A bottom To give to him that asketh is, to the average man, much easier than to turn away his face either from beggar or borrower. Is the easier also the better way? This question raises problems both of conduct and of theory, which cannot be lightly dismissed. We are considering, be it remembered, how wealth, in the interests of the whole community, can be most advantageously used. Alike from the economic and the ethical standpoint the idea of stewardship is fundamental: the good citizen and the good man is therefore constrained to employ that which is legally his own, for the common benefit. His giving, no less than his spending, must always be governed by this dominant principle. How will he translate it into practice? No purse, even the longest, is bottomless. Consequently less purse? the giver, even the most cheerful, is bound to reflect that every penny which he gives is drawn from one of two sources. It may, on the one hand, be subtracted from his own unproductive expenditure upon personal luxuries. If that is the case, and as long as it is the case, the charitable impulse may, so far as the interests of the community are concerned, be indulged safely and without limit. It matters nothing whether a particular shilling is unproductively spent by A or by B; by the inhabitant of a mansion in Berkeley Square or the occupant of a bed in a Salvation Army shelter. The beggar may even spend it more productively than the millionaire, and in that case the community will be the gainer. On the other hand, it is possible that the charitable expenditure of the rich man may be withdrawn not from the fund set aside for personal expenditure but from that which is intended for the augmentation of capital. We have, indeed, assumed that the faithful steward will have already restricted his personal expenditure within the narrowest possible limits. On that assumption, every shilling given in charity will be withdrawn from potential savings, and in that case the question necessarily obtrudes itself, Which is the better way? Which of the two methods-that of charity, or that of augmentation of the capital fund out of which as we have seen wages are, at any rate in the first instance, paid -is likely to be more permanently helpful to those whom the charitable person desires to help? The only perfectly safe rule is that charities should constitute a charge upon the funds set aside for personal expenses. In that case, whatever be the results upon giver and recipient respectively, there will be little danger of injury to the community. Relief. It is, however, impossible to consider the problem of Poor charity without some reference to the very large sums which are now taken in the form of taxes and rates out of the pockets of individuals for the relief of the poor, and for various forms of what is now officially termed 'Public Assistance'. The aggregate amount so expended has, in recent years, increased with appalling rapidity. On Poor Relief alone over £39,000,000 was expended in Great Britain out of rates in 1921-2. In 1701 the amount expended (in England and Wales) was less than £1,000,000. In 1802 it was something over £4,000,000, and in 1901 about £11,500,000. Taken by themselves, these figures might not, in view of the increase of population, give rise to any special apprehension, but since 1901 the legislature has been busy on the work of social reform, with schemes for the improvement, in a multitude of directions, of the condition of the poorer classes. It might, therefore, have been anticipated that the growth of expenditure upon Public Assistance would have been reflected in the diminution of expenditure on pauperism. The institution of a comprehensive scheme of health insurance and of a large scheme of unemployment insurance; the imposition upon employers of a legal liability to compensate their workmen for injuries arising out of their employment; a scheme of old age pensions; above all, the provision of education gratuitously for all classes who choose to avail themselves of it-reforms which touch the life of the poor at so many important points-might have been expected, and were, in fact, commended to Parliament in the hope and expectation that they would tend to diminish, if not extinguish, the expenditure on pauperism. Public The results have been, in this regard, profoundly disassistance. appointing. In 1891 the expenditure on public education for Great Britain was about £11,500,000; on poor relief about £9,500,000. In 1921 the expenditure on education amounted to over £106,000,000; that on poor relief, as we have seen, to nearly £40,000,000. It is now reckoned that after every reasonable deduction has been made, after excluding about £90,000,000 per annum paid for war pensions, a sum of about £200,000,000 per annum, an amount equal to the total national expenditure before the war, is now expended by the State and local authorities upon various forms of Public Assist The State Charity. ance. The bearing of these facts upon the problem under disand Public cussion in this chapter need hardly be emphasized. They mean that every man, who could be reasonably described as rich, is to-day contributing, under compulsion it is true, but none the less contributing, perhaps one-fifth of his total income to various objects which may fairly be described as charitable'. The poor man is also, of course, contributing, but for reasons to be explained presently the amount of his contribution is less easily computed; and, further, he is not only a contributor but a recipient. Yet the question still remains whether the conscientious steward should regard himself as thereby absolved from the Christian duty of alms-giving. The demands of the tax-collector and the rate-collector do not, of course, exhaust his charitable obligations. He is, in addition, called upon to contribute to the support, almost certainly of voluntary hospitals, probably of various activities connected with the religious denomination to which he may belong, as well as to the social recreations enjoyed by his poorer neighbours in the form of games, allotment associations, and what not. There can be few persons among the classes liable to the full rate of income-tax who are not called upon to pay out at least a fourth of their income in voluntary or compulsory assistance to their neighbours. This is, be it noted, exclusive of that portion of their taxes and rates which may properly be regarded as a form of insurance for their own persons and property, the expenditure upon defence, the maintenance of public order, the promotion of public health, and similar objects. Yet the warning voice cannot be ignored. When ye Stewardshall have done all the things that are commanded you, ship. say We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which it was our duty to do.' 'Stewardship', says one of the most level-headed of modern ethical teachers, 'is not mere shrewdness, or enterprise, or success; it is the superadded and uncommercial fidelity which discovers among the interests of Mammon an opportunity for the generous and personal service of God. A business man may so administer his affairs that they shall be either a social peril or a social advantage, an obstruction to the general welfare or a channel of Christian benevolence. If the business principles to which one conforms are honourable; if his dealings with his employés are just, consistent, and personal; if his prosperity brings reward to all concerned in procuring it; if his adversity is shared by employer with employed, and the distinction of hands and head is merged in the corporate responsibility of allsuch a person may not be known as a philanthropist but merely as a working-man with whom one wants to work, and his stewardship may not be charity in its technical sense, and may, indeed, lose much of its worth if it becomes tainted with the patronage or condescension of charity. Yet, even if such conscientiousness in business is not charity, it at least makes unnecessary much of what is known as charity, and corrects, in its own sphere, those derangements of the business world which bring as their consequences poverty and the need of its relief. Thus the roots of charity lie in the larger problem of the industrial order, and the most unquestionable and most effective philanthropy is to be found in industrial justice, progress, and peace. The doctrine of stewardship does not exclude other ways of caring for the poor, but it lays as the foundation of judicious charity the scrupulous adminis tration of one's own business as a contribution to the kingdom of God.'1 To some more ardent and more generous spirits the argument of this chapter may have seemed inhuman, coldblooded, over-calculated. It may be so; but the duty of the economist seems to be clear: to analyse the facts with such accuracy as he can, and to leave it to those who are responsible for the conduct of their own lives to draw such deductions as they may. They will, however, do well constantly to bear in mind the fundamental truth, that, though the nimble sixpence may do the work of the slow shilling, neither the sixpence nor the shilling can be spent twice over unless it is spent reproductively. In still plainer English, unless it is saved. 1 Peabody, op. cit., p. 85. |