SWISS LIGHTS ON THE TRAMP QUESTION. (The Spectator.)'

Otago Witness, Issue 2650, 28 December 1904, Page 34

SWISS LIGHTS ON THE TRAMP QUESTION. (The Spectator.)'

Louise Michel may very possibly have been right in declaring that the English poor law system had prevented the occurrence of social revolutions in this country ; I bat it has certa-lniy net prevented the per- ' sistence of a social residuum. It is doubtful whether the members of that classgenerally have a-iy sense of grievance against the rest of society, and. they are certainly without the energy or the solidarity necessary ro enable them to give subversive effect to a.ny such feeling. But none the less their presence where they are is a chronic source of evil of many kinds, and; though not of colkivive alarm, yet of a great amount of individual disquietude and apprehension. Not fcli'e well-to-do only, or ma-inly, suffer" from the anxieties due to the constant circulation, of tramps along all the high roads and very many of the by-roads of- the kingdom. In. hundreds, and even thousands, of humble homes what i should be the peace a.nd security of rural j 1 life is often marred by the fear of the appearance of these sinister visitants. Very t many, perhaps the larger number, of them J are free from actual taint of criminal teni dencies ; but, unfortunately, so considerable j a proportion of the vagrant class is disi tinetly predatory as to give their visits to j solitary cottages, and their applications to pedestrians, when no able-bodied men or dogs are within hail, a very generally blackmailing quality. They a-re a constant source of trouble and annoyance to Poor Law Guardians all over the country, and in times of hard weather and bad trade- they seriously aggravate the "unemployed-" difficulty by pressing into- districts where ! special relief is being given on any considerable scale. A year ago the subject was brought, as one of growing and really urgent importance, before Mr Walter Long by a weighty deputation. Looking abroad, lie recognised that tbe problem had been grappled with to some purpose in Switzerland, and Issi spring hs conuniisionsd Mr

' H. Preston-Thomas, one of the in-sp^ctora of the Local Government Board, to mako inquiry into the methods tor the suppression of mendicity and vagabondage in operation in that country. The result is a, report well deserving of attention. Essentially, the Swiss practice — though, there is a good deal of variation in the laws of different cantons — consists in discrimination, so far as wanderers are concerned, between the work-seekers and (to use the expressive term officially employed) the " work-shy," and in the application tothem of totally distinct methods of treatment. The former are in several important ways aided in their search. If, that is to say, an able-bodied man is without moans, is genuinely on the look-out for honesc employment, and his papers are in, order,. h& will, on application, be supplied with food ard lodging, either by the police or by the agents of an originally, and still ■ largely, voluntary association known as tne Inter-Cantonal Union for the Relief of Poor Travellers, and will, if possible, hay& work indicated ro him. The Inter-Cantonal Union has spread from small beginnings over more than half the area and population of Switzerland, now covering 14 (out of 22) cantons, " whose Governments, in effect, delegate to it part of the administration of r&lief, while the Federal Administration recognises its official character by giving it certain rights of free post-age, etc." It supplies every suitable applicant with a " traveller's relief book," in which bis name, age, and occupation are entered. Armed with this, with valid "papers of legitimation," and with duly certified evidence that he has worked for an employer within the three preceding months, ami that at least five days ha-ve elapsed since, such employment cease-d. he will I>3 furnished at/ any office' connected with the ■ Inter-Cantonal Union with breakfast, dinner, supper, and lodging. No taskwhat- , ever is exacted from the person thus re- • li&ved. He has his whole day in which to look for employment; and we gatbe-r that the agents of the union, and the police at whose- stations the relief offices- of the union are commonly situated, are ready to give any information in their possession, as to work that is going on in the neighbourhood. So far as the union is con^ ce-rned, its relief is only given once during six months tc the same traveller at the same station, so that there may be no temptation to the "work-shy" to loiter about, posing as the unsuccessful work-seeker. .But in the canton, of Zurich there are 51 " relict offiee3 belonging to th© union ; further, the Zurich (City) Voluntary K«uet Society, which, acts m co-operation with the union, is apparently prepared, if satisfied aa to the genuineness of a poor traveller s desire for work, to give relief for more than one day, and in cases where there is clear assiirance of such work being obtainable elsewhere, even to send him thither by rail. Altogether, it appears that over a largepart of Switzerland- there is an. intelligent and b&neficent co-operation. between organised private charity' and the public - authorities for the* enforcement of the principle that both for humanitarian and " economic reasons the mobility of genuizr© work-je-ekero* oughb to be facilitated and encouraged*. That having been provided for, the way is clear for the treatment on quite different, ■ though also on quite humane, lines' of the ,l, l "' work-shy." nearly every canton has one or more forced-labour institutions to which persons are committed by. the councils of their' respective districts for habitual drunkenness, or failure- to support themselvts and their families, or by the police oourt3 for vagrancy (or wandering from place to place without, means- and without the object of obtaining: honest employment). i These institutions, no doubt, vary in regard ! to t-hedr mana.ge.ment, and to the moral and | economic results which they can show. Mr 1 Preston-Thomas speaks of one at Witzwyl belonging- to the canton ot Berne as appeari ing to be. "in various respects admirably successful " It cccupf-es an area- of some. , 2000 acres of what used' to- b& mainly waterlogged la,nd at the north-east end of th& i .Lake of Neuchatel. A large part of thi* , land has been, reclaimed, and is producing 1 . abundant crops. The sales of farm produceare steadily l-ising, and "it is not unreasonable to. suppose that the worth of the estate ■ luw been raised m a correspondingr degree," and if interest on the first i capital outlay is disregarded, the- "esfcibi lrafhmenfc is really self-supporting." Th«. j management seems to be conducted on. • thoroughly humane principles, which are» ; illustrated by the fact that the officers in ' charge of the inmates employed in field; ;vjwork are unarmed, and that only abouti three or four case* of absconding (among150 innaarfces) c<?cur annually. There areworkshops where tailoring, shoema-king, ana other trades are- carried on by men, but !- only- by men. brought up to them. 'The ] manager-, an able, enlightened person, seems i to speak modestly, but hopefully, of the • moral resulte. He lays stress on the prin- , ciple which is in operation at Witzwyl. of , the officers working with the inmates, and i encouraging them by their example-, instead jof merely standing over them as tasK- . masters. We cannot but think that thoj moral- results of this interesting, establish- ;• ment, and perhaps of others of a similar ; character,, may be unfavourably affected by ! ffe e ,fact that merely vagrants and " work- ! shy inmates are in the same institution, i with men criminally convicted. Efforts are- . made to- keep the two classes apart, but we should imagine thrt this must be diffi- • cult to secure, and that in some cases it .is not secured. Discrimination among classes of poorhouse inmates, again, dees not seam to be carried so far In Switzerland as in well-ordered English workhouses. But these are matters of detailed administration. The principle of the detention for long periods of tramps works well in Switzerland in respect of clearing the country of those pests ; they certainly get • a chance, by being steadily emnloyed °in healthy and interesting oc-cupationsj of losingtheir " work-shyness " ; while, as has been pointed out, true work-seekers are aided and encouraged. There must certainly bemuch for us to learn from such a system and it is to be hoped that the lessons wilt , be laid to heart here both by administrators and legislators.

—In Yucatan > Central America, sistersdress precisely alike, even to the tying of a. bo<\v. the turn of a button,, or the flower in the hair. In the tropics large families are: the role, and any day you may see in the country girls in groups of from threo to a baker's dozen, vrho belong to the same family, as their clothes will show. It is easy thus to distinguish the- members of a ' family anywhere, and not infrequently th© sisters are called % theix favourite fiewsr or colour.