第91章 ASSISTANCE IN GENERAL.(4)

We register him,and an employer comes along who wants a carpenter whom we can recommend.We at once suggest this man,but then arises this difficulty.He has no tools;what are we to do?As things are at present,the man loses the job and continues on our hands.Obviously it is most desirable in the interest of the community that the man should get his tools out of pawn;but who is to take the responsibility of advancing the money to redeem them?This difficulty might be met,I think,by the man entering into a legal undertaking to make over his wages to us,or such proportion of them as would be convenient to his circumstances,we in return undertaking to find him in food and shelter until such time as he has repaid the advance made.That obligation it would be the truest kindness to enforce with Rhadamantine severity.

Until the man is out of debt he is not his own master.All that he can make over his actual rations and Shelter money should belong to his creditor.Of course such an arrangement might be varied indefinitely by private agreement;the repayment of instalments could be spread ever a longer or shorter time,but the mainstay of the whole principle would be the execution of a legal agreement by which the man makes over the whole product of his labour to the Bank until he has repaid,his debt.

Take another instance.A clerk who has been many years in a situation and has a large family,which he has brought up respectably and educated.He has every prospect of retiring in a few years upon a superannuating allowance,but is suddenly confronted by a claim often through no fault of his own,of a sum of fifty or a hundred pounds,which is quite beyond his means.He has been a careful saving man,who has never borrowed a penny in his life,and does not know where to turn in his emergency.If he can not raise this money he will be sold up,his family will be scattered,his situation and his prospective pension will be lost,and blank ruin will stare him in the face.

Now,were he in receipt of an income of ten times the amount,he would probably have a banking account,and,in consequence,be able to secure an advance of all he needed from his banker.Why should he not be able to pledge his salary,or a portion of it,to an Institution which would enable him to pay off his debt,on terms that,while sufficiently remunerative to the bank,would not unduly embarrass him?

At present what does the poor wretch do?He consults his friends,who,it is quite possible,are as hard up as himself,or he applies to some loan agency,and as likely as not falls into the hands of sharpers,who indeed,let him have the money,but at interest altogether out of proportion to the risk which they run,and use the advantage which their position gives them to extort every penny he has.A great black book written within and without in letters of lamentation,mourning,and woe might be written on the dealings of these usurers with their victims in every land.

It is of little service denouncing these extortioners.They have always existed,and probably always will;but what we can do is to circumscribe the range of their operations and the number of their victims.This can only be done by a legitimate and merciful provision for these poor creatures in their hours of desperate need,so as to prevent their falling into the hands of these remorseless wretches,who have wrecked the fortunes of thousands,and driven many a decent man to suicide or a premature grave.

There are endless ramifications of this principle,which do not need to be described here,but before leaving the subject I may allude to an evil which is a cruel reality,alas!to a multitude of unfortunate men and women.I refer to the working of the Hire System.The decent poor man or woman who is anxious to earn an honest penny by the use of,it may be a mangle,or a sewing-machine,a lathe,or some other indispensable instrument,and is without the few pounds necessary to buy it,must take it on the Hire System--that is to say,for the accommodation of being allowed to pay for the machine by instalments--he is charged,in addition to the full market value of his purchase,ten or twenty times the amount of what would be a fair rate of interest,and more than this if he should at any time,through misfortune,fail in his payment,the total amount already paid will be confiscated,the machine seized,and the money lost.

Here again we fall back on our analogy of what goes on in a small community where neighbours know each other.Take,for instance,when a lad who is recognised as bright,promising,honest,and industrious,who wants to make a start in life which requires some little outlay,his better-to-do neighbour will often assist him by providing the capital necessary to enable him to make a way for himself in the world.

The neighbour does this because he knows the lad,because the family is at least related by ties of neighbourhood,and the honour of the lad's family is a security upon which a man may safely advance a small sum.

All this would equally apply to a destitute widow,an artizan suddenly thrown out of work,an orphan family,or the like.In the large City all this kindly helpfulness disappears,and with it go all those small acts of service which are,as it were,the buffers which save men from being crushed to death against the iron walls of circumstances.We must try to replace them in some way or other if we are to get back,not to the Garden of Eden,but to the ordinary conditions of life,as they exist in a healthy,small community.No institution,it is true,can ever replace the magic bond of personal friendship,but if we have the whole mass of Society permeated in every direction by brotherly associations established for the purpose of mutual help and sympathising counsel,it is not an impossible thing to believe that we shall be able to do something to restore the missing element in modern civilisation.

SECTION 4.--THE POOR MAN'S LAWYER.