MR GLADSTONE ON CHARITIES.
TR. GLADSTONE'S speech on Thursday, on the unworthy and spendthrift system by which so many of our Chari- ties are now administered,—the system of giving the Charity's constituents the power of electing the beneficiary of their own charity,—was most weighty and valuable. The fact un- doubtedly is, that what that system needs is not reform, but extinction. It is perfectly clear that such a system is quite inconsistent with the most effective administration of the charity ; and perfectly clear also that its tendency is to waste a great deal of additional money, which does not go towards the purpose of the charity, on securing the success of individual competitors. The way it works is of course this. A subscriber hears of a particular case of hardship, which he thinks a fit object for the charity to which he subscribes, and he redoubles his interest in the charity, with the view of obtaining relief for his particular candidate. Probably he doubles his sub- scription. If he is a man of leisure,—more commonly, perhaps, the case is that of a woman of leisure,—he writes to all the subscribers he knows, or can get an introduction to, for votes. Some give them at once. More say they are pledged for two or three elections, but that if he votes for their candi- dates now, they will vote for his after their own has been successful. And thus a series of mutual engagements are entered into. Possibly, if very much interested indeed, he employs a middle-man, who undertakes for a given sum to ensure success by a given date. More money goes to this middle-man, who expends some of it judiciously in buying votes for other candidates, on receiving a promise for return votes at a future election, while he pockets a handsome per-centage for himself. Of course, all the money spent on buying votes goes to the Charity, but on what con- dition I—on condition of securing the election of par- ticular individuals, who can only by a very rare chance indeed be the objects most needing the assistance thus secured to them ; while all the money which rewards the labour of the negotiating middle-man is so much,—though obviously available for charitable purposes,—spent not on those purposes, but on the wages for professional assist- ance. Two results are thus secured. The Charity is diverted in nine cases out of ten from the relief of the person intrinsically most deserving it, to the relief of some other person not requiring it so urgently ; and a good deal more of money and of labour (which is money's-worth), besides that which is spent on the Charity, is spent on the poll, or the " election expenses," in fact, of the candidate. Now unquestionably, as regards the object of the charity, both these results are bad. You cannot select under this system the truest object of charity, except by accident. You cannot husband your means so as to get all that is really available for such objects from those who take the deepest interest in them. What you really do effect is a hybrid kind of object. You enable those who like it, to think they are charitable, and at the same time amuse themselves with the competitive excitement of an election. You invent a new amusement, which has about it some of the flavour of virtue, and more of the flavour of a worldly interest. You get, no doubt, a good deal of money out of pockets which would contribute much less to a pure charity than they contribute to this hybrid charity, —which is half charity, half election excitement. In fact, you bribe a good many who would be very sparing in their gifts to a charity over which they had no control, by the prospect of personal influence and a little excitement, to give to charities which they may hope to manipulate skilfully for their own objects. No doubt it is a serious question whether you would ever get quite as much for the higher object as you get for the lower. But the real question is not that, but rather whether even if you got somewhat less, and yet got it all efficiently used, you would not do more for the cause of true charity than is done now. Suppose, as we must suppose, the revenue of many of these societies were to fall off under the operation of any change in their constitution such as would diminish the influence of the individual subscribers over the application of its funds. Still, unless that diminution were so formidable as to compensate, and much more than compensate, the vast gain which would spring out of the administration of the whole charity by the same persons, and for the true object for which it was established, the loss would be much less than the gain. There can be no possible objection to institutions the advantages of which can avowedly be bought by benevolent persons for the benefit of their proteges. Such institutions exist, and are very useful, and may possibly come to exist in larger numbers than they now do. But in that case, the individual buys all that he gives, and pays the fair price for it. In the case of voters' charities, he does not buy what he gives. He obtains it by all sorts of contracts with other people ;- every one of which injures the administration of the charity as a charity, and tends to turn it into something between a charity and an institution supplying, at a reasonable rate, what charitable people are often willing to buy for their dependents. There can be no doubt that both for the sake of economy, and for the sake of morals, Mr. Gladstone is right in depre- cating the existing confusion between these two very different classes of institutions, and insisting that what is established for the service of the miserable, shall be devoted to those who really most need it, and not to those who happen to command most influence among the subscribers.
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