THE SWISS UNEMPLOYED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 80, 30 April 1909, Page 4

THE SWISS UNEMPLOYED.

In Switzerland there is a. strong feeling that any man who is out of work must be helped to find work, and tills not so much for his own sake as for the sake of the whole community—to guard against his being/ a cause of expense to it instead of being a source of income. There is, however, an equally strong feeling that when the work is found the man must of necessity, for his own sake as well as the sake of the community, be made to do it; to do it well, too. Practically everywhere in Switzerland, says a writer in the Nineteenth Century, whil P it is held to be the duty of the authorities to stand by the genuine work seeker and help him, it is held to be their duty also to mete out pun; ishment to the work shirker and force him to earn his daily bread before he eats it.

No toleration in shown to the loafer, for he is regarded as one who wishes to prey 011 his fellows and take money out of the common purse while putting none into it. On the other hand, what can be done is done, and gladly, to guard decent men from all danger of becoming loafers through mischance or misfortune.

In England a man may deliberately throw up one job and without ever making an effort to find another remain for months in the ranks of the unemployed, steadily deteriorating all the time into an unemployable. .Meanwhile no bne has the right to say him yea or nay unless he applies for poor relief.

In Switzerland, however, it is otherwise. There i* no resorting to workhouses there; no wandering around the countryside extorting alms while pretending to look for work. For begging is a crime and so is vagrancy; and in some cantons the police receive a special fee for every beggar or vagrant they arrest.

if a man is out of work there he must try to find work, for if he does not the authorities of the district where he has a settlement will find it for him, and of a kind perhaps not at all to his taste—tiring and badly paid. He cannot refuse to do it, for if he does he may be packed off straight to a penal workhouse, an institution where military discipline prevails and where every inmate is made to work to the full extent of his strength, receiving in return board and lodging with wages from a penny to threepence per day. When once he is there, there homust stay until the authorities decree that lie shall depart; fo r as a penal workhouse is practically a prison he cannot take his own discharge, and the police are always oil the alert to prevent his running away. No matter how long his .sojourn lasts, however, it does not cost the community a single penny; for in Switzerland ttics,. penal institutions are w'lf-snpporling. Some of them, indeed, an. said to be a regular source of income to the cantons to which they be-

There is no classing of the unemployed by casualty or misfortune with the unemployed by laziness or misconduct there;- no meting out to them of the same measure. On the contrary, considerable trouble! is taken to distinguish between the two classes, ko that each may be dealt with according to its merits. The .man who is out of work through his own fault, and because he does not wish to be in work is treated as a criminal and sent as a prisoner to a penal institution; while the man who is out of work in spite of his earnest endeavor to be in work is helped.without being subjected to humiliation. It is easy to distinguish .between the clashes of the unemployed; as there every working man has his papers—i.e., documents which arc given him by the authorities of the district where he has his settlement, and which contain full information as to where and by whom he has been employed in the course of his life.

Then relief in kind stations—i.e., casual wards -organised on philanthropic lines—arc maintained in every part of industrial Switzerland for the exclusive use of -the respectable unemployed, and drunkards, loafers, and criminals arc never allowed to cross the threshold of these places. Xo one in admitted to a Nwi>s relief in kind station unless his papers show that he has 'heen in regular work within the previous three months i,ml out of work at least live days unlo-s they show also that iieilhvr the police nor his own district authorities have nnv reason for looking </a him askance, 'lie who is admitted, however, is made welcome, and is treated with consideration as a respectable man on whom misfortune ha* befallen. Let them but relax their cll'orts and show signs of a willingness to remain without ii, and they are at once thrown on their own resources. The police, who arc in close co-operation with the station officials, always keep a sharp watch on the unemployed, especially on such as are sojourning in these refuges, and it they iiud them refusing work when it is oll'ered under reasonable conditions or accepting it and losing through carelessness, or any other fault of their own, or lounging by the way iside or in public-houses instead of betaking themselves wher c they have bc-.'ii told there in a chance for a job, the ease is reported, -with the result that there is nincl,. on their papers a note which nrevents their ever again crossing the threshold of any station. At the end of tin' lonths from the day they leave work they forfeit in any ease their Tight to go to any station, as by the law which prevails in these institution it in only men who have been in regular employment during the previous tuny months who are eligible for admission. .Besides these stations there are in Zurich, -Kerne, Basle, Geneva, Neilschalcl and .St. Call llerberger zur Hcimat—i.e.. home inns, where wnrkr.ijsnieu. if without lodging, may stay with their wives and children for a time at vow small expense or even in some cases gratis. There are also in (lie chief industrial centres Warmestuben (warm rooms) provided either by the authorities or by some private society where the unemployed may pass their days while waiting for work.