The Relief for the Unemployed

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THE RELIEF FOR THE UNEMPLOYED.

We have several communications before us on the subject of the contributions made at the meetings which have been held recently for the purpose of raising funds wherewith to relieve the distress of the unemployed poor during the coming winter.

One of these letters points out, in a manner only too convincing, the disparity between the relief likely to be afforded and the distress likely to be experienced. The writer estimates that not more than ten thousand dollars will probably be collected. He estimates the number of unemployed in the Eastern District at two thousand, and allowing an average of four persons to be dependent upon the labor of each of these, reckons that a total of ten thousand persons in our midst are cut off from their ordinary sources of support. The probable relief then amounts to one dollar per head: less than sufficient to supply the necessities of a single week of those in need of relief. This estimate is not put forward as a strictly accurate one, but as a ground for the assertion, that the probable amount of eleemosynary aid must fall ridiculously short of meeting the exigency which it is designed to remedy.

Having thus shown that the direct relief to the unemployed by means of charitable contributions must be altogether inadequate to the occasion, our correspondent urges that the same amount of money, otherwise employed, may go much further towards meeting the end in view. He suggests that the money raised by subscription might be invested in the purchase of a loan, the money borrowed to be again loaned, on good security, without interest, to such of our manufacturing establishments as have suspended, so as to enable them to resume work.

It seems to us, however, that there are fatal objections to this plan, feasible as it may appear. In the first place, the money is not to be had, at least on reasonable terms. And also—and here is the secret of the trouble—there is no demand for the products of the manufactories, even if they recommenced working. There is now an oversupply of all articles of luxury, and of many necessary articles as well, and there can be no general resumption of work until the existing stocks of manufactured articles are consumed, and a demand arises for more. Then, and not until then, will manufacture be resumed, and a market found for goods. While watches and piano fortes are no longer purchased, but continue as a drag on the hands of the store keeper, it would be the height of folly for a manufacturer of either of these articles to resume work, even if he could raise money to pay his men’s wages.

Another correspondent suggests extensive building operations as a remedy for the want of work. But the same objections present themselves here, beside the additional one of the unfavorable season. Money cannot be had for any purpose, and least of all to build houses, which there is no immediate prospect of getting inhabitants for.

It is unquestionably true that a man in work benefits society by his labor, over and above the wages he receives, while out of work he is a burden to society; and it follows from this that it is cheaper in every sense to supply the laborer with work than with charitable aid. But the work must be of a kind that there exists an immediate demand for, or else in the nature of things capitalists cannot afford to advance their money upon it.