate of life and tending to reduce the vitality of the whole
population.

But Mr. Booth has done something more than merely
discover the extent of poverty. He has made inquiry into
its causes. The causes of poverty turn out not only to be
numerous, but interactive. There is the principal cause
and the contributing cause, there is the cause and the effect
visible in the same person, or in two or more persons.
Thus the poverty of a child may not be due to any fault
on the part of the child, but to one or the other parent or
both.

This strictly empirical investigation of Mr. Booth's reveals
the following causes of poverty operating as principal or
contributory causes :

Crime, vice, drink, laziness, pauper associations, heredity,
mental disease, temper, incapacity, early marriage, large
family, extravagance, lack of work (unemployed), trade
misfortune, restlessness (roving, tramp) , no relations, death
of husband, desertion (abandoned), death of father or
mother, sickness, accident, ill luck, old age.

It is difl&cult to give a fair idea of Mr. Booth's investiga-
tions from his voluminous tables. But, out of 1000 paupers
in Stepney whose cases were carefully investigated individ-
ually it was found that old age was the chief principal and
contributory cause.

Relation op Economic Study to Charity. 47

26.7 par cent.
12.6 "

4.7 "
4.4 ••
I.I •'

17 per cent.

((

Old age was the principal cause in 32.8 per cent of the
cases.

Sickness

Drink^

Accident

Trade misfortune,
Pauper asiiociations and heredity,
As contributory causes:

Old age contributed of the cases,
Pauper associations and heredity contributed
chiefly with sickness, drink and old age as
principal causes of the cases, . . 17
Drink contributory cause, with sickness and
old age as pnncipal causes, accounted for
the pauperism of .... 12 "
While sickness accounted for an equal number.
Altogether drink is returned as responsible directly as
principal, or indirectly as contributory, cause for 25 per cent
of the cases. Mr. Booth, however, says "the proportion is
less than might have been expected, and it is probable that
closer research into the circumstances and history of these
people, if it could be made, might disclose a greater connec-
tion than here appears between pauperism and the public
house. It is, however, noteworthy that the results shown
agree on the whole with those of the two inquiries I have
myself previously made into apparent causes of poverty.
The first regarding 4000 cases of poverty known by certain
of the School Board visitors, gave 13 to 14 per cent as
one to drink, the lighter percentage being for the greater
degree of poverty. The second, regarding about 5000
people living poor and irregular lives, showed 10 and 1 1
per cent, dropping to only 5 per cent for about another
3000 who though poor were more regularly employed."

In St. Pancras workhouse, the number of cases in which
pauperism was due to old age as a principal cause was 23.4
per cent.

Annals op thb Amsrican Academy.

To sickness,

To drink,

To laziness.

To mental derangement.

20.7 per cent.
21.9 •'
10.6 "

4.3 "

In St. Pancras workhouse about the same number of cases
were investigated but they included a smaller number of
permanent paupers than the Stepney house whose figures were
first quoted. The current cases exhibit the largest amount
of drunkenness. The " ins and outs," or those who go to
the workhouse for a while and then leave, are specially not-
able for drunken habits. Forty-three per cent of the ' ' ins
and outs " were obliged to seek refuge in the workhouse on
account of drink.

The details of Mr. Booth's conclusions are to be found in
his smaller volume on Pauperism.* His main conclusion is
that old age is the most frequent principal cause of pauper-
ism, and he suggests as a remedy for this cause a national
scheme of endowment of old age. Old age, then, stands
first, sickness next and then comes drink.

Supremely valuable as Mr. Booth's work is, it stops short
of a full revelation of the reason why we have this mass of
poverty. It discloses the immediate causes of poverty, it
does not disclose the remoter causes of it. For the empirical
investigation of these we must turn to the more comprehen-
sive method of Frederic I^e Play, the close study of the
family, each family the subject of a separate monograph nar-
rating its record as a family, its ethnical position, its migra-
tions, its industrial status, its sources of income and methods
of expenditure.

Study of poverty in the economic sense is thus a
branch of the study of economic life — a branch involving
special methods of research and investigation, special methods
of record and generalization.

Not that this can be done easily, on the contrary, even as
regards pauperism, a detailed investigation into the record of

• C. Booth. " Pauperism : A Picture."

Relation op Economic Study to Charity. 49

any considerable number of pauper families might be almost
impossible. Yet su. n an investigation would probably
show us that poverty, especially in England is not
wholly a creation of to-day, but is largely a legacy from
the past. One cannot read the economic history of the
country without feeling convinced that the underpaid and
stunted weavers and mechanics of the beginning of the cen-
tury and the half-starved agricultural laborers, who sys-
tematically received part of their wages out of the poor rates,
have taken a frightful revenge — have bequeathe^ not wealth,
which moth and rust might corrupt, but poverty, which
flourishes in corruption. Neglect in the past of obvious
physiological laws is responsible for much of the poverty
of to-day.

In a very real sense the sins of the fathers are visited upon
the children, even unto the third and fourth generation.
Whole nations may suffer for some class sins of a bygone
age. Much of the low level of modem life is due, we can
hardly doubt, to causes reaching far back in the history of
each race — some of them not indeed so very far back, but
still behind the immediate range of vision. Thus much of
the low level of modem life is due to the existence of a
definite nucleus of hereditary pauperism. This hereditary
pauperism is due again in a large measure, no doubt, to the
modes of dispensing public and private charity, which have
endured, more or less, from the middle ages until now. And
the unfortunate and disagreeable fact emerges in most in-
quiries on the subject that not a few of the charitable agencies
and not a few charitable individuals are steadily adding to
the ranks of professional pauperism by an ill-considered sys-
tem of doles. It is hard to resist the moving of the bowels
of compassion and to refuse to give a coin to a beggar, but
after all the giving of the coin is an easy salve to the con-
science. It is much easier, for example, than taking pains
to discover the exact reason for the poverty of the beggar
and setting about to devise means at once to save the man

Annaw op thb American Academy.

and prevent so far as may be future cases of the same order.
I need not weary you with criticisms of the results of indis-
criminate alms giving. These have been urged over and
over again by every charity organizer, from Defoe in his
essay " On Giving Alms no Charity," down to our own day.
Much of the misery is due also, no doubt, to the economic
changes that in many countries have tran.<iformed agricultural
into industrial and industrial into commercial communities.
What is popularly known as *' modem progress " consists in
changes of this sort. Some of these changes, probably most
of them, are due to imperious forces which will not be gain-
said, are due to physical changes, climatic and other, are
due to pressure of population, or external or internal influ-
ences too varied to enumerate. While the main facts of
these changes are probably inevitable, because they are due
to forces which it were useless to fight against, much may
be done to mitigate the severity of a change to those who
are victimized by it. Failure to do this by some means or
other, by voluntary private action or by compulsory State or
municipal action, inevitably results in accession to the ranks
of those who have gone down in the struggle with the new
forces. Such victims of what is called progress, where they
do not die, live to produce an enfeebled and deteriorated
generation. Successive changes of this kind have resulted
in the casting off, as by centrifugal force, from the round of
industry, ^f great numbers of men and women. Thus,
apart altogether from personal misconduct, which counts
for much, but which is often traceable to inherited tenden-
cies, there is in modem industrial life an excessive develop-
ment of this form of struggle, one of the forms of the ' ' straggle
for existence," which goes on on all the rungs and from top
to bottom of the biological ladder. It is a struggle of pro-
cesses as well as of men, in which the processes often victim-
ize the men who devise them. It may be that nothing can
meanwhile be done to mitigate the severity of the effects of
these changes iu general or on the large scale, but much

Relation of Economic Study to Charity. 51

may be done— much is being done on the small scale.
Manufacturers to-day who introduce new machinery are, as
a rule, more considerate of their workers than they used to
be, partly, perhaps, owing to the moralization of the em-
ployer and partly to the combination of the workers. Thus
we have witnessed during the past few years many industrial
changes and, no doubt, much victimization, but probably
less serious suffering than might otherwise ha'.e bean the
case.

An exhaustive examination of economic life, would involve
inquiry as to how far what is known as the factory system
is associated with the development of poverty, and as to what
are the precise relations between the growth of towns and the
growth within them of a proletariat class, or landless, work-
less class, probably partly inheriting their inefl&ciency.

Apart from the general influence of the factory system
upon industrial society, there is the influence of the com-
mercial system. The huge circulatory system of modern
commerce works smoothly for a while, and then, from an
obscure or undiscoverable cause, is suddenly or gradually
constricted at some point, while the whole system, inti-
mately sympathetic as it is, is affected by the constriction.
These fluctuations in commerce produce corresponding
fluctuations in industry, and we have the alternate phenomena
of inflation and depression of trade.

Thus one of the results of the departure now going on
in a greater or lesser degree in most civilized countries, from
"the stable basis of agriculture to the fluctuating basis of
trade," is the irregularity of employment. Exact figures in
this connection are hard to get as yet, although they are being
more industriously collected now than ever before. By way of
illustration we may take the record of a period of depression
where, of course, this condition of irregularity is most mani-
fest. Of 30,000 workmen in the East of I^ondon, whose
cases were investigated in 1887, 14,000 or 47 per cent had
been working continuously for six months or more, while

Annaus op the American Academy.

29 per cent had been working only two months in the aggre-
gate out of the six, and 23 per cent had been idle for various
periods, extending from two to ten weeks, that is that 53 per
cent of these 30,000 workmen belonging to thirty-four differ-
ent classes of occupations, and a much larger number of indi-
vidual occupations, were exposed to serious irregularities of
employment. Of these 3 per cent only were permanently
disabled and 3 per cent were temporarily disabled, and were,
therefore, not physically equal to mannel labor.* The
returns of trade unions illustrate the same condition. Irregu-
larity of employment leads directly or indirectly to
poverty.

The alert and shrewd among workmen reckon upon and
prepare for these periods of depression. They insure against
them by actual saving and by paying into a trade society.
It may be held, therefore, that in some industries wages are
higher than they would otherwise be were it not for these
fluctuations. The trade union is largely to be credited
with providing a compensation balance which steadies the
industrial system and prevents it from feeling the full eflFects
of the fluctuations of commerce.

Beneath the industrious and provident workman, and
forming a large class in the communities of the Old World
and in some of those of the New, there are the men who,
whenever the first wave of depressic n comes, find themselves
without employment. The unskillful, the lazy, the ill-tem-
pered (for this, as every careful observer knows, is quite a
large cause of poverty) , the dissolute, are naturally dismissed
first, while the skillful, active and good-tempered, steady
men remain till the last.

The class thus indicated form the ranks of the unem-
ployed whenever depression in trade causes a diminution of
employment.

We may now divide each of Mr. Booth's classes A, B, C
and D into sub-classes. In each we will find : —

* FarliameiiUry Paper. C. iatH. 1887. P. a.

Rki^ation of Economic Study to Charity. 5J

1 . The aged.

2. The insane.

3. The sick, including (a) Those suflfering from diseases
due to drunkenness, {b) Those suflFering from other diseases.

4. The able-bodied unemployed.

L^t us enumerate rather than examine the methods adopted
in dealing with these classes.

There are three main methods of general application and
in general use :

These are

1. Compulsory rating for State or district relief, with ad-
ministration by nominated or popularly elected representa-
tion, as in England.

2. Voluntary Associations, as in Canada.

3. A union of these, as in the case of the poor by a State
church, or as in what is known as the Elberfeld system.

Private or unorganized charity cannot fairly be classed as a
system, although it is possible that mo:e is done, both of good
and of evil, by private charity than by any of the systems. Ju-
dicious private charity may render unnecessary the establish-
ment of a public system, while the establishment of a public
system may on the other hand tend to stamp out private charity.

If we could be quite certain that every man had a perfectly
alert regard to his own interest, and the most ample oppor-
tunity to secure his interest, together with a perfectly keen
sense of his responsibilities and duties, there would be theo-
retic justification for sternly refusing relief of any kind.
But we know that men do not grow that way, and that there-
fore, however unfortunate in many ways it may be for
society, society must make good the shortcomings of the
individual for no other reason, so far as society is concerned,
than the desire for self-preservation. It is true that the effect
of this action of society is to transfer the responsibility from
the individual to society. But since in the cases concerned
the personal responsibility is not recognized, there is a clear
gain in the recognition of it as a social responsibility.

Annai^ op the Ambrican Academy.

As regards the aged, sick and insane poor, granted the
duty of maintaining them, the question is — How is it to be
done most efficiently ? By indoor maintenance in the poor-
house or asylum, or by outdoor relief in the shape of allow-
ances, pensions or otherwise.

In the cases of the insane and in the cases of those who
are sick from infectious diseases, there is everywhere a defi-
nite tendency to treat these in a hospital or asylum. While
the expenses of administration vary widely, there can be
little doubt that for the sick and insane, indoor treatment is,
on the whole, more efficient and less expensive than any
other method would be.

The establishment of asylums with farms attached, for
inebriates, has been carried to some extent in Germany* and
elsewhere, but it would be premature to express any judg-
ment upon the results. Ii is difficult for the authorities
even in Germany to keep the tiaces of those who pass
through the asylums and leave, and in the absence of definite
knowledge of this sort, conclusions would be misleading.

Taken generally, and efficient administration being
assumed, the evidence seems to be in favor of indoor treat-
ment of the sick and insane. As regards the aged, the evi-
dence is by no means so clearly in favor of indoor treatment.
The policy of the English poor law until 1834 was wholly
in the direction of outdoor relief ; but after the Report of
the Commission of that year, condemning outdoor relief on
account of the serious abuses which had crept into the poor
law administration, the policy was changed. Gradually the
amount expended in outdoor relief has diminished and the
amount expended in indoor relief has increased.

You will not expect me to discuss at this moment the de-
tails of so large a question, but it may fairly be concluded
from the evidence in England, Germany and America, that
the question as to which means of relief should be adopted

* As in the Salem Colony for Inebriates at Rickling, Schleswig-Holstein.
Report quoted above.

See

Rbi,ation op Economic Study to Charity. 55

is one which depends rather upon the conditions, historical,
social and individual than upon any abstract principle. The
important thing is to know precisely what the conditions
are.

Several schemes associated more or less definitely, with the
question of outdoor relief, have recently been urged upon
public attention.

The National Insurance system of Germany, and the
National Pension schemes of Mr. Chamberlain and of Mr.
Charles Booth are really systems of outdoor relief.

The national insurance system has not had a very long
trial ; but it would appear that considerable difficulties are
being met with. Malingering is, it is understood, going far
to make the system unworkable without regulations of addi-
tional severity. While malingering applies rather to an
insurance scheme than to a pension scheme, and is, moreover,
a practical difficulty that may be coped with, a rather serious
theoretic objection lies against all pension schemes. Do
they not really amount to a rate in aid of wages ? Do not
pensioners now hire themselves for less than men who are
not pensioners can subsist upon, and so tend to diminish the
rate of wages of their grade of labor.

It may be that a national pension scheme would have this
result on a large scale, unless the age at which the pension
was payable were fixed beyond the age at which the average
man would be likely to work. There are, besides the diffi-
culties of dealing with the existing pension agencies, especially
the fiiendly societies, the difficulty of collecting a special rate
for the purpose from each individual, or of dispensing with a
special pension payment and throwing the total cost vipon
the national revenue as a whole. These difficulties seem
large ; perhaps they are not insurmountable.

The crux of the poverty question in Europe just now is
the treatment of the able-bodied unemployed. The numbers
of these to be dealt with at any moment, even in a time of
depression, are very indefinite. They fluctuate from day to

Annals of the American Academy.

day, from hour to hour. At one moment the ranks of the
unemployed are mainly filled by industrious workmen, who
would work if they could get work to do, at another with
loafers who hang on the skirts of every relieving agency,
and are not only kept alive, but formed into a compact class
of professional dead-beats.

How is the first class to be sifted from the second ? for
obviously the kind of treatment they need is widely different
fi'om the kind of treatment which the others need.

The aspect which this part of the problem of poverty pre-
sents to most persons is this : Here are some thousands or
some hundreds of thousands of mouths to be fed ; but these
mouths have intimate association with twice as many hands
to feed them. What is wrong that the hands cannot feed the
mouths ?

Now this question, which might be put by a child, which
is indeed often put by children, involves no simple answer.
I have already sufl&ciently insisted upon the unity of economic
life to make that clear. If all these hundreds of thousands
of workless men were transported to another planet, or to
some neglected spot upon this one, and if their labors were
organized spontaneously or otherwise, they might work for
each other, and get on quite merrily ; but we may do more
harm than good by attempting to force the unemployed back
into the industrial system. If we get them to make things
for us which we do not want, we simply waste our money ;
while if we get them to make things for us that we do
want, we simply transfer our demand from one set of
workmen whom we are just now employing to those new-
comers who want employment. We do not make any fresh
demand for labor, we simply transfer our demand froni one
group to another, and in so far as we do so, we tend to
impoverish one set of men while we enrich another set. If
we were sure that we were distributing our demand more
uniformly and with greater benefit to society than before,
there might be something to be said for our action ; but can

RRI.ATION OF Economic Study to Charity. 57

-we be sure that we are doing so ? Now, here we might
arrive at an impasse ; but there is no need for that. We
cannot remove our unemployed to another planet, yet we
may find some place on our own which is not occupied, we
may plant them down there, and let them produce for each
other. If we can get them simply to produce for each other,
without coming into the market with their products subsidized
by our charity in any way, there will be a clear gain in the
production. They will cease to be a charge upon society.
They will become producers. Nor need there necessarily be
any emigration. Migration from the overcrowded centres
to the neglected spots of the country, with efficient organi-
zation of labor, that is all.

Now, all this is exceedingly attractive. I will not weary
you by reciting a rather long list of authors within the past
two or three centuries, who thought that they had found
social salvation along these lines, nor with any detailed
account of the numerous experiments that have been tried.
The oldest modern experiment is the old English Poor I^aws ;
the largest modern experiment is the German Labor Colony
System. The old English Poor I^aw was in many ways a
failure ; largely, perhaps, for the reason alleged by Fielding,
that while the statutes prescribed what was to be done,
they did not tell how to do it. At any rate, the House of
Industry and the Parish farm, after a chequered career,
dis'ippeared, and it was not until the establishment of the
Dutch lyabor Colonies, early in the century, that the idea
of ' ' work, not alms, ' ' was again carried out on any con-
siderable scale.

What our study of poverty reveals to us in this connection
is this : That of those who have been bom into or who have
been sinking into poverty, there are some, not relatively a
laige number, in a new country, but even there a number
fluctuating with the fluctuations of trade, who are unable to
get any one to organize their labor for them, that is to em-
ploy them, and who are also unable to do so for themselves.

Annate of the American Academy.

The question is, should society undertake this organization ;
should it undertake to do what the industrial system has
failed to do ; should it accept the responsibility of glossing
over what may turn out to be defects in the industrial sys-
tem by regimenting its failures. /

A sufl&cient number of persons in Germany have taken
this view of social responsibility to establish twenty-four
farms upon which all comers may work and be fed. No
work, no food ; but still to all comers work and food. Those
who are unable to get any one to organize their labor may
walk into the farm and forthwith have their labor organized
on subsistence terms.*

Vagrancy is strictly put down in Germany and the strict
observance of the law is rendered possible by the existence
of those institutions in which a man bufiFeted and * 'shipwrecked
inwardly and outwardly, ' ' as the expressive phrase of one
of the reports has it, may spend a few months of healthy
life and then return to competitive industry.

The advantages of the system appear to outweigh the dis-
advantages so far as Germany is concerned. A similar sys-
tem exists in Holland, and an experiment in the same
direction is being made in France. In England, General
Booth's farm at Hadleigh is a labor colony of the same order,
though it performs also the function of a place for training
emigrants.! How far the latter function may usefully be
conjoined with the other functions of the institution is very
doubtful. In a certain number of cases of lapse, no doubt,
good emigrants may be found ; but the presumption is
against a nation discharging upon the shores of its colonies,
or of other nations, the products of the sinister side of its
industrial and social life.

The farm colony, pure and simple, may be said to fill two
functions, both of them desirable up to a certain point, (i)

* For a recent account of these colonies see " Report on labour Colonies," by
J. Mavor, J R. Motion, J. Speir, and R. P. Wright. Glasgow, 1893.

t See Report cited atx>ve.

Rei,ation op Economic Study to Charity. 59

It fills the function of a sanatorium where a man, who has
been broken in health on account of want of employment or
otherwise, may recover in the fresh air, in the wholesome
and regfular diet and discipline of the country colony, the
spring which he has lost in the city. (2) It fills the
function of organizers of labor for those who cannot organize
their own. It seems likely that these two functions will
have to be divided, the first to be undert?.ken by the exist-
ing colonies, the second by other colonies to be established
for permanent occupation by colonists cultivating upon a co-
operative or peasant proprietary basis. In any case the
colonies must dt good in so far as they take off from the
slums of the cities, year by year, crowds of men who are
rapidly sinking into degradation, and in so far as they make
men of them. They will also avoid injurious influences
upon the economic conditions of society, in so far as they
are rigidly self-contained, that is, in so far as they avoid
sending their subsidized products into the market for sale.
For the rest, farm colonies, though conceivably an efficient,
have proved to be a rather expensive form of poor relief.

Now, where economic students may most efficiently be of
service in practical problems is in thoroughly and system-
atically mastering the conditions. Be it ours to study, and
so far as we may, interpret the facts as we see them.

We hear occasionally the phrase, ' * You are disobeying the
laws of political economy." If by the laws of political
economy are meant the laws of the action of the social forces,
these laws are no more to be disobeyed than the law of gravi-
tation, or the law of expansion of gases. What ought to be
said is, " You are disregarding the lessons of history." It
is mainly from disregarding the plain lessons of history,
frequently firom ignorance of these, that men go wrong in
political action.

Wb^t we need in the study of economics to avail us in
practical affairs is— insight, insight, and always insight.
To get at the inwardness of a matter of ancient history,

6|> ANNAI3 OF THE AMERICAN ACADEM/.

When aU the elements of it that have come down to
us through the ages, have faUen into line and when we may
^ them in perspective, is fairly hard even for the most com-
tjetent student ; it is difficult for us, for example, to trace the
^"s^gesof landholding in England or to discover the
real meaning of the steps by which the English laborer
emerged from serfdom ; but it is still more difficult for us to
see the real bearing of what goes on under our very eyes, to
see with entirely dear and disinterested vision the dir«:tion of
the forces that are weaving in the " roaring loom of time.

James Mayor.

Vniversity (if Toronto. . .,

f I f

...

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