TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE STATE AND THE POOR.
THE Tory papers are unfair to Mr. Chamberlain about the Highbury incident. There was a certain grim humour in the idea of marching five hundred unemployed workmen to Mr. Chamberlain's house, and asking him to relieve them —" to ransom his property," in his own phrase—for the relief of their hunger ; but there was no argument in it. Mr. Chamberlain has not said that an individual is bound to give his property to the poor, or that the workman out of work has a right to any relief not provided by the laws. He does not propose to give even the labourers anything except a power, —the power which King Ahab claimed,—of buying at a fixed price the good thing they wish for from an unwilling seller. He has not even preached the obligation of charity, much less of charity from the unwilling. What he has done is to lend the influence of his great abilities, of his special position in the Liberal Party as representative of its Left wing, and of his new hold over public attention, to the dangerous, and, as we think, immoral doctrine, that certain classes among the poor possess, on account of their poverty alone, claims upon the State in- definitely greater than those of any other section of the com- munity. The State, in his view, is to protect all, but is to aid the poor—and by "the poor "' he means, and we mean, men with less than a pound a week—directly, and to do it with money or land, or privileges akin to the right of requisi- tion. We maintain, on the contrary, that the duty of the State, on Christian as well as on scientific principles, is to treat the whole community exactly alike, and to show towards the poor only that special consideration which is the due of the feeble and the less free. So far are we from arguing, as some of our critics allege, that the poor should be overlooked, that we have fought for their right to the suffrage mainly to prevent that very evil, and have supported, so far as we know, every proposal to place them on an exact level with their more fortunate brethren. Certainly, we have contended that they should be exempted from direct taxation, lest they should pay it out of necessities ; that indirect taxation falling on them should practically be limited to luxuries—we deserted even Mr. Gladstone when he proposed to abolish the Income-tax—that the credit of the State should make their savings safe; that they should be specially protected against accident ; that the State should educate their children, so far as that can be done without destroying the sense of parental duty ; and that they should be thoroughly and cheaply protected by the law. We should be prepared, on cause shown, to go further in the last-named direction, holding that costs even now often prevent the equal justice which the State is bound to distribute ; and we are doubtful whether, it being necessary for the public health to make a legal monopoly of medical attendance, the principle of cheap State hospitals is outside the proper range of its beneficent action. The immense kindness of the profession in England, and the great charity of the country, prevent that from becoming a practical question ; but if doctors levied their dues as bakers do, and all hospitals were insolvent, we do not see that the claim to cheap medical help would be outside the ordinary principle that the State must protect its citizens' lives. But we contend that the right of the poor is only to equality, and that in giving them more —in giving, for instance, a right to expropriate land, or to a separate tenure distinct from that nationally recognised, or to obtain State work when private work is slack, or to wages fixed by external authority—we are giving them privileges unjust to the community and injurious to themselves. They are unjust to the community, because the claim of the prosperous to equality with the poor is openly denied, and part of their prosperity taken away by force to make others prosperous. That is only just if a ransom for prosperity ought to be paid, and we deny that whole theory. It is not wrong to be rich. It is not injurious to the community to be rich. There is nothing whatever in the teaching of Christianity against being rich, unless this be against it,—that wealth, like every other "talent," must be used in obedience to the Christian teaching, and, like every other power, increases man's responsibility to God ; and that wealth is to many natures a special temptation to self-indulgence. If, then, there is no obligation of ransom, any more than there was any obligation on Mr. Chamberlain to give those five hundred men a dinner, enforcing the obligation by law is oppression,—bearable oppression it may be, but oppression.
Mr. Chamberlain would see this, if the law compelled that gift from him exclusively, or even compelled him to sell the bread in his house at a fixed price ; and the situation of the land- owner or of the wagepayer, whose bread cannot be hidden, is precisely the same. John is taxed, not for the State, but for Tom, who has only the same rights as John. Both have the right to poor-relief if their lives are in danger for want of it ; and neither can insist on State alms, except in that contingency, which, though not regarded by science, is pro- vided for by Christianity.
It is not, however, on the first, but on the second, side of the question that we insist to-day. We do not at heart care much to defend the prosperous, except when immorally attacked, for they can take care of themselves, and human selfishness is quite strong enough to induce them to do it ; but we do care that the poor should not be hopelessly demoralised by being taught to rely upon the State. Mr. Chamberlain will keep talking about the labourers and the land ; but his principle cannot be restricted in that style. The right of a labourer to a bit of land to work on is not a whit better than the right of a blacksmith to a bit of iron to work on, or of a factory-hand to a place at the loom he understands. Indeed, it is not so good, on Mr. Chamberlain's own principle, for a forgeman or "loom- tender" out of work is a great deal worse off than a labourer in receipt of wages. If one has the right to special State aid, so has the other • and he will get it, too, if the principle is once admitted. Mr. Chamberlain's five hundred visitors had no rights over him, even on his theory ; but they had on that theory a clear right to work from the State, or the Munici- pality. Yet, we suppose, we need not tell Mr. Chamberlain that the right to work on State pay is not only fatal to industry, but fatal also to virtues essential to civilisation. It is fatal to industry, because the State either wastes the citizens' money on a gigantic scale by giving out useless work ; or because the State, in giving useful work—all kinds of useful work, for you cannot set a compositor to forge nails—kills out all indus- tries together. None can survive a competition with tax-paid labour. And it is fatal to the industrial virtues, because it makes them all useless. The workman is practically a State pensioner with an income entailed on him under all circumstances. Why struggle, why save, why, above all,, become a good workman, when State employ is always secure ? Why cultivate well, or save money, when one can always, if only poor enough, get another patch at a low rent ? Why do more than the next man, or even so much, when the result is the same for all? We all know what was the result of the Parisian experiment of 1848, but that is a very poor example ; Frenchmen are not Englishmen, and there were exceptional circumstances at work ; but did Mr. Chamberlain never read the history of our own Poor Law ? His principle was in operation among us for ages ; and by the consent of all the wisest and best among us, it so nearly killed civilisation that statesmen risked a Revolution to put it down. The old Poor Law was State aid to poverty in its perfection, and under favourable conditions, for the workers never quite lost the notion that it was degrading to take it, and it ate the industrial virtues out of the very souls of the people. Why should it not, when it was opposed alike to Nature and to Christianity, both of which have made of hunger the ultimate whip to industry, and both of which insist that the individual shall be responsible for the maintenance of himself and of his household, preaching the doctrine in language and with sanctions which many philosophers of the day would call "cold-blooded"? The State cannot give to a class an advantage it does not give to all without demoralising that class ; nor can it protect a man against idleness or his own unthrift, or the operation of the natural laws, without making him helpless in precisely the same degree. That is the teaching of all history ; and though we do not believe that Mr. Chamberlain will ruin the country, or any exaggerated nonsense of that kind, we do believe that he wishes the country to enter on an experimental line of internal policy which can end only in disaster and demoralisa- tion. Take every burden from the poor that can be taken consistent with his equal membership of the community, but do not make of him a pauperised aristocrat with special rights against the State which will become the more imperative in exact proportion to his increasing helplessness. They say the world advances ; but imagine our having to argue with Liberals at this time of day that the old Poor Law of England was a bad institution, and that God has not made of wealth a crime justifying fines I
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