CANTON DE BERNE.
It appears from that return, that the inhabitants of that part of the Canton, which is subject to the laws which we are going to describe, consisted, in 1831, of 321,468 persons, divided into three classes, heimathloses, aubains, and bourgeois.
The first class, which appears to be so small as to be inconsiderable, consist of foreign refugees or their descendants. The second comprises all those who have not a right to bourgeoisie in any commune: their number amounted, in 1780, to 3482 persons. It is said to have subsequently increased, but it is not probable that it has more than doubled; and we believe that 10,000 persons, or less than 1-32nd part of the whole population, exceeds the whole number of those who are not entitled to bourgeoisie; but it is to be observed that the word “aubain,” though strictly meaning a person who has no settlement in the Canton, is also applied to persons who, though bourgeois, are not entitled to bourgeoisie in the commune in which they reside. The support of the heimathloses and of the aubains, properly so called, that is, of those who have no right whatever to bourgeoisie, falls on the government.
The third class is composed of the descendants of those who, in the sixteenth century, were held entitled to the public property of each commune, and those who by themselves or their ancestors have purchased bourgeoisie in any commune. Bourgeoisie appears to be personal and hereditary. It is not gained by residence, or lost by absence; and may therefore, in fact, belong to persons having little other connexion with the commune.
At a period, of which the precise date is not stated, but which appears to belong to the seventeenth century, it became the law that every one was entitled to support from the commune of which he was bourgeois, and that the sums necessary were to be supplied from the public property of the commune; and so far as that was insufficient, from landed property, to whomsoever belonging, situated in the commune, and from the personal property of the bourgeois whether resident or not.
To this hereditary bourgeoisie the raising and administration of the poor-fund was and still is confided; and apparently with most unfortunate results.
The following is the conclusion of the official answer of the government of Berne to the questions proposed by Mr. Morier (p. 207):—
What are the abuses complained of?
Do they arise from the principle of the law, or from the character and social position of its administrators?
What remedies have been applied?
What have been their results?
The abuses in the administration arise both from the principle of the law, and from the character and social position of its administrators: from the law, because it abandons all administration to the communes; from the administrators, because they neglect improvement, distribute relief without discrimination or real inquiry, and generally provide only against the exigences of the moment.
The separate parishes, being, for the most part, too small to establish schools and workhouses, want means of coercion, and are in general more busied in providing relief for those actually indigent than in diminishing their number, either as regards the present or future generations. Besides, although the practice is not sanctioned by law, many parishes, in order to prevent the return of their bourgeois who are domiciled elsewhere, forward to them relief without being able to ascertain their conduct.
The government has long felt that these abuses could not be remedied except by a law founded on a principle totally different from that of abandoning the administration to the parishes: but from a mistaken solicitude for the poor, it always hesitated to take this course.
What has been the influence of the system?
1. Statistically?
2. Morally?
1. Has the number of the indigent augmented, diminished, or remained stationary?
2. Does the law appear to have encouraged imprudent marriage or illicit intercourse?
The answers are implied in our previous statements. The existing system favours imprudent marriage and illicit intercourse,—but, precisely because it encourages marriage, probably does not augment the proportion of illegitimate to legitimate births. But the final result is, that it encourages, in an extraordinary degree, the increase of the indigent population. The abuses which have followed this fatal system are too numerous to be here detailed. It is easy to conceive what must have been its results on a populace whom education, or rather the want of education, has deprived of all honourable feeling, and of all preference of independence to public charity. Idleness, carelessness, improvident marriage, and illicit intercourse, have been encouraged by the prospect of making others support their results. All means and opportunities of acquiring knowledge, or skill, or regular occupation, have been neglected. Thence have arisen not only a constantly increasing burden upon society, but obstacles to the development of the physical and intellectual faculties, to moral improvement, and in short to the advancement of civilization. Experience has clearly proved, that the number of paupers increases in proportion to the resources created for them, and that the bourgeois population is least industrious and least active, and endeavours least to be useful to society in those parishes which have the largest public property and public revenue.
This state of things, and above all the constantly increasing burden in some parts of the country, and the demands urged by parishes on the State for protection against the claims and the insolence of the really and the pretended indigent, have determined the government to strive to remedy the evil at its source. We are still ignorant of the proposed principles of the new law. The plan, or at least the preparatory inquiry, is now going on in the offices of the Department of the Interior. It is nearly certain, however, that compulsory charity will be, if not entirely abolished, at least restricted to those poor who are incapable of work. But if assessment for the indigent is put an end to, the revenue of the properties appropriated to them will remain for their support.
The administration of the poor-laws in the Canton of Berne is therefore on the eve of a radical reform.
The same views are more fully developed in a long and very able supplement to these answers, which immediately follows them, and bears the same official character—(pp. 220-222, and 225.)
The administration of parochial property has not been properly audited by any parochial authorities: frequently and for many years it has remained in the hands of the same family; those to whom it has been intrusted have received little or no salary: a capricious and dishonest management were the obvious and almost the inevitable consequences. The mere nature of the transaction led to mal-administration. The poor who had a right to bourgeoisie had a right to relief. How could their conduct or their wants be ascertained, if they dwelt in other parishes, with whose authorities their own parish had no relation? Was it not almost inevitable that relief would be demanded with insolence and spent in idleness and debauchery?
In some places in the mountains (such as Sieventhal and Grindelwald), the relief was given in kind; but with the increased circulation of money, money-relief has become general, and is exclusively afforded to out-parishioners. The facility with which such relief is mis-applied has favoured mis-management, and may be said to engender pauperism.
These fatal results have become more strongly felt as the number of the poor has augmented. In many places the growing embarrassment occasioned great and praiseworthy remedial efforts. The administration was made more regular, and inspectors and other officers appointed. Some country parishes erected alms-houses at an expense apparently beyond their means. But many of these fine institutions disappointed the hopes of their founders: we shall presently see why. These new measures and institutions were each the private affair of each parish; they failed because they were isolated. The beneficial measures of one parish were not supported by its neighbours. They followed their old routine, and opposed improvement by obstacles and dislike. Superintendence, which is essential to the administration of poor laws, was ineffectual, because it was applied only to the parishioners of the single commune which enforced it.
During the last half century, other countries have acquired knowledge relative to alms-houses for the poor, and have adopted the results of the inquiries and experience of their neighbours. This has not been the case with our own establishments: their very origin was erroneous. They were the products of a philanthropy which proposed entirely to remedy all human misery. They were founded in villages, and proportioned each to the existing wants of the village. Their resources seldom permitted the adoption of the first condition of good administration, namely, classification. And even when we find a spacious building, we see heaped, pell-mell, children by the side of the old and infirm, and the sick mixed with able-bodied idlers. Even whole families are found in this assemblage of the good and bad, the sick and the healthy, the useful and the mischievous. In such establishments provision ought to have been made for the education of the children, the cure of the sick, the support of the aged, and the employment of the able-bodied. Each class of inmates required a separate treatment. The instant this principle is neglected, and classification abandoned, the institution not only loses its utility, but becomes actually mischievous. But each single establishment was governed by a single authority, unfit for the management of several dissimilar classes of inmates. In general, one uniform system was applied to them all. A further obstacle to the success of these establishments was the frequent change of their governors. As they were ill-paid and often subject to disagreeable contests with the local authorities, it was difficult to get good officers, and still more so to keep them. (p. 221.)
Unfavourable as our representation of these establishments has been, the picture of the treatment of the poor in the other parts of the canton is still more gloomy and painful. In these districts (superintendence being absent) all that is not left to accident is regulated by habit, or by a routine without apparent motives.
In such places no regular system is to be looked for. The most usual modes of affording relief are allowances in money, or payment of board. In some places, as in Emmenthal, the parochial charges are thrown on the large estates, and the proprietors are forced in turn, and gratuitously, to maintain the paupers who are allotted to them. In many other places it has long been the custom to send round the poor to be maintained in turn by the settled inhabitants (bourgeois), some of whom, though forced to receive paupers, are themselves in indigent, or even in distressed circumstances.
Not less sad or even revolting is the practice which prevails in some poor and ill-judging parishes of getting rid of their poor by allotting them to those who will take them on the lowest terms. The parochial authorities offer an allowance to those who will receive such and such paupers. The allowance at first proposed is very small; but it is ready money, and public competition enables the parish to make it still smaller. The poor victim falls into the hands of a rapacious and needy family. We may conceive how deplorable his situation must always be. That it is sometimes supportable can be attributed only to a benevolence not yet entirely stifled in the hearts of our people. Cases even have occurred in which the proprietors, by allowing their inmates to work for themselves, have given them habits of industry, and bred up their children to be good workmen. But these exceptions only render the general rule more apparent.
Relief in money produces effects equally pernicious. It is the result of the law which enables every family which is, or believes itself to be, in want, to demand a relief which cannot be refused. Small sums are given sometimes for payment of rent, sometimes to meet other wants, whether the applicant live in the parish or elsewhere—and without control or superintendence. What can, what must be the consequences? (p. 222.)
We cannot wonder, then, that the administration of the poor laws in the canton of Berne has become so irregular and so mischievous. The effects of the subdivision of the inhabitants into so many corporations have become more and more apparent. The principle of permanent and hereditary unions necessarily clashed with the principle of mobility and change which governs all our social relations. The welfare of the public necessarily gave way to that of the particular corporations, and the private interests of the corporations or parishes rendered them selfish and mutually hostile. Obstacles were opposed to every change of residence, and consequently the industry and enterprise of the labouring classes were paralyzed, and the parishes felt the results of their own measures when an unemployed and dispirited population was thrown upon them. It was to be expected that in time this population would look for support to the relief to which they had a legal right; it was natural that in time they would get a taste for an idle and consequently vicious existence. We could support our remarks by many instances of whole families which have subsisted like parasites from year to year, and from generation to generation, on the parochial funds; whose status it is to be paupers; and the cases in which they have emerged from this condition are few.
The government appears to have been struggling with these evils ever since the beginning of this century. The first ordonnance which has been forwarded to us is that of the 22d December, 1807.
The following are its most material enactments (pp. 191, 192):—
The parishes and parochial corporations (bourgeoisies) in the town and in the country are required, as heretofore, to afford protection and relief to their needy fellow-citizens.
No one can claim parochial relief unless he is without property, and either physically incapable of work, or out of employ without his own fault.
Parishes may continue their previous modes of regulating and fixing their accounts with respect to the poor.
They may likewise relieve their poor as they think fit, by regular money relief, by putting them out to board, by collecting them in a single establishment, or placing them in hospitals, or distributing among themselves the children of the indigent. But it is forbidden for the future that, except in cases of emergency, and with the sanction of the district authorities, they should be sent round from house to house to be maintained. Persons arrested for begging, and taken to their parish, shall be sentenced by the parochial authorities, after having given notice to the district judge. The punishment may be eight days’ imprisonment on bread and water, or fifteen days’ hard labour[8].
An equally rigorous treatment is to be applied to those who, being in the receipt of parochial relief, are disobedient, or give rise to well-founded complaint. They may be forbidden to enter inns, or drinking-shops, and punished in the above-mentioned manner if they disobey.
Parishes may require their overseers to watch the conduct of those who, from extravagance, drunkenness, debauchery, or other misbehaviour, are in danger of poverty, and to proceed legally to have them placed under restrictions. Such persons may be forbidden by the prefect, on the application of the parish, to frequent, for a certain period, inns and drinking-shops.
If a person who has received relief subsequently obtains any property, his parish may demand to be reimbursed their expenditure on his behalf, but without interest; and though they may not have exercised their right during his life, they may proceed against his estate after his death.
No pauper can marry without the consent of his parish, nor without having reimbursed it for the relief which he has received. The same law applies to widowers, who, while married, had received relief for themselves or their children. None who are relieved in consequence of sickness or infirmity should be allowed to marry, except in extreme cases.
No minister, unless with the permission of the parish, ought to announce from the pulpit the intended marriage of one whom he knows to be in the receipt of relief.
If children, in consequence of the idleness, debauchery, gambling, or voluntary desertion of their father, become chargeable to the parish, and it is alleged that the father if he had been industrious and frugal could have supported them, the overseers may bring an action against him for the amount of the relief which has been afforded to his children; and if he do not pay he may be suspended from the exercise of all civil rights and claims as a bourgeois, or be sentenced to not exceeding two years’ imprisonment in a house of correction. A second offence is to be more severely punished.
A mother wilfully abandoning her children shall be taken back to her parish and there kept to work. If she refuse, or attempt to escape, she may, on the requisition of her parish, and subject to an appeal to the Council of State, be sentenced to not exceeding three years’ imprisonment in a house of correction.
Women who have had several bastards chargeable to the parish may, on the requisition of their parishes, be similarly punished. No one receiving, or who has received, parochial assistance, either on his own account or on that of his children can, unless specially authorized so to do by his parish, be present at parochial meetings, until he has repaid all the sums advanced to him.
If any person entitled to parochial relief shall be refused, or insufficiently relieved, he may complain to the Prefect, who shall thereupon hear the allegations of the parish, and ascertain the condition of the complainant, with the assistance, if he has any doubt as to the existence or degree of his bodily infirmities, of a physician. The Prefect may then order such relief as may appear to him necessary, but no part of it is to be given in money.
It appears, however, to have been unsuccessful; for 12 years after, the government, after having in vain offered rewards for good advice on the subject (p. 225), by an ordonnance dated the 14th April, 1819, absolutely forbade the levying of rates higher than the average of those of the years 1813, 1814, and 1815. The failure of so coarse a remedy might have been predicted, and accordingly we find the present state of the country thus described in the official report (p. 214):—
It is evident that, with respect to pauperism, the present situation of the Canton de Berne is in the highest degree painful. The evil is not temporary or partial: it arises from no external or accidental sources: a considerable portion of the population is attacked by it, and it is spreading itself, like a moral blight, over the whole community.
Some districts, or some classes, may perhaps suffer less than others, but the malady continues its progress and its extension: if it decrease in one place, it grows in another. It is indeed evident that it contains within itself the elements of its own increase. Not merely the annual augmentation of the number of paupers, but their constantly increasing misconduct, their carelessness, and insolence, and above all, their utter immorality, prove the augmenting force of the evil; an evil which must destroy all benevolent feelings, and swallow up, without being satisfied, all that charity can supply. The contagious nature of the disease carries it beyond the indigent, to invade and destroy the classes immediately above them. Those whose daily labour ought to have supported them, and those small proprietors whose properties ought to have enabled them to maintain their families, satisfy their engagements, and contribute to the relief of the poor, even these classes throw themselves among the really indigent, and add weight to the load which oppresses those who cannot escape the poor tax.
[8] It is not easy to say what is meant by the original; whether labour in irons, “enchainement au bloc,” is a necessary part of the punishment or not.