THE FORTUNE OF THE SWISS POOR.
PROBABLY no European country offers so promising a field for the study of pauperism as Switzerland ; for none possesses so great a variety of systems for the relief of the poor. Until within a very recent period, however, the mate- rials necessary for a comparison of the systems in vogue in the various cantons were entirely wanting, as there did not exist in the Confederation any trustworthy information on the subject in an available shape. Public attention had frequently been called to this strange ignorance on a matter so vital to the welfare of the community, and in 1871 the Swiss Statistical Society prevailed on the Federal Council, in virtue of the powers conferred on them by a law passed in the previous year, to require from the Cantonal Governments copies of their respec- tive enactments for the relief of the indigent, particulars of the measures in force for the suppression of inendicity, together with detailed accounts of the communal properties and foundations set apart for the support of necessitous burghers, and the methods of their administration. Many of the cantons made the asked-for returns with praiseworthy prompti- tude; several, on the other hand, responded to the summons with evident reluctance, and after many delays ; while one, Vaud, plumply refused to fill up the papers sent to the Cantonal authorities, or to give any information what- ever,—and only yielded at last to a threat of Federal execution. In these circumstances, the returns were long in. coming in ; and as their arrangement involved considerable and very tedious labour, it is not surprising that the Blue- book in which they are embodied was not published until early in the present year. The relief of the poor is the subject of no Federal law, nor does it appear that any of the cantons recognise the right of the indigent, as such, to public support ; the communes, as a rule, succouring only their own needy members. In practice, however, it is found difficult to maintain a distinction between burgher and non-burgher, and in Berne domiciled strangers and burghers are placed on the same footing. On the other hand, most of the communes accept the obligation of assisting those of their poorer members who are settled in other parts of the country, and even in some eases when they are living abroad. Although the children of burghers are members of their parents' commune, it requires something more than birth in a commune to constitute membership, The conditions on which new members are accepted vary greatly in different cantons. In Zurich, for instance, candidates for membership must bear good characters, be in solvent circumstances, and prepared to pay an entrance-fee varying from £4 to £20, according to the wealth of the commune into which they seek admittance ; while some communes are so poor and burdened with debt, that their Bargschaft involves a liability rather than confers a privilege.
The obligation of providing for the poor may be said to fall primarily on the family ; next, on the commune ; lastly, on the State, i.e., the Canton. The obligation of the family and the commune is general, that of the canton exceptional ; in- asmuch as several of the Cantonal Governments do not directly concern themselves in the question. Parents, grand-parents, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, are held reciprocally responsible for each other's maintenance when any of them fall into distress ; and rich burghers are constrained by law to help their needy kinsfolk. In nearly all the cantons public relief is regarded not as a free gift, but as a temporary loan, repayment of which may be enforced, should the recipient come thereafter into the possession of property, either by inheritance or otherwise. In Soleure, the communes become ipso facto the creditors of all their members for relief granted to them after the attain- ment of their eighteenth year. Uri makes liability to restitution contingent on the subsequent acquisition of property above a certain value. In St. Gall, even the relatives of a person who gets on in the world can require the return of whatever they may have spent in the relief of his necessities ; and before 1874 (when all local restrictions on marriage were abolished throughout the Confederation), it was the custom in several of the older cantons to make the repayment of public alms a condition precedent of matrimony.
The sources from which the means of relief are provided are so many and various that they can only be briefly indi- cated. In several communes there is a regular poor-rate, as, for instance, in Zurich, where, in the event of the ordinary sources proving insufficient, the State can order a levy of one franc per thousand on the fortunes of burghers and residents alike ; one franc on every household, and one franc on every adult male who has passed his twentieth year. In some districts the proceeds of certain fines, of licences for the sale of drink, and a proportion of the entrance-fees paid by new members, are available for the relief of the needy, either directly, or by being added to a common fund, the interest of which forms their chief or only provision. In Berne the fines imposed on the fathers of illegitimate children go to this fund. In Lucerne half the fortunes of kinless intestates ; in Nidwalden and Uri the proceeds of permission to dance ; in the Grisons the proceeds of the dog-tax, and in Geneva the proceeds of licences to give concerts and theatrical entertainments are set apart for the poor. But over and above these miscellaneous receipts there is the revenue arising from the Fortune of the Poor, a vast accumulated fund, amounting in the aggregate to £5,352,880, of which one-fourth consists of real estate, and three-fourths of money out at interest. From the income yielded by this fund are derived 441 francs of every thousand dispensed in the relief of the Swiss poor. But these figures only partially represent the truth ; for while some communes are wealthy, others, so far as the fund is concerned, are as destitute as their own poor. Tho richest canton in this respect is Berne, which takes the lead with an accumulated fund of £916,720 ; the richest commune, Berne city, whose 6,135 burghers possess a fortune of £159,510, yielding an aver- age yearly interest of £2 12s. 8d. per head, exclusively appli- cable to the relief of destitute burghers, In Mendrisio (Tessin), which is doubly blessed, in that it has a large fund and no poor, the burghers divide the interest arising therefrom, share and share alike, among them- selves. In the Valais, the income from the Fortune, taking one commune with another, provides 801 francs per thousand of the total amount expended in relief ; in Schaffhausen, the proportion is 710 per thousand ; in Tessin, 702 ; in Geneva, 633 ; while in Obwalden, Lucerne, and Nidwalden it sinks to 288, 280, and 93 respectively. The origin of these funds is various ; in one or two cases, at least, they have had their beginnings in the confiscated estates of suppressed religious houses ; but they are derived, for the most part, from the gifts and bequests of many generations of pious and charitable Switzers,—a wealthy burgher rarely dying without leaving something to his Genieinde,—and it is the habit of many of the communes to add all receipts available for the relief of the poor to the capital stock, and limit their ex- penditure strictly to the interest. This system has its evil side, however, for in some localities the interest increases so fast that relief is apt to be lavishly administered, to the consequent demoralisation of the recipients and the encouragement of hereditary pauperism. On the other hand, the principle that relief is a loan, to be repaid at the first opportunity, is not allowed to remain a dead-letter. The sums restored in 1870 by former paupers averaged 40 per 1,000 of the total receipts. In Nidwalden, the proportion under this head was 203 per 1,000 ; in Basel the country (Basel makes two cantons, town and country), 111 ; Uri, 101 ; in Schaffhausen, 9 ; and in Appenzell, 1. Geneva and Valais were the only cantons where no restitution was made, which is all the more remarkable, as Geneva proclaims, with much insistence, that help in money or in kind granted to a man in his need is a loan pure and simple, the repayment of which should be made a point of honour with the borrower, and strictly enforced by the State. But Geneva is not the only place in which theory is one thing and practice another.
In 1870, relief was granted in all to 124,566 persons, of whom 81,379 were children and 93,187 adults, being at the rate of 49 to every 1,000 burghers (not inhabitants); in other words, 5 per cent. of the members of the communes are relieved every year at the common cost, or from the common fund. But the proportion varies so widely and unaccountably in different parts of the Confederation, that these, like all averages, are as likely to mislead as instruct. Thus, while in Basel the town there are 222 paupers to 1,000 burghers, in Basel the country the proportion is only 28 to 1,000. The figures given in these returns lend no support to the theory that pauperism is more widely prevalent in the Catholic than the Protestant Cantons. The proportion of assisted per 1,000 in Glaris (a Protestant canton) is 23.8 ; in Valais, (Catholic), 22 ; in Vaud (Protestant), 81.3 ; in Lucerne (Catholic), 72.9 ; in Neuchhtel (Protestant), 68.6 ; in Berne (Protestant), 72 ; in Tessin (almost exclusively Catholic), 12. From which it is safe to conclude that in Switzerland, at least, the development of pauperism is much less affected by religious causes than by local conditions.
Laws for the suppression of mendicity are general, and strictly enforced ; relief is refused to the idle and dissipated ; the property of spendthrifts may be seized and administered for their benefit, and themselves placed under official guardian- ship, should there seem any likelihood that their extravagance will bring them to want. Burghers in receipt of relief are forbidden to frequent public-houses, and innkeepers who supply them with drink are liable to be fined. On the other hand, the claim of orphans to help is universally recognised, and in most of the Cantons they are not only maintained, but sent to school, apprenticed to trades, and fairly started in life. The administration of the Fortune of the Poor leaves much to be desired. Every canton has its own system. In some dis- tricts the administrative body is the Communal Council, in others a Committee of burghers ; in the larger towns alone special organisations for this purpose exist, and for the most part are economically and efficiently managed. The accounts are not always as clear as they might be ; in not a few instances they are as primitive as the primitive cantons themselves. When the Federal Council sent out requisi- tions to the 3,000 communes for copies of their accounts, it was found that only sixty of them were in the habit of printing their yearly balance-sheets, and the written balance- sheets of not a few had evidently been specially prepared for the occasion. This lack of order is evidently the weak point of the existing system ; and if the Federal Government were empowered to enforoe the observance of certain principles in the dealings of the communes with their needy members and the administration of the Fortune of the Poor, the communes themselves would be gainers and pauperism materially dimin- ished. Nor are there wanting signs that the spirit of localism, which has hitherto impeded all attempts at reform in this direction, is gradually yielding to wiser counsels. But what- ever improvements in detail the future may have in store, it is greatly to be desired that the leading principles of the old communal administration should be strictly followed, which are, —that relief is a matter of convention, and not of right ; that it is a loan, not a gift ; that misfortune alone constitutes a claim for relief ; and that a man may be justly restrained from making himself, by wilful extravagance, a charge on the For- tune of the Poor, or a burden to his neighbours.
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