Of the Charges of Public Benevolent Institutions.

It has been much debated, whether individual distress has any title to public relief. I should say none, except inasmuch as it is an unavoidable consequence of existing social institutions. If infirmity and want be the effect of the social system, they have a title to public relief: provided always, that it be shown, that the same system affords no means of prevention or cure. But it would be foreign to the matter to discuss the question of right in this place. All we need do is, to consider benevolent institutions with regard to their nature and consequences.

When a community establishes at the public charge any institution for benevolent purposes, it forms a kind of saving-bank, to which every member contributes a portion of his revenue, to entitle him to claim a benefit, in the event of accident or misfortune. The wealthy are generally impressed with an idea, that they shall never stand in need of public charitable relief; but a little less confidence would become them better. No man can reckon in his own case upon the continuance of good fortune, with as much certainty as upon the permanence of wants and infirmities; the former may desert him; but the latter are inseparable companions. It is enough to know, that good fortune is not inexhaustible, to infuse an apprehension that it may some day or other be exhausted: one has but to look round, and this apprehension will be confirmed by the experience of numbers, whose misfortunes were to themselves quite unexpected.

Hospitals for the sick, almshouses and asylums for old age and infancy, inasmuch as they partially relieve the poorer classes from the charge of maintaining those who are naturally dependent on them, and thereby to allow population to advance somewhat more rapidly, have a natural tendency a little to depress the wages of labour. That depression would be greater still, if such establishments should be so multiplied, as to take in all the sick, aged, and infants of those classes, who would then have none but themselves to provide for out of their wages. If they were entirely done away, there would be some rise of wages, although not sufficient to maintain so large a labouring population, as may be kept up with their help; for the demand for their labour would be somewhat reduced by the advance of its price.

From these two extreme suppositions, we may judge of the effect of those efforts to relieve indigence, which all nations have made in some degree or other; and see the reason, why the distress and relief go on increasing together, although not exactly in the same ratio.

Most nations preserve a middle course between the two extremes, affording public relief to a part only of those, who are helpless from age, infancy, or casual sickness. Of the rest they endeavour to rid themselves in one of two ways; either by requiring certain qualifications in the applicants, whether of age, of specific disease, or, perhaps, of mere interest and favouritism; or by limiting narrowly the extent of the relief, giving it upon hard terms to the applicants, or attaching some degree of shame to the acceptance.

It is a distressing reflection, that there are no other methods of confining the number of applicants for relief within the means available to the community, except the offer of hard conditions, or the want of a patron. It were to be desired, that asylums of the more comfortable class, instead of favouritism, should be open to unmerited misfortune only; and that, to prevent improper nominations, the pretensions of the candidate should be ascertained by the inquest of a jury. The rest can probably be protected from too great an influx of indigence, by no other means consistent with humanity, except the observance of severe, though impartial, discipline, sufficient to invest them with some degree of terror.

This evil does not apply to the asylums devoted to invalid soldiers and sailors. The qualification is so plain and intelligible, that the doors ought to be shut against none who are possessed of it; and the comforts of the institution can never increase the number of applicants. Their being nursed in the public asylums with the same domestic care and comfort, as are to be found in the homes of persons in the same class of life, and indulged in repose, and some even of the whims of old age, will undoubtedly somewhat enhance the charge, that is to say, so far as it might prolong lives, that otherwise might fall a sacrifice to wretchedness; but this is the utmost increase of charge; and it is one, that neither patriotism nor humanity will grudge.

The houses of industry, that are multiplying so rapidly in America, Holland, Germany, and France, are noble and excellent institutions of public benevolence. They are designed to provide all persons of sound health with work according to their respective capacities; some of them are open to any workman out of employ, that chooses to apply; others are a kind of houses of correction, where vagrants, beggars, and offenders, are kept to work for fixed periods. Convicts have sometimes been set to hard labour in their respective vocations, during their confinement; whereby the public has been wholly or partially relieved from the charge of keeping up gaols, and a method contrived for reforming the morals of the criminals, and rendering them a blessing, instead of a curse, to society.

Indeed, such establishments can hardly be reckoned among the items of public charge; for, the moment their production equals their consumption, they are no longer an incumbrance to any body. They are of immense benefit in a dense population, where, amidst the vast variety of occupations, some must unavoidably be in a state of temporary inaction. The perpetual shiftings of commerce, the introduction of new processes, the withdrawing of capital from a productive concern, accidental fire, or other calamity, may throw numbers out of employment; and the most deserving individual may, without any fault of his own, be reduced to the extreme of want. In these institutions, he is sure of earning at least a subsistence, if not in his own line, in one of a similar description.

The grand obstacle to such establishments is, the great outlay of capital they require. They are adventures of industry, and as such must be provided with a variety of tools, implements, and machines, besides raw material of different kinds to work upon. Before they can be said to maintain themselves, they must earn enough to pay the interest of the capital embarked, as well as their current expenses.

The favour shown them by the public authority, in the gratuitous supply of the capital and buildings, and in many other particulars, would make them interfere with private undertakings, were they not subject, on the other hand, to some peculiar disadvantages. They are obliged to confine their operations to such kinds of work, as sort with the feebleness and general inferiority in skill of the inmates, and can not direct them to such as may be most in demand. Moreover, it is in most of them a matter of regulation and police, to lay by always the third or fourth part of the labourer's wages or earnings, as a capital to set him up, on his quitting the establishment: this is an excellent precaution, but prevents their working at such cheap rates, as to drive all competition out of the market.

Although the honour, attached to the direction and management of institutions of public benevolence, will generally attract the gratuitous service of the affluent and respectable part of the community, yet, when the duties become numerous and laborious, they are commonly discharged by gratuitous administrators with the most unfeeling negligence. It was probably by no means wise, to subject all the hospitals of Paris to a general superintendence. At London, each hospital is separately administered; and the whole are managed with more economy and attention in consequence. A laudable emulation is thereby excited amongst the managers of rival establishments; which affords an additional proof of the practicability and benefit of competition in the business of public administration.