Note 1273 — Chapter III · : THE SOLIDARISTS

These laws of public assistance are among the most remarkable practical manifestations of the solidarist movement. They are quite a new feature in French public life, and until their appearance relief, whether given by the State, the department, or the commune, was purely optional (except in a few isolated cases, such as in that of waifs and strays). To mention only the principal ones in France, the law of July 15, 1893, made relief in the form of medical attendance for all destitute invalids obligatory upon the communes. The law of July 14, 1905, extended a similar benefit to all invalids and to all persons over seventy years of age in the form of pensions varying in amount from 60 to 240 francs per annum (360 in Paris). Finally, the law of April 5, 1910, secures a pension to all workmen at the age of sixty, the charge being divided between the State, the employers, and the workmen themselves. It is a kind of payment made by the members of the present generation to the survivors of a past one. This relief is clearly of the nature of a social debt, and justifies us in treating it as the outcome of a quasi-contract, for on the one hand it constitutes an obligation fixed by law on the part of the commune, the department, or the State, as the case may be—an obligation which they cannot escape—and on the other hand a right on the part of the beneficiary, as in the case of a creditor in an action for the recovery of debt.