These may be looked upon as intermediate stages in the development of the general problem of relief, and they are naturally stages of perplexity and incomplete adjustment. The idea of charity, attractive and inspiring at one stage of social development, becomes in time obnoxious, and as a permanent element in the relation between classes, it becomes an anomaly. Religion no longer lends its sanc tion to all acts prompted by the charitable impulse. Larger tasks are now suggested for the state, bearing some resemblance to the modest measures for the relief of dis tress formerly undertaken, but differing in so many ways and resting upon such new premises, that they alienate, rather than attract, those who have been most completely identified with the traditional distribution of relief. Charitable people, as John Stuart Mill pointed out over half a century ago, "have human infirmities, and would very often be secretly not a little dissatisfied if no one needed their charity ; it is from them one oftenest hears the base doctrine, that God has decreed there shall always be poor." The inquiry arises as to whether relief cannot take a larger and more useful place in the life of the community, whether it cannot be made the means by which society will distribute with a nearer approach to equity the burdens which fall upon individuals through social and industrial changes, from which the community as a whole derives great advantage ; whether, moreover, relief meas ures cannot be devised of sufficient magnitude and effi ciency to enable society to eradicate completely great evils with which it has heretofore temporized ; whether particular social problems, such as those arising from im migration, congested population, war, public disaster, and even industrial displacement, cannot be dealt with com prehensively and intelligently with a view to the total elimination of the bad conditions.
Business, domestic life, religion, and education has each its recognized and definite place in the social economy. Education, for example, is recognized as the means through which society passes on from one genera tion to another the accumulated results of civilization ; the means by which the workers of each generation are trained, at least up to the point of efficiency of their im mediate ancestors, and their capacity for further progress, if possible, increased. Relief may eventually come to be recognized as equally entitled to serious consideration, and to a definite place in our permanent social arrangements.
The relief policy of the community might then be defined in terms as definite as those by which we describe the educational processes. By wisely formulated relief measures, society would transfer to the community as a whole, certain of the burdens naturally imposed upon in dividuals by industrial progress. The community would no longer permit its weakest members to suffer vicariously that others might gain. Industrial changes from which the community as a whole profits eventually, displace skilled labor that has been a source of adequate income to the worker and his family, but under the new conditions is so no longer. A sound relief policy would seek out from among the families that become dependent as a result of such changes those who suffer most severely, and put them as nearly as possible in a position as eligible as that from which they were displaced.
Diseases due to unsanitary conditions, or to social causes beyond the reach of the individual, will be more effectively guarded against, and when they cannot be prevented, the expense and loss of income will be borne by relief agencies, public or private ; and the aim of all such agencies will be the speedy restoration of the individual to a position of complete support. Diseases which are distinctly social in
character, i.e. communicable, curable, and preventable, will be attacked with increased vigor and confidence.
Scientific discoveries are often, perhaps usually, essential preliminaries to the adoption of adequate relief measures. For example, the discovery of the method by which yellow fever is propagated, enabled the Military Government in Cuba, in 1901, to adopt remedial measures, as a result of which the island was freed from the scourge of yellow fever in an incredibly short time, although for two hundred years it had never been entirely absent. The development of aseptic surgery has prevented the greater part of the loss of life formerly resulting from gunshot wounds and accidents of various kinds. Increased knowledge concerning the communicability and curability of tuber culosis will similarly, assuming sensible and adequate relief policies, reduce the death-rate from this most dreaded disease.
Although scientific knowledge is a preliminary, it is not a substitute for relief. In many instances, as in the case of tuberculosis at present, there is a wide gap between the existing state of scientific knowledge and the practical results in social welfare. This gap may not infrequently be bridged by judicious relief measures, and often it is impossible to bridge it by any other means. Instead of a mere dole given by the casual stranger whose easily excitable sympathies are moved by the sight of physical suffering, and who hopes for increased public esteem and for religious reward as a result of his action, relief has be come a large social policy, resting, as in the beginning, upon benevolence in its true sense, a desire for the good of others ; and upon philanthropy, a regard for fellow-man : but taking the form of genuine beneficence which is the accomplishing of good, as distinct from well-wishing ; and upon a democratic and social sentiment, which is the best of all forms of philanthropy.
In a progressive society industrial changes are likely to be made with great rapidity, and the number of per sons who find themselves stranded because there is no longer a market demand for the particular skill which they possess is therefore likely to be larger than in a stable community, where changes are The 1 Such a family was that of the Italian, Attila Rossi, described on page 218, an architectural draughtsman, who, in spite of his handicap in mental and physical strain upon the individual members of a complex and progressive community is also likely to be greater than under primitive conditions. As a conse quence, health will frequently be endangered and the physical constitution undermined. Excessive demands may be made upon individuals, such as could safely be borne after a period of complete adjustment, but in the interval much hardship may be entailed upon those whose capacities and acquirements are least quickly modified to meet the new conditions. Rapid industrial and social changes are likely to be accompanied by a shifting of population, reducing the strength of family ties, and in creasing the extent to which the individual members of a community, when they become dependent, must rely upon the community as a whole, rather than upon their imme diate relatives, for relief.