POVERTY, ITS CAUSE AND ITS CURE.[1]

By Canon Barnett.

1A Paper read at the Summer School for the Study of Social Questions held at Hayfield, June 22nd to 29th, 1907.

Povertyis a relative term. The citizen whose cottage home, with its bright housewife and happy children, is as light in our land, is poor in comparison with the occupant of some stately mansion. But his poverty is not an evil to be cured. It is a sign that life does not depend on possessions, and the existence of poor men alongside of rich men, each of whom lives a full human life in different circumstances, make up the society of the earthly paradise. The poverty which has to be cured is the poverty which degrades human nature, and makes impossible for the ordinary man his enjoyment of the powers and the tastes with which he was endowed at his birth. This is the poverty familiar in our streets, more familiar, we are told, than in the streets of any foreign town. This is the poverty by which men and women and children are kept from nourishment and sent out to work weak in body and open to every temptation to drink. This is the poverty which makes men slaves to work and uninterested in the magnificent drama of nature or life. This is the poverty which lets thousands of our people sink into pauperism.

What is the cause and the cure of this poverty?

The cause may be said to be the sin or the selfishness of rich and poor, and its cure to be the raising of all men tothe level of Christ. The world might be as pleasant and as fruitful as Eden, but so long as some men are idle and some men are greedy, poverty and other evils are sure to invade. Man is always stronger than his environment. He may be a prisoner in the midst of pleasures, and he may prove that walls cannot a prison make. Character may thus be truly said to be the one necessary equipment for climbing the hill of life, and every remedy which is suggested for those who stumble and fall must be judged by its effect on character. The dangers of the relief which weakens self-reliance have been recognized, the kindness which removes every hindrance from the way has been seen to relax effort; but even so there is no justification for law and custom to intrude obstacles to make the way harder or to bind on life’s wayfarer extra burdens.

Our subject thus presents two questions: 1. How is character to be strengthened? 2. How are the obstacles imposed by law and custom to be removed?

1. Character largely depends on health and education. Children born of overworked parents; fed on food which does not nourish; brought up in close air and physicked over-much cannot have the physical strength which is the basis of courage. The importance of health is recognized, and every year more is done to spread knowledge and enforce sanitary law. But the neglect of past generations has to be made up, and few of us yet realize what is necessary. The rate of infant mortality is a safe index of unhealthy conditions, and until that is lowered we may be sure of a drift towards poverty.

There are two directions in which energy should push effort: (a) More space should be secured about houses so that in the fullest sense every inhabited house might be a “living” house, with a sufficiency of air and space and water to enable every inmate to feel in himself thespring of being. (b) The Medical Officer of Health should be responsible for the health of every one in his district. He should be at the head of the Poor Law Medical Officers, of the Dispensary, of the Hospitals, and of the Infirmary. He should be able not only to report on unhealthy areas but to order for every sick person the treatment which is necessary. Medical relief and direction should be a right, not a favour grudgingly given through Relieving Officers. He should be able to prevent mothers working under conditions prejudicial to the health of their children. He should be the authorized recognized centre of information and direct the spread of knowledge. Disraeli, years ago, set up as a Reform cry,Sanitas sanitatum, omnia sanitas. Much money has been spent in the name of health, and hospitals have been doubled in efficiency, but because of physical weakness recruits are unfit for the army, and family after family drop into poverty. The need is some authority to bring the many efforts into order, and that authority should be, I submit, a Medical Officer responsible for the health of every person in his district.

But when children are strong in body they do not necessarily become strong characters. They must be educated. Perhaps it might be said that it would be a fair division of labour if, while the school developed children’s minds, the home developed their characters. But the fact must be faced that either through neglect or greed the home has largely failed in its part. The schools of the richer classes recognize this fact and set themselves to develop character. They produce, as a rule, self-reliant men and women, wanting, perhaps, in sympathy and moral thoughtfulness, careless, perhaps, of others’ poverty, not always intelligent, but strong in qualities which keep them from poverty. The schools of the industrial classes are models of order, the teachers teach admirably and work hard, the children satisfyexaminers and inspectors, their handwriting is good, their pronunciation—in school—is careful, they can answer questions on hygiene, on thrift, on history, on chemistry, and a half a dozen other subjects. But they have not resourcefulness, they are without interests which occupy their minds, they shun adventure and seek safe places, they have not the character which enjoys a struggle and resists the inroads of poverty, they have little hold on ideals which force them to sacrifice, they soon become untidy, they are an easy prey to excitement, and depend on others rather than on themselves. The problem how to educate character is full of difficulties. Happily there are workmen’s homes where, by the example of the parents and by the order of the household, children enter the world well equipped, and become leaders in industry and politics, but how in the twenty-seven hours of school time each week to educate mindandcharacter is a problem not to be solved in a few words.

Perhaps the first thing to be done is to extend the hours of school time; children might come to the school buildings on Saturdays, and daily between five and seven, to play ordered games, and learn to take a beating without crying; boys and girls might be compelled to attend continuation schools up to the age of eighteen, and experience the joy of new interests; the age of leaving might be raised; the classes in the day schools might be smaller; the subjects taught might be fewer; the teachers might be left more responsible; and the recreation of the children might be more considered. Persons, not subjects, make character. The teachers in our elementary schools must, therefore, be more in number, have more time to know their pupils, and feel more responsible for each individual.

Religion is, of course, the great character former, but our unhappy divisions put the subject outside friendly discussion. All that can be said is that the religious teacher whorecognizes in all his ways that he is “under Authority” unconsciously moulds character, and all we can wish is that he may have more time and a smaller class. We, who set ourselves to root out poverty, will do well to look above the cries and claims of religious denominations, while we consider how our national schools may help to form the character, without which neither health nor wealth, nor even denominational equality, will avail much.

2. It is time, however, to consider the second question. Character may overcome every obstacle, and our memories tell of men like Adam Bede or Abraham Lincoln or some of the present labour members, who have triumphed in the hardest circumstances. Circumstances must always be hard. God has so ordered the world; but there is no justification for law and custom to make them harder. Many men might have strength to get over what may be called natural difficulties, but fail upon those which have been artificially made.

Our second question, therefore, in considering the cure of poverty is: How are the obstacles imposed by law and custom to be removed? I take as an example the laws which govern the use of land. The land laws were made by our forefathers, because in those days such laws seemed the best to force from the land its greatest use to the community. These laws made one man absolute owner, so that by his energy the land might become most productive. But times have changed, and now these laws, instead of making wealth, seem to help in making poverty. The country labourer may have strong arms; he may have some ambition to use his arms and his knowledge to make a home in which to enjoy his old age; but he sees land all around him which is serving the pleasures of the few, and not the needs of the many; he is shut out from applying his whole energy to its development, for he cannot hope toget secure tenure of a small plot. He leaves the country and goes to the town, where his strong arms are welcomed. But here, again, because the land is in the absolute control of its owner, house is crowded against house, so that health and enjoyment become almost impossible; and here, also, because so large a portion of profit must go to the owner who has done no share of his work, his wage must be reduced. He gives in, and his wife lets dirt and untidiness master his home, and he at last comes into poverty. Law, with good intention, created the obstacle which he could not surmount. Law could remove the obstacle. Law for the common good could interfere with that absolute ownership which for the common good it in the old days created. Country men might have the possibility of holding land, with security of tenure, which they could cultivate for their own and their children’s enjoyment. Town municipalities might be given the right to take possession of the land in their environment, on which houses could be built with space for air and for gardens.

The subject is a large one, but the point I would make is that poverty is increased by the obstacles which our land laws have put in the man’s way. The landlord prevents the application of energy to the soil, and so taxes industry that a large share of others’ earnings automatically reach his pocket. The change of law may involve great cost to individuals, or to the State. But patriotism compels sacrifice, and a people which willingly gives its hundreds of millions to be for ever sunk in a war, may even more willingly surrender rights and pay taxes, so that its fellow-citizens may develop the common-wealth, and escape poverty.

Custom is perhaps as powerful as law in putting obstacles in the way of life’s wayfarers. It is by custom that the poor are treated as belonging to a lower, and therich to a higher class; that employers expect servility as well as work for the wages they pay; that property is more highly regarded than a man’s life; that competition is held in a sort of way sacred. It is custom which exalts inequality, and makes every one desirous of securing others’ service, and to be called Master. Many a man is, I believe, hindered in the race because he meets with treatment which marks him out as an inferior. He is discouraged by discourtesy, or he is tempted to cringe by assertions of inferiority. Charity to-day is often an insult to manhood. Many of our customs, which survive from feudalism, prevent the growth of a sense of self-respect and of human dignity. Men breathe air which relaxes their vigour, they complain of neglect, they seek favour, they follow after rewards, they give up, and thus sink into poverty.

It may not seem a great matter, but among the cures for poverty I may put greater courtesy; a wider recognition of the equality in human nature; a more set determination to regard all men as brothers. It is not only gifts which demoralize; it is the attitude of those who think that gifts are expected of them, and of those who expect gifts. Gifts are only safe between those who recognize one another as equals.

The subject is so vast that one paper can hardly scratch the surface, but I hope I have suggested some lines of thought. In conclusion, I would repeat that for the cure of poverty, nothing avails but personal influence. He does best who turns one sinner to righteousness, that is, who helps to make one poor man more earnest of purpose, and one rich man more thoughtfully unselfish. But circumstances also are important, and he does second best who helps to alter the laws and customs which put stumbleblocks in the ways of the simple.

Samuel A. Barnett.

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