Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - III. Constitution and Administration. Introd. by E. Hildebrand - 3. Local Government. Introd. by G. A. Aldén - Poor Relief. By Agda Montelius - Self-Government of the Counties (Läns). By G. A. Aldén
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SELF-GOVERNMENT OF THE COUNTIES (LÄNS).
301
against sickness, (Sickness Benefit Societies) — if necessary, admission is
facilitated — and by enjoining thrift. To facilitate saving, post-office savings
stamps are offered for sale in homes, factories, and shops in poor neighbourhoods
by the so-called circulating sai’ings-bank.
Associations with a similar purpose as F. V. O., though under different
names, have been started in several Swedish towns and have — like the one
in Stockholm — been of great value, not least of all by checking begging,
which, if allowed to flourish unhindered,, communicates its infection from one
to another and produces greater and greater degradation.
The capital, of which the interest is applied to carry on private benevolent
work, amounted in Stockholm alone to 100 million kronor in 1912, including
the maintenance of homes, institutions of various sorts, and different funds.
Added to this are the annual subscriptions of members of associations, and all
the support which is directly given to applicants by private people, which is
omitted from all calculation. Nevertheless, the means available for helping
purposes in Stockholm in the year mentioned amounted — parish relief included —
to more than ten millions.
Thus, there is a powerful economic leverage for the attempts at bettering the
conditions of the poor, if only correctly applied, not for maintaining them in
poverty, but for raising them out of it. In order to attain this object, other
requisites, however, than money are needed: united co-operation, and persons with
knowledge not only of the laws of national economy, but of education, willing
to work for the welfare of the nation.
With the purpose of paving the way for such a conception of the problem of
poverty, and to train experts in the work, both among the poor and among
children, the Swedish Poor Law Reform Association (Svenska
Fattigvårdsförbundet) was formed in 1906. It is a federation of a large number of poor
law boards, benevolent associations and private persons. By means of
training-courses, and finding of situations within its scope, by the establishment of
bureaus for the care of children, by sending over the whole country advisers
of experience in these matters, by offices to give advice and information, by
the publication of a magazine, books and pamphlets, treating kindred matters
from various points of view, by meetings, lectures and discussion of important
questions, and by the occasional organization of congresses, the Association does
its best to make the public understand what is the object to be aimed at in the
work for the- poor.
Self-Government of the Counties (Läns).
The representative assemblies of the Counties (Län) are called County
Councils (Landsting). A Län may be divided by the Government into
several County Council Districts; but this has only been done with regard
to Kalmar Län, which has two such Councils.
Towns which possess more than a hundred-and-fiftieth of the total population
of Sweden are not represented in the County Councils, but the usual functions
of the County Councils are there performed by the Town Councils. These towns
are Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Norrköping and also Gävle — the last-named
town by reason of an older regulation, in virtue of which only 25 000 inhabitants
were required for exemption from the County Council.
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