[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."
Sin,—In your paper of November 14th, in connexion with "Personal Service among London Poor," you recommend the study of Dr. Chalmers's book on "Parochial Aid." It may be interesting to your readers to learn that in the Memoir of Dr. Norman Macleod mention is made of the "practical application at Elberfeld of Dr. Chalmers's System of Poor Relief," and in the first number of Good Words (1860) in an article entitled "Dr. Chalmers at Elberfeld" an account is given of the circumstances which led to the adoption of this system of poor relief there and its immediate results.
To understand Elberfeld aright, therefore, it is well to refer to Chalmers's own statement of the principles on which he proceeded. What he attempted was the cure of pauperism, not the relief of poverty, and his efforts were crowned with "success far beyond his most sanguine expectations." To quote his own words : "If you confine yourself to the relief of poverty, you do little. Dry up if possible the springs of poverty, for every attempt to stem the running stream
fjignally failed." Character was what he aimed at, and this by the moral uplift of a friendly hand. He had faith in the inherent manliness of the people, to which our present Poor Law makes little, if any, appeal. " ifelp the poor to help themselves ; teach them to look nun pauperism as a degradation." Such were his tenets. His method was to provide every one below or near the poverty-line with a helper, whose duty it was to put him in the way of improving his position. The parish of St. John's, in which Chalmers tried his experiment, was the poorest in Glasgow. It consisted of ten thousand inhabitants, most of them of the working class, and many of them casual labourers,—not unlike an East End London parish to-day. To facilitate the work of personal service of the poor, the parish was divided into twenty-five districts, each district being put in charge of a deacon, who in his turn supervised the work of his helpers, no helper undertaking more than three or four families each. Herein lies the secret of the success,—it is in the personal influenoe on the individual character. No one was to starve ; every one in want was to be attended to; but the poor fund and the liberalities of the rich were to be the last resources.
Previous to this experiment the cost of poor relief in this parish was £1,400. Chalmers began by undertaking the new outdoor relief, the town hospital or then Parochial Board retaining the relief of pauperism already in its books. The sum devoted to poor relief was £80 per annum, the proceeds of the collection at the Sunday evening service for working men. In two years the surplus in Chalmers's bands enabled him to undertake the whole cost of outdoor relief. In five years the whole cost of both outdoor and indoor relief was reduced to £280, and this "in the dreariest and most distressful times in the annals of the city." "Poverty subsided of itself," and crime correspondingly diminished. The scheme failed in Glasgow because it did not get that municipal support which it deserved, and, indeed, required, if it were to be permanent. The Town Council of the day "assessed this poorest of poor parishes, although it derived no benefit from the rates,"—a policy manifestly unfair. Nor did the Government of the day give Chalmers the consideration that the success of the scheme had led him to expect, when he pleaded his cause before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1830. It was left to Daniel von der Heydt and OberbUrgermeister Lischke to give Chalmers's scheme a municipal setting, and to prove its efficiency and stability on a civic basis.
The article "Chalmers at Elberfeld" gives an interesting account of the conditions that led to its adoption in 1852. In 1850-52 the town was in embarrassment. Rates were exorbitant, the income fell below the expenditure. Charities abounded, but the ratio of paupers increased far beyond that of population. There were four thousand paupers to fifty thousand inhabitants. The first year after the adoption of the new method the cost of relief was reduced by one-fourth. In five years "the rates had become trifling; street begging had disappeared; charity was little required ; paupers numbered only 1,400, in an increased population." In 1908 Elberfeld has no slums in our sense of the word, no sub- merged tenth ; pauperism and crime have correspondingly diminished; and the rates have been reduced to a minimum. With results like these, is it to be wondered at that other German towns have adopted the system one after another,— Hamburg, Frankfurt, Mainz, Leipzig, Berlin, and many more P Apart from the economic advantages, the system has rendered enormous service in enabling communities to find out cases of deserving poverty that would otherwise have been undis- covered; to eliminate criminal from general poverty; to reduce greatly indiscriminate almsgiving; and perhaps most valuable of all, it has brought hundreds and thousands of well-to-do citizens face to face with the problems of poverty in their own cities,—facts recently acknowledged by authorities such as Dr. Clicker, head of the Statistical Bureau in Berlin, and Dr. Flesch of Frankfurt.
There can be little doubt that with a similar scheme influentially supported and carefully organised in this, the laud of volunteers, there would be no difficulty in securing workers. The wonder, rather, is that in a land of conscription and officialism voluntary workers should be so fully utilised and entrusted with important civic duties and responsibilities. For it is they, and not the officials, who fix the rate of assess- inent for the year, and superintend outdoor and indoor relief. It cannot be too much emphasised, however, that the essence of Elberfeld does not consist in the unification of charity. Here, as in St. Yohn's Parish, It is the rates that are so well administered that private charity is not required.—I am,
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