Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/730

 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

How Far is Pauperism a Necessary Element in a Civilized Community?

Pauperism is not, of course, synonymous with poverty. Pauperism is poverty which by custom, common law, or express statute derives a maintenance from enforced con- tributions levied on other members of the community. I say " by custom or common law," because it is very important to connect our poor-law system, which was systema- tized by the statute of Elizabeth, with the state of things which existed previously to that enactment. If we would understand this question at all, we must realize that pre- vious to the Elizabethan act there had been a system of regulation far more stringent and far more searching than anything contained in the famous 43 Eliz., cap. 2. The poor law of Elizabeth is fundamentally based on the idea of a territorial settlement an institution already in existence which had been also the integral principle of the feudal organization.

This enables us to identify pauperism as a part a modernized part, perhaps of that condition of status which, according to Sir Henry Maine's famous generalization, is in civilized communities giving place to a condition of contract. ,

If this view is correct, there are then two things which we have to consider : First, what is the restraining obstructive power of the old principle of status as mani- fested in our pauper system ? Secondly, what is the absorbent and attractive power of free industrial life of honorable interdependence based on what Maine calls contract, which is obviously the antithesis of the condition of pauper status?

Obviously a community which is able to think about the public maintenance of the destitute is one in which a considerable part has already emerged from a condition of direct poverty. The position of comparative comfort attained by the Elizabethan age had been reached contemporaneously with a relaxation of the antiquated routine of feudal industry. Statecraft determined to legislate so as to secure a bare main- tenance for the poor. That is the first step. It is a later age which is able to set up the independence of the poor as an ideal. It happened, however, unfortunately that the new legislation adopted as its framework the principle of parochial and manorial set- tlement, and thereby perpetuated by a most insidious device that immobility and help- lessness of character which is characteristic of a servile population.

With a guarantee of maintenance and of employment near his own door the pauper took up a resolute, even a defiant, position of immobility, which set at naught the quickening influence of an expanding industrialism which was being developed in parallel lines.

The course of the economic progress of the nation was checked by this broaden- ing out of the backwaters of pauperism. The principle embodied in the Elizabethan act had created an intolerable burden, and in 1834 a very rude and drastic reformation was deemed necessary. The outcry raised against the new poor law by a certain sec- tion of the poor and by a certain class of benevolent persons is well known. They were wrong (i) in regarding too exclusively the passing generation ; (2) in not per- ceiving that the poor law as then administered had a strong absorbent power, that it retained a large population within its influence which otherwise would have been attracted into the industrial independent life which was developing itself on a parallel line ; (3) in not realizing the vast absorbent power of a free industrial community.

These three sources of error are still operating very strongly among us. Our hope of seeing the progress which has undoubtedly taken place continued and extended depends mainly on our success in combating these errors. Broadly speak- ing, the able-bodied man has been entirely dispauperized. The percentage of general pauperism on population has been since 1849 reduced from 6.2 to 2.3. The financial burden at the beginning of the century was about 2^ per cent, on the estimated income of the people. It is now less than I per cent. The very ease with which financially we bear the burden of pauperism is one of the principal causes of a very reprehensible indifference to the subject.

The situation is on the whole not discouraging to those engaged in the task of poor-law reform. They are fighting the battle of political enlightenment against an enemy which may be identified with slavery, feudalism, and the parochial imprison- ment of the old poor law; experiments in the use of restriction for the purpose of further dispauperization have without exception produced satisfactory results, and reformers have on their side a powerfully absorbent organization of independent industry, of which we can say (i) that it is ready to take up those who are detached