The Diet of Lower Austria intends to adopt in future
a system of poor-relief closely akin to that in use in England. The country is divided into districts like our anions, and paupers will have a right either to temporary or permanent relief, proof of birth in the district being, in the former case, dispensed with. The relief given will be i.0 the form either of grants for food and rent—that is, outdoor relief—or orders of admission into the poorhouses, while both will be regulated by elected guardians. We notice this scheme, though it applies only to a single province, because we are satisfied that the Socialist movement throughout Europe will succeed in producing a Poor-Law based on the right of the pauper to relief. That will not stifle the movement, which derives its force rather from an idea than a need ; but it will deprive it of much of its acerbity. It is the dread of positive hunger which makes the desire for the municipalisation of property so fierce. The municipalities, it is imagined, could never refuse work, an assumption based upon no experience, and a priori at variance with it. Householders with heavy Tate4 to pay are willing to refuse not only work but food.
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