A principle which contradicts the laws of nature is obviously false; and the right to subsistence—if claimed not for all who do, but for all who may, exist in a given country—yet more clearly the droit au travail of which this is the practical meaning—involves the demand, that agricultural production shall keep pace with population. But, save for checks all ultimately reducible to the fear of want, checks which it is the essential object of a Poor Law to relax, population would rapidly, in any old country, overtake subsistence. That, were the population of England or France to multiply at an American rate, it would soon lack standing room, is mathematically demonstrable. A poor law then must be attended by checks on population as effective as those of Nature herself; and from their artificial character necessarily more offensive, revolting, and difficult to enforce. None the less, Englishmen familiar as Senior with the ruinous operation of the old Poor Law, Frenchmen confronted like Tocqueville by the terrible theory of the droit au travail, the alarming experience of the ateliers nationaux, were inclined to regard that admission of the right to subsistence—limited to those actually born—which is the fundamental principle of the present Poor Law, as a most valuable, if not an indispensable, guarantee of social security; a signal instance of that practical English wisdom, which refuses to push admitted principles, sound or false, to consequences undeniably logical, but practically dangerous.
It might be thought that in a Christian, and especially a Roman Catholic country, the danger of starvation could never be very practical—that men, and still more women and children, bearing in their forms and faces the stamp of actual want, of pinching hunger, would never be denied. But Senior's experiences of the Irish famine pointed to a different conclusion. Death by famine is at last rapid, sudden, and unexpected. On the road to Kenmare, from which many Irish emigrants were despatched to America, corpses were daily found with collapsed stomachs and money in their pockets. Hoping to reach the port, keeping their money to pay their passage, death had overtaken them unawares; and this in the face of organized measures of relief, the largest and most liberal that public or private charity has ever provided. In cases of prolonged and extreme distress, but for the Poor Law, hundreds would die of want almost unawares, before want had overcome their reluctance to beg. And if actual starvation were rare, yet in the absence of a recognized right to food and shelter, the fear of starvation must be ever present. This spectral horror, Tocqueville evidently thought, haunted the imagination of the French operative; and had much to do with the popularity of Socialism in a country of diffused property and general thrift, and with the ferocity of Socialistic or Red Republican insurrections. Charity, however liberal, is an uncertain and—to their credit be it spoken—to the majority of French operatives, a repulsive and degrading resource. It cannot exorcise the hideous spectre of actual famine, which, though remote, seems ever to threaten them, their wives and their children; and which in times of distress and depression looms terribly near, distinct, and horrible. No wonder that men haunted by such a spectre should be driven to gloomy envy, sullen hate, and outbreaks of ferocity worse than those provoked by actual suffering. No wonder that any schemes, however frantic and however unrighteous, should have charms for a class whose reason is disturbed by the perpetual vision of that ultimate but undeniably possible horror. We have seen in France within the last few weeks moral portents which can hardly be ascribed to any other final cause an atrocious murder committed by workmen, and, what is infinitely worse, extenuated and almost approved by responsible legislators. It is probable that the Belgian riots approach as near as any witnessed in Europe during the last two centuries to a revolt of actual want. Belgium has secured an artificial manufacturing prominence—a disproportionate trade to hard toil and low wages. The latter had lately been forced down to the minimum, as profits had been well-nigh extinguished, by the general depression of business. In fear of actual want, the populace rose, wasted farms, destroyed factories, plundered and levied blackmail—in a word, tried to inflict on others the misery that had maddened themselves. The word has been given to the most quiet and law-abiding people in Europe to defend themselves: a step far more significant of stern intentions than the sharpest military repression. Yet the Government is forced to accompany its preventive measures with an expenditure of 20s per head of the population on public works—equivalent to an English rate in aid of twenty millions! Could there be a more conclusive proof that the dread of hunger is a real and a terrible power for evil among Continental nations; that their choice lies, in a word, between a recognition of the right to subsistence—a Poor Law with severe labour tests and restrictions—and periodical, spasmodic measures of relief enforced by insurrection? Or can there be a doubt, that the latter is infinitely the more dangerous and demoralizing alternative: that only the adoption of a Poor law can prevent the lessons of 1886 from shaking the very foundations of order, property and civil government in countries situate as are France and Belgium?
It seems strange that French Democracy should not have long since insisted on laying for ever the spectre of starvation by a Poor Law more liberal than that of England. It must be remembered, however, that the democracy of France is a propertied and landed democracy, heavily burdened with taxes and interest on mortgages, pinched by necessity, and pinching itself by thrift. No class is so hard to want, so ruthless to idleness, as a peasantry which wins for itself a bare subsistence by constant toil, and provides for the future by constant self-denial.
The temper of a progressive and prosperous democracy is very different. Many, perhaps most of the American States, are without a Poor Law. Slavery dispensed with it, and the race antagonism consequent on the manner and circumstances of emancipation has rendered a thorough revision of social relations—a systematic attempt to meet the new and very exceptional conditions of Southern society in its present form—hitherto impossible. Yet, by the confession of one of their bitterest enemies, no people are so tender, so generous, so lavish of active sympathy towards the sick, the bereaved, and the unfortunate. In States which, probably from an instinct under their circumstances just and wise, refuse to recognize the right to subsistence by a legal provision for the poor, whereby the idle and vicious would chiefly benefit, nevertheless paupers by the visitation of God—the aged and infirm, the blind, the deaf, and dumb, lunatics and idiots—are amply provided by public and private charity with all that can alleviate their lot: or teach them, as far as possible, the means of self-dependence. American charity towards the victims of great natural catastrophes, far more common there than here—communities burned out by a forest fire, or ruined by a flood—and yet more the personal sacrifices made, the readiness with which men and women devote their leisure thought, and energy to the supervision of public institutions, the efficient distribution of public subscriptions, the succour and nursing of a community stricken by pestilence, are above praise. A careful study of Transatlantic examples might put our own boasted lavishness of charity to shame.
Even in England, organized private charity, wisely directed, might surely contrive to effect a discrimination between those who are paupers by vice, unthrift, and idleness, and those whom God has striken for no fault that humanity is entitled to pass judgment upon; between the fitting inmates of the workhouse, and those—helpless from age, infirmity, accident, and disease—to whom the associations of the workhouse are humiliating, painful and demoralizing. Nothing is more essential, under democratic rule, than the maintenance of due severity towards those who will not work; nothing more likely to relax that needful severity than its indiscriminate application to those who cannot.