New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-12-03
WORTHLESS WORKERS. IN GERuAEE.

Mr.. Balfour has been generally commended-
even by his American critics, who are the most
severe Of alI-for his reply to the deputation Of
the unemployed. He was asked to provide work
or some means of support for them all, az the
charge of the nation. He replied that while ne
sympathized deeply with them in their distress
he did not conceive it to be the duty of the state
to exercise such functions as those which they
demanded Socialists will, of course, quarrel with
him for that reply; but scarcely anybody else
will and the governments Of great states are not
vet conducted upon socialstic lines, The policies
of governments vary, but none has yet estab-
Hshed the principle that the state owes every
man living. In Germany, where socialism IS
most highly organized and most Influential and
where the government has for many years sought
to combat it by the exercise of some paternal
functions closely resembling those Of the social
istic Utopia, there is no attempt to deal nation
ally with the problem of the unemployed. In
Individual municipalities, however, the problem
has been taken in hand in characteristic pracu-
cal German fashion, with means and ends which
may be profitable for instruction or suggestion to
other cities in other lands.
Down to less than q score Of years ago no pro-,
vision was made for the unemployed save the
meagre charity of the poor law but since then
the idea has been growing that communities can
do something with such men better than pauper-
izing them and that while the community may
be under no obligation to provide them with
work It may be to its practical advantage to do
so for it can secure itself better class of citi-
zens by making them self-supporhng than by
making them temporary paupers, and It can at
the same time get necessary public works per-
formed at moderate cost In many cities the
bulk of digging for drains and sewers the level
ling and grading of land, the construction of
waterworks the laying out and perfecting of
marks and the breaking Of stone and building of
roads is done by men who cannot find employ
ment at their regular trades and who turn to
the municipal authorities for aid They not
tramps or Migrants sent to the workhouse or
the chain gang. They are honest and indus
trious workmen who happen for the time to be
out of work The community gives them work
at low wages, not because it IS under any obliga-
lion to do so, but because 1t is good policy to do
so from the points Of view of citizenship and of
public economy.
Care is indeed generally taken to discriminate
among applicants in favor of the most worthy
Thus in Frankfort on Main where many men are
so employed, the applicant to be successful
must be a resident of that city must be the
| head of a family, must have been regularly
employed In that city for six months preced-
| ing and must not have been In receipt Of re-
lief from the poor fund. In Darmstadt and
Mulhausen he must be out of work for no fault
| of his own. In many cities he must not have
| got out of employment through strike. Some
places refuse to employ men who are not physi-
| cally sound, and others draw q line against
men who have ever been in prison. AS for the
wages, there Is practically universal agreement
In making them somewhat lower than the pre-
| vailing rate" That is largely In order to dis
| courage men from seeking public employment
and settling down to it permanently, and to in
cite them to regard it q temporary makeshift
and TO look out for permanent work elsewhere
It is also intended to enforce the principle that
men who are thus employed for their own relief
should not get enough TO enable them to save
anything out of it. but merely to support their
| families and themselves until they can get into
/ something else and better. OF course, there are
some extreme advocates of IGisses faire who dis
| approve even so much public Intervention In IN
| dustrial conditions, and there are many social
lists who contend that these German cities do not
! go nearly far enough In that direction. Thus
far. however, the impartial observer Will prob
ably conclude that the system has in general