Chapter XIV: Section V: Social Service (2)

The hope of the monk is deferred, and it seems as if it were the leaders and not the spirit of the people which is to secure social reform. The question therefore presses itself whether the best social reformers are the philanthropists. Specialists always make a show of activity, but such a show is often the cover of widely spread indolence. Specialists in religion--the ecclesiastics--were never more active than when during the fifteenth century they built churches and restored the cathedrals, but underneath this activity was the popular indifference which almost immediately woke to take vengeance on such leaders. Specialists in social reform to-day--the philanthropists--raise great schemes, but many of their supporters are at heart indifferent. It really saves them trouble to create societies and to make laws. It is easier to subscribe money--even to sit on a committee--than to help one’s own neighbour. It is easier to promote Socialism than to be a Socialist. Activity in social reform movements may be covering popular indifference, and there is already a sign of the vengeance which awakened indifference may take in the cry dimly heard, “Curse your charity”.

Better, it may be agreed, than great schemes--voluntary or legal--is the individual service of men and women who, putting heart and mind into their efforts, and co-operating together, take as their motto “One by One”; but again the same question presses itself in another form: Should the individual who aspires to serve his generation separate himself from the ordinary avocations of Society, and become a visitor or teacher? Should the business man divide his social reforming self from his business self, and keep, as he would say, his charity and his business apart?

The world is rich in examples of devoted men and women who have given up pleasure and profit to serve others’ needs. The modern Press gives every day news of both the benefactions and the good deeds of business men who, as business men, think first, not of the kingdom of heaven, but of business profits. This specialization of effort--as the specialization of a class--has its good results; but is it the best, the only way of social reform? Is it not likely to narrow the heart of the good-doer and make him overkeen about his own plan? Will not the charity of a stranger, although it be designed in love and be carried out with thought, almost always irritate? Is it not the conception of society, which assumes one class dependent on the benevolence of another class, mediæval rather than modern? Can limbs which are out of joint be made to work smoothly by any application of oil and not by radical resetting? Is it reasonable that business men should look to cure with their gifts the injuries they have inflicted in their business, that they should build hospitals and give pensions out of profits drawn from the rents of houses unfit for human habitation, and gained from wages on which no worker could both live and look forward to a peaceful old age? Is it possible for a human being to divide his nature so as to be on the one side charitable and on the other side cruel?

The question therefore as to the best Social Reformer, still waits an answer. Before attempting an answer it may be as well to glance at the moral causes to which social friction is attributed. Popular belief assumed that the designed selfishness of classes or of individuals lies at the root of every trouble. Bitter and fiery words are therefore spoken. Capitalists suspect the aspiring tyranny of trade unions to be compassing their ruin, workmen talk of the other classes using “their powers as selfish and implacable enemies of their rights”. Rich people incline to assume that the poor have designs on their property, and the poor suspect that every proposal of the rich is for their injury. The philosophy of life is very simple. “Every one seeketh reward,” and the daily Press gives ample evidence as to the way every class acts on that philosophy. But nevertheless experience reveals the good which is in every one. Mr. Galsworthy in his play, “The Silver Box,” pictures the conflict between rich and poor, between the young and the old. The pain each works on the other is grievous, there is hardness of heart and selfishness, but the reflection left by the play is not that anyone designed the pain of the other, but that for want of thought each misunderstood the other, and each did the wrong thing.

The family whose members are so smugly content with the virtue which has secured wealth and comfort, whose charities are liberally supported, and kindness frequently done, where hospitality is ready, would feel itself unfairly charged if it were abused because it lived on abuses, and opposed any change which might affect the established order. The labour agitator, on the other hand, feels himself unfairly charged when he is attacked as designing change for his own benefit and accused of enmity because of his strong language. It may be that his words do mischief, but in his heart he is kindly and generous. There are criminals in every class, rich men who prey on poor men, and poor men who prey on rich men, but the criminal class is limited and the mass of men do not intend evil. The chief cause of social friction is, it may be said, not designed selfishness so much as the want of moral thoughtfulness. The rogue of the piece is not the criminal, but--you--I--every one.

The recognition of this fact suggests that the best Social Reformer is not the philanthropist or the politician so much as the man or the woman who brings moral thoughtfulness into every act and relation of daily life.

There is abundance of what may be called financial thoughtfulness, and people take much pains, not always with success--to inquire into the soundness of their investments and the solvency of their debtors. The Social Reformer who feels the obligation of moral thoughtfulness will take as much pains to inquire whether his profits come by others’ loss. He may not always succeed, but he will seek to know if the workers employed by his capital receive a living wage and are protected from the dangers of their trade. He will look to it that his tenants have houses which ought to make homes.

There is much time spent in shopping, and women take great pains to learn what is fashionable or suited to their means. If they were morally thoughtful they would take as much pains to learn what sweated labour had been used so that things might be cheap; what suffering others had endured for their pleasure. They might not always succeed, but the fact of seeking would have its effect, and they would help to raise public opinion to a greater sense of responsibility.

Pleasure-seekers are proverbially free-handed, they throw their money to passing beggars, they patronize any passing show which promises a moment’s amusement; greater moral thoughtfulness would not prevent their pleasure, but it would prevent them from making children greedy, so that they might enjoy the fun of watching a scramble, and from listening to songs or patronizing shows which degrade the performer. Gwendolen, in George Eliot’s “Daniel Deronda,” did not realize that the cruelty of gambling is taking profit by another’s loss, and so she laid the foundation of a tragedy. Pleasure-seekers who make the same mistake are responsible for some of the tragedies which disturb society.

The Social Reformers who will do most to fit together the jarring joints of Society are, therefore, the man and woman who, without giving up their duties or their business, who without even taking up special philanthropic work are morally thoughtful as to their words and acts. They are, in old language, they who are in the world and not of the world. If any one says that such moral thoughtfulness spells bankruptcy, there are in the examples of business men and manufacturers a thousand answers, but reformers who have it in mind to lead the world right do not begin by asking as to their own reward. It is enough for them that as the ills of society come not from the acts of criminals who design the ills, but from the thousand and million unconsidered acts of men and women who pass as kindly and respectable people, they on their part set themselves to consider every one of their acts in relation to others’ needs.

The real Social Reformer is therefore the business man, the customer, the pleasure-seeker, who in his pursuits thinks first of the effect of those pursuits on the health and wealth of his partners in such pursuits. The spirit of moral thoughtfulness widely spread among rich and poor, employers and employed, better than the power of any leader or of any law, will most surely set right a world which is out of joint.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

WHERE CHARITY FAILS.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

January, 1907.

[1] From “Pearson’s Weekly”. By permission of the Editor.

I do not think that anyone will dispute the fact that our charity, taken as a whole, is administered in a somewhat wasteful and haphazard fashion. At the same time, however, I question whether the public is alive to the full extent of the evil arising from the utter lack of system in our administration of charity.

For it is not merely the question of the waste of the public’s money, though that is bad enough; it is the far graver matter of the depreciation of our greatest national asset, character, by injudicious and indiscriminate philanthropy.

Owing to the absence of any supreme charitable board or authority, and the lack of co-operation between charitable bodies, it is very tempting to a poor man to tell a lie to draw relief from many sources. He gets his food and loses his character.

Indeed, I have no hesitation in saying that the present system directly encourages mendacity and mendicity, and, unless remedied, must inevitably affect the moral fibre of the nation.

The want of co-operation already alluded to is, of course, at the root of the evil, so far as waste of money is concerned, and I am often asked why charitable bodies will not co-operate. My answer is that it is very often a case of pride in results. Officials do not wish to share the credit of their work; they want to be able to claim to their subscribers that they have spent more money or relieved more cases than their rival round the corner, just as hospitals are led to regard the number of patients they treat as the criterion of their usefulness.

However, although I hold that hospitals might well extend their sphere from the cure to the prevention of disease, by taking more part in teaching people the laws of health and influencing them to keep such laws in their homes, I am not concerned with that question here, and mention hospitals only to introduce my first suggestion for charity reform.

The operations for the King’s Hospital Fund have shown what can be done to check waste by bringing about a saving of £20,000 a year in the hospitals’ bills for provisions, etc.

Until the King’s Hospital Fund was instituted there was no general knowledge of the comparative expenditure of hospitals on food, etc., with the result that some paid exorbitant prices for certain articles and some for others. The action of the King’s Fund has equalized expenditure, with the result I have stated.

Now it occurs to me that another board like the King’s Hospital Fund would be able to bring about a similar saving in the administration of other charities which now compete to the loss of money subscribed by the public for the public, and, as I have said, to the detriment of character.

Such a Board would check waste and extravagance engendered by competition, and it could be brought into being as swiftly and effectively as was the King’s Hospital Fund.

So much for an immediate measure, but I suggest as a more certain method that every twenty-five years or so there should be an inquiry by some authority, either national or local, into every philanthropic institution.

The terms of reference of such inquiry might be: firstly, the economic and business-like character of the management; secondly, the way in which co-operation was welcomed, and whether something more could not be done for further co-operation; and lastly, the institution might be tried by the standard of its usefulness to its surroundings. For, remember, every charity which really exists for the public good ought to test itself by this question, “Is our aim that of self-extinction?” The truest charity, that is to say, should aim to remove the causes, not the symptoms of evil.

But many shirk this self-inquisition, and linger on breeding mendicity, after their place has been taken by State or municipal organizations, or after they have ceased to fulfil any useful purpose.

It may be that this public authority I suggest would not at once effect very much, but a public inquiry provides facts for public opinion to work upon, and thus inevitably brings reform.

My final words, however, must again be as to the mischief liable to be done to character by thoughtless charity. People should think most carefully and solemnly before they give, lest they do more harm than good, and until our charity is properly organized and supervised, I fear that much money will be wasted on undeserving cases and in unnecessary and extravagant expenses of administration.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

LANDLORDISM UP TO DATE.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

August, 1912.

[1] From “The Westminster Gazette”. By permission of the Editor.

“The position of landlord and tenant is often one of opposing interests.” This remark from the first number of the “Record” of the Hampstead Garden Suburb must commend itself as true to all readers of the daily Press. The “Record,” however, in two most interesting articles, shows that with landlordism up to date it need no longer be true. The Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust, of which Mr. Alfred Lyttelton is president, and Mrs. S. A. Barnett hon. manager, is the landlord of 263 acres--shortly to be increased by another 400 acres, most of which will be worked in conjunction with the Co-Partnership Tenants. To meet the needs of the 25,000 people who will ultimately be housed on this unique estate the whole has been laid out with a view to the comfort of the people, including in the idea of “comfort” not only well-built houses with gardens, but also the opportunities for the interknowledge of various classes which alike enriches the minds of rich and poor. A visit to the estate suggests the multitudinous interests which have been considered. The houses are grouped around a central square, on which stand the church, the chapel, and the institute, and it is so planned that from the cottages at 5s. 6d. a week, as from the mansions with rentals of from £100 to £250 a year, the inhabitants alike enjoy beauty either of gardens, tree-planted streets, public open spaces, or glimpses over the distant country.

The Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust, as the leading article in the “Record” says, “has done what any other far-seeing and enlightened landlord has done,” with the difference that its pecuniary interest in the financial success of the scheme is limited by a self-obtained Act of Parliament to 5 per cent. In a summary, which it is well to quote, the doings of this up-to-date landlord are gathered together:--

“As a landlord the Trust has laid out and maintains the open
spaces, the tennis courts, the wall-less gardens with their
brilliant flowers, the restful nooks, the village green, which,
with the secluded woods, can be enjoyed in common by rich and
poor, simple and learned, young and old, sources of ‘joy in widest
commonalty spread’.

“As a landlord the Trust has given the sites for both the
Established Church and the Free Church, each standing on the
Central Square in equally prominent positions, worthy of the
beautiful buildings their respective organizations have erected.

“As a landlord the Trust has given the site for the elementary
school, and has spared no pains to obtain a building adapted to the
best and most carefully thought-out methods of modern education.

“As a landlord the Trust has built the first section of the
Institute, with the conviction that their hope of bringing into
friendly relations all classes of their tenants will be furthered
by the provision of a centre where residents and neighbours can be
drawn together by intellectual interests. Although the Institute
is not yet two years old, the Trust has already organized and
maintained many activities, a full report of which is to be found
in subsequent pages of the ‘Record’.

“As a landlord the Trust has built three groups of buildings which
they counted necessary towards the completion of their civic
ideal: (_a_) Staff cottages, so that the men employed on the estate
should be housed suitably and economically; (_b_) a group of homes
where the State-supported children and others needing care and
protection should live under suitable and adequate administration,
and share the privileges and pleasures of the suburb; (_c_)
motor-houses, with dwellings for the drivers, so that the richer
people may have their luxury, and the poorer their habitations near
their work.

“As a landlord the Trust conceives ideas for the public good
and presses them on companies and others in the hope of their
achievement. It was thus that the Improved Industrial Dwellings
Company, Limited, built (from Mr. Baillie Scott’s designs) the
beautiful quadrangle of Waterlow Court, where working ladies find
the advantages of both privacy and a common life.

“As a landlord the Trust is pushing forward negotiations with a
view to obtaining a first-rate Secondary School, the directors
believing that the provision of high-class education meets a need
not usually considered when an estate is being developed, and that
the school site should not be limited to the minimum necessary
ground subsequently bought at an inflated price.

“As a landlord the Trust welcomes the public spirit and civic
generosity of any of their tenants, taking special pride, perhaps,
in the beautiful shops, the ‘Haven of Rest’ for the old and
work-weary, and the club house (so admirably planned and alive with
social and pleasurable activities), the tennis courts, the bowling
greens, the children’s gardens, the skating rink--each and all
established and held for co-operative pleasure and joint use by
their chief tenants, the co-partners.”

This record of what has already been done prepares the reader to read with new interest the second article, “An Ideal--and After,” by Mr. Raymond Unwin, who now stands at the head of “town-planners”. He shows the great principles which have to be considered in planning town extensions, which principles have generally been forgotten in the growth of London suburbs. He then gives a plan of the 412 acres which lie between the Finchley and the Great North Road, and are about to be incorporated in the Hampstead Garden Suburb. He shows what direction the roads should take so as to secure readiness of access to the railway stations, and at the same time leave the Central Square with its fine buildings dominating and giving beauty to the whole neighbourhood. He shows also how other heights should be occupied by churches or public buildings, and he proposes that another centre (and another will be needed when it is remembered that the estate is nearly four miles long) “should approximate more nearly to the Market Place or Forum, where the main lines of traffic will meet, and to which access from all parts will be made easy”. The articles make fascinating reading and lay hold of that pioneer instinct which has helped to make Englishmen such good Colonists. If the reading arouses some indignation at the lost chances of London, the fact that Mr. Unwin, on behalf of the Trust, and the co-partnership tenants are dealing with this great estate, in conjunction with the Finchley District Council, gives some hope. In years to come our children will see that the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust as a pioneer landlord did notable work in avoiding current mistakes and in pointing the way for other metropolitan districts to follow. Out of eighty-two authorities in Greater London only twenty-seven have so far started to avail themselves of the powers of the Housing and Town-Planning Act, and meanwhile the jerry-builder is at large, uncontrolled, and very actively at work.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.

THE CHURCH AND TOWN PLANNING.[1]

BY CANON BARNETT.

August, 1912.

[1] From “The Guardian”. By permission of the Editor.

Every year we are told that so many churches have been added to London. Every year a volume is published by the Bishop of London’s Fund with pictures of these churches--buildings of conventional character, showing in their mean lines and sterile decoration the trail of the order to limit their cost to £8000 or £9000. Every year we see London extending itself in long straight ranks of small houses, where no tower or spire suggests to men the help which comes of looking up, and no hall or public building calls them to find strength in meeting together.

Town-planning is much discussed, and the discussion has taken shape in an Act of Parliament; but meantime the opportunities are being lost for doing what the discussions and the Act declare to be necessary for health and happiness. Hendon is probably the most highly favoured building land nearest to London. It has undulating ground, where gentle hills offer a wide prospect towards the west; it has fine trees whose preservation might secure grace and dignity to the neighbourhood; and it has also a large sheet of water, the reservoir of the Brent, whose banks offer to young and old recreation for body and for spirit. A few years ago town-planning might have secured all these advantages, and at the same time provided houses and buildings which would have helped to make social life a fair response to the physical surroundings. But while talk is spent on the advantages of variety in buildings, of the importance of securing a vista which street inhabitants may enjoy, and of the value of trees and open spaces, straight roads are being cut at right angles across the hills, trees are being felled, and nothing has been done to prevent what will soon become slum property extending alongside the lake. Willesden, as it may be seen from Dollis Hill--a chess-board of slate roofs--is an object lesson as to the future of London if builders and owners and local authorities go on laying out estates with no thought but for the rights of private owners.

What, however, it may be asked, can the Church do? “Agitate--protest?” Yes, the Church, familiar with the lives of inhabitants of mean streets, can speak with authority. It can tell how minds and souls are dwarfed for want of outlook, how pathetic is the longing for beauty shown in the coloured print on the wall of the little dark tenement, how hard it is to make a home of a dwelling exactly like a hundred other dwellings, how often it is the dullness of the street which encourages carelessness of dirt and resort to excitement--how, in fact, it is the mean house and mean street which prepare the way for poverty and vice. The voice of joy and health is not heard even in the dwellings of the righteous. The Church might help town-planning as it might help every other social reform, by charging the atmosphere of life with unselfish and sympathetic thought. But the question I would raise is whether the Church is not called to take more direct action in the matter of town-building. Its policy at present seems to build a church for every 4,000 or 5,000 persons as they settle on the outskirts of London. The site is generally one given by a landlord whose interests do not always take in those of the whole neighbourhood. The building itself aims primarily at accommodating so many hundreds of people at a low cost per seat, and outside features are regarded as involving expenses too great for present generosity. This policy which has not been changed since Bishop Blomfield set the example of building the East London district churches, is, I believe, prejudicial to Church interests, as it certainly is to the dignity of the neighbourhood in which they stand.

The Church might help much in town-planning if it would change its policy, and, instead of dropping unconsidered and trifling buildings at frequent intervals over a new suburb, build one grand and dominant building on some carefully chosen site to which the roads would lead. The Directors of the Hampstead Garden Suburb as a private company have shown what is possible. They have crowned the hill at the base of which 20,000 people will soon be gathered, with the Church, the Chapel, and the public Institute. This hill dominates the landscape for miles round, and is the obvious centre of a great community of people. The Church by adopting a like policy would at once give a character to a new suburb, the convergence of roads would be marked, and order would be brought into the minds of builders planning out their different properties. The architects would be conscious of the centre of the circle in which they worked, and the houses would fall into some relation with the central building. Every one would feel such a healthy pride in the grandeur of the central church that it would be more difficult for things mean and unsightly to be set up in its neighbourhood. The church buildings in the City of London, or those which are seen towering over some of the newer avenues in Paris, or those familiar in our country towns and in villages, often seem as if they had brought together the inhabitants and were presiding over their lives. They look like leaders and suggest that the world is a world of order. The Bishop of London’s Fund, or the authorities who direct the principal building policy, and spend annually thousands of pounds in its pursuit, have thus a great opportunity of giving direction to the expansion of London. They might by care in the selection of sites, and by generous expenditure at the direction of a large-visioned architect, do for the growing cities or towns of to-day what the builders of the past did for the cities and towns of their time. The Church by its direct action might thus give a great impetus to town planning, the need of which is in the mouths of all reformers.

But it may be asked whether the Church ought to contribute to the making of beauty at the cost of its own efficiency. Has not the State one duty and the Church another? Without answering the question it is I think easy to show that a new policy would cost less money, and be more efficient in promoting worship. It is obviously no more costly to build one magnificent building for £25,000 or £30,000 than to build three ordinary buildings at £8000 or £9000 each, while the maintenance of the three, with the constant expense of repairs, must be considerably greater.

And if it be asked whether one grand and generous and dignified building will attract more worshippers than three of the ordinary type, my answer is “Yes, and the worshippers will be assisted to a reverent mind and attitude”. I speak what I know as a vicar for thirty years of a district church in East London. The building was always requiring repair, its fittings were oppressively cheap, and there were twelve other churches within much less than “a Sabbath day’s journey”. There is no doubt that the people preferred and were more helped by worship in the finer and better served parish churches. I used to feel what an advantage it would have been if the parish church, endowed and glorified with some of the money spent on the district churches, could have been the centre of a large staff of clergy, and have offered freely to all comers the noblest aids to worship. A feeling of patronage is incompatible with a feeling of worship, and the district church, with its constant need of money and its mean appearance, is always calling for the patronage of the people. The grandly built and imposing building, which gives the best and asks for nothing, provokes not patronage but reverence. There is, I believe, great need for such places of worship, as there is also need for meeting halls where in familiar talk and with simple forms of worship the clergy might lead and teach the people; but I do not see the need for the cheap churches, which are not dignified enough to increase habits of reverence, and often pretend to an importance which provokes impertinence.

The Church has been powerful because it has called on its members to put their best thought and their best gifts into the buildings raised for the worship of God. It owes much to the stately churches and sumptuous cathedrals, for the sake of which men of old made themselves poor; and to-day the hearts of many, who are worn by the disease of modern civilization, are comforted and uplifted as in the greatness of these buildings they forget themselves. The Church is as unwise as it is unfaithful when it puts up cheap and mean structures. It is not by making excuses--whether for its members who keep the best for their own dwellings or for itself when it takes an insignificant place in the streets--that the Church will command the respect of the people. It must prove its faith by the boldness of its demand. But I have said enough to show that the Bishop of London’s Fund would serve its own object of providing the best aid to worship, if it would respond to the call of the present and seize the opportunity of taking a lead in town-planning. Church policy--as State policy--is often best guided by the calls which rise for present needs, and if our leaders, distrusting “their own inventions,” would set themselves to assist in town-planning it might be given them to do the best for the Church as well as for the health and wealth of the people.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT.