POOR-LAWS

POOR-LAWS.

Poor-Laws. THE laws comprehended under this title, and regulating the relief, maintenance, and employment of the poor, form so important and peculiar a feature in the polity of England, as to demand a careful notice. Especially as the administration of the system, within the last twenty-five years, has been so essentially altered, as to render any previous account, in a great measure, obsolete; and the effects of the system have been so widely extended, and so sensibly felt, as to obtain a considerable degree of public attention.

We shall, therefore, under this article, explain, as briefly as possible, the laws on which the English Poor-System is founded; their practical administration; their effects political and moral; and the principal plans which have been proposed for the mitigation and ultimate removal of the evils inseparable from a system of compulsory and indiscriminate relief, involving an interference with the general concerns of a large portion of the community.

Origin of the Poor-Laws. It is not necessary to trace, particularly, the circumstances of difficulty and hardship, to relieve which the compulsory provision for the poor was first instituted. From the date of the earliest statutes, the middle of the sixteenth century appears to have been the period when the number and wants of the poor began to attract legislative attention. In 1536, 1550, 1561, and 1563, sundry statutes were passed directing that every aged, disabled, and impotent person, should be relieved and kept in the place where they were born or had dwelt three years; and in the last of the acts referred to, the justices of the peace were empowered to make the payment of assessments for these purposes compulsory. The sudden alienation of the abbey-lands, the cessation of all customary relief from the monasteries, together with the rapid increase in the money price of commodities, occasioned by the influx of the precious metals from America (estimated at 50 per cent. between the years 1550 and 1580), sufficiently account for the pressure on the labouring classes which these provisions were intended to remove.

However, in spite of all palliations, this evil grew, and led to the famous act of the 43d of Elizabeth, which continues to this day the fundamental and operative law on this important subject. This statute enacts, "That the churchwardens and overseers shall take order from time to time (with the consent of two or more justices) for setting to work the children of all such whose parents shall not be thought able to keep and maintain their children; and also, for setting to work all such persons, married or unmarried, having no means to maintain them, and using no ordinary or daily trade to get their living by; and also, to raise by taxation, &c., a convenient stock of flax, to set the poor on work; and also competent sums of money for and towards the necessary relief of the lame, impotent old, blind, and

such other among them, being poor and not able to work."

By this enactment, the State virtually undertook to do two things, which were never before attempted by any national or legislative provision. It became pledged to support, at the public expence, all the poor, aged, and impotent members of the community; and, far worse, to provide employment for all those who would not or could not procure it for themselves.

The first of these undertakings, however humanely designed, is found by experience to eradicate some of the finest principles of human nature, and to create more distresses than it remedies.

The second, which compels the overseers to set to work all those for whose labour there is no natural demand, is in decided opposition to the known rules of political economy. The number of persons that can be employed in labour must absolutely depend upon the amount of the funds applicable to the maintenance of labour; so that, an enactment, engaging to find employment for as many as may demand it, undertakes a condition which it is not in the power of any law to fulfil.

The wonder which arises at the first view of a system like this—a system which has the radical fault of assuming, or establishing, the right of the poor, i. e. as it may turn out, of the whole community, to support, at the expense of the community, is, that it should have existed more than 200 years, without occasioning the complete destruction of prosperity. This, however, is no proof of the innocence of the law; it results from the mode of its execution and administration. When persons were only relieved in their own parishes, and when relief was only to be had by application to an overseer, and often, of course, distributed in a capricious and insulting manner, few would seek it who could possibly subsist otherwise, and a becoming spirit of independence diminished the number of claimants. But above all, it was ordered by the law that the idle should be set to work, and the paupers maintained in workhouses. Accordingly, workhouses existed in all large towns; in most considerable villages, and in some districts, where the parishes were small, a common workhouse was established by the union of several neighbouring parishes. Nothing could render these receptacles a comfortable abode, except the wisest management and most vigilant inspection. But few persons capable of adequately discharging such an office would undertake so unpromising an employment. All ages, and all characters,—the orphan or the illegitimate child; the prostitute female, the idiots of the parish, the idle vagabond, whom no master would take the trouble to reclaim; the aged widow and the decrepit labourer; the most pitiable members of society, and those who had the least claim to compassion, were crowded into one comfortless home, and joined their quarrels, their com-

Poor-Laws. complaints, and their sorrows together. Those who had any sense of comfort or decency, would submit to the severest privations rather than obey the threatened alternative, and go to the workhouse.

So that, twenty-five or thirty years ago, the expenses arising from the poor-laws were, in a great measure, confined to the maintenance of workhouses; and the workhouses were a resource for the aged, destitute, and impotent; a place of restraint for the idle and disorderly, and an object of terror to the able and industrious. The out-door relief was not extended beyond occasional assistance during temporary illness, or the woman's confinement; or beyond the payment of a part of the rent of the cottage in cases of large families; or a small weekly allowance to a few infirm persons of good character, who made up the rest of their support, by such trifling works of industry as they were able to perform. Some encroachments, no doubt, took place from time to time, and in peculiar situations, on these general principles of public relief; but no man in health and in work ever thought of applying for parochial pay: and as artificial encouragement had not yet disturbed, in any material degree, the general adaptation of the supply to the demand for labour, want of work was not a common case. Thinking people, it is true, even then foresaw that the principle of the poor-laws was fundamentally wrong, and had a tendency to create the distress which it professed to remove; and particularly, they argued, that the idea of providing employ at the public expense was contrary to every sound rule of justice and policy. But, in fact, this part of the act of Elizabeth had not then been called into extensive operation, and went little further than the wholesome purpose of keeping those employed who were collected in workhouses; while the discipline, the disgrace, and the misery of the workhouse itself, acted the useful part of stimulating industry, and encouraging independence, as long as the alternative of entering it, or of providing independent support, was left by the Legislature, enforced by the parish, and required by the magistrate.

Notwithstanding these checks, however, to the natural consequences of the system, the assessment to the poor is found to have progressively increased at every period for which returns have been preserved. The average sum applied to the relief of the poor for the years 1748, 1749, 1750, was £. 690,000 per annum. In 1776 it amounted to £. 1,531,000, an increase far beyond what the rise in the prices of corn would justify; * in 1783-4-5, to £. 2,000,000, though the average price of corn had fallen during the nine intermediate years: † so that such gradual increase, in spite of all obstacles, and without any sufficient ex-

ternal cause, can only be attributed to the known Poor-Laws. tendency of regular and indiscriminate charity to create its own objects.

But in the year 1795 a change took place in the New Mode of Administration since 1795. administration of the poor-laws, which has completely altered the state of the country. This was a winter of unusual scarcity. The price of corn per quarter, which for the three preceding years had stood at £. 2, 14s., averaged more than £. 4 during the whole of 1795 and 1796. As the returns of labour could not be expected to keep pace with such a sudden rise in the necessaries of life, distress was universal; and there appeared as claimants for parochial relief not only the infirm and aged, but the able-bodied and industrious, who had few of them ever before resorted to the parish, and that only during temporary illness and disability. It was at this season of acknowledged difficulty that the county magistrates, first in Berkshire, and afterwards in other parts of the middle and south of England, agreed to relieve the poor according to a fixed and uniform scale, regulated by the price of bread; and issued a table, which professed to show, at one view, what should be the weekly income of the labouring poor, which it fixed in a certain ratio, according to the price of bread, and the size of the family. ‡ Whatever the man's labour produced less than the provisions of this table required was made up by the parish, whose compliance was subsequently enforced by the Legislature; and the justices were empowered, under certain conditions, to order relief out of the workhouse, and to those who possessed property of their own. 36th Geo. III. c. 23.

The practical operation of this system is as follows: Practical Operation of the System. Every labourer is presumed to require a gallon loaf of standard wheaten bread, weekly, for every member of his family, and one over: i. e. four loaves for three persons; seven for six.—A. B. has a wife and four children; he claims seven gallon loaves, costing, we will suppose, 12s. But his wages are only 9s.; therefore the parish supplies him with 3s. weekly. C. D. has a wife and six children; he requires nine gallon loaves, or 14s. 8d. He earns 10s.; the parish makes up the rest. E. F. is so idle and disorderly, that no one will employ him; but he has a wife and five children, and requires eight gallon loaves for their support. His allowance, then, is 9s. in lieu of the wages which he ought to earn, and 5s. or 6s. to make up the deficiency of these wages.

Many, we doubt not, of the readers of this article will imagine that this is a remarkable or insolated case. So far from it, this sort of machinery has been going on, not only in a single parish, or a single district, but throughout half the country during

* Between 1750 and 1776, the price of wheat had risen from 35s. to 48s. The advance of price would thus account for an increase of about one-third, making the charge for expenditure upon the poor £. 920,000; and the population being increased about eighteen per cent., brings an addition of £. 165,600; making £. 1,085,000 as the natural increase, instead of the actual increase, £. 1,531,000. See Second Letter to Mr Peel on the Increase of Pauperism, p. 84.

† Average price of corn for ten years preceding 1775, £. 2, 11s. 3½d.; average from 1775 to 1785 £. 2, 7s. 8½d. The increase of population during that period did not exceed six per cent.

‡ For the first introduction of this system, see Sir F. Eden on the Poor, Vol. I. p. 579, &c.

Poor-Laws. the last twenty-five years. It is, in short, universal in the agricultural counties, with such trifling variations as the discretion of some magistrates, or the indiscretion of others, may have locally introduced.

The magistrates with whom this fatal scale originated were actuated, no doubt, by feelings of humanity. The evil against which they had to contend was pressing; the price of provisions was rapidly rising, and the wages of labour bore no proportion to that increase; so that a man's weekly pay was clearly insufficient to support his family. The crisis, too, was formidable; discontent and insubordination existed very widely; and it was naturally thought, that, if real were added to imaginary evils, and hunger sharpened the exacerbation of previous ill temper, the peace of the community might be seriously endangered. The people had been often taught that revolution would make their condition better; and if it became clear that nothing could make it worse, no slight additional force would be given to the arguments of the evil-disposed and discontented. In these difficult circumstances, two modes of administering relief lay before them: one was a compulsory augmentation of the wages of labour to meet the existing case, which they were then empowered to order by a statute 5th Eliz. c. 4, since wisely repealed; the other was the enlargement of parochial aid, in the way we have described. Of two plans, both radically bad, it would be hazardous to decide which might have been followed with less permanent evil to society. Upon the consequences of interfering with the wages of labour, we can only speculate; but the consequences of legalizing this mode of public relief are too plainly written to be concealed. From its publication and general adoption, the industry of the lower classes has deteriorated; their independent feeling has been annihilated; the public burdens have been enormously increased; and the proportion of supply and demand in all the numerous departments of labour has been deranged.

Every new experiment in legislation is interesting to the philosophical inquirer, and valuable to the practical statesman. A system like that which we have been describing, in particular, has placed the inhabitants of a great country in so new and untried a predicament, that it becomes a matter of singular importance to trace its effects, political and moral. The poor, it must be acknowledged, in all crowded and highly civilized states, present a problem of great embarrassment. Where so much wealth and so much penury are seen in opposition; where there is on the one side so much superfluity, on the other so much deficiency; a plan which promises a nearer equalization of the comforts of life brings a strong recommendation, at first sight, to the best feelings of the legislator and the moralist. On this account, our English system of poor-laws has been the subject of frequent eulogy;—has been glanced at with a view to its adoption both with reference to France and Ireland; though the rulers of these countries have hitherto been wisely contented rather to take our warning than to follow our example. Scotland is still in a more hesitating state.

We shall therefore think it necessary, in this place,

to point out the consequences of this artificial system, both as they affect the community which affords the relief, and the individuals who receive it. And it will be seen that the general principle which condemns such interference has been strongly confirmed by the practical evils resulting from its infraction.

1. The first, and perhaps the greatest of the political mischiefs occasioned by the poor-laws is this; that they disturb the due proportion between the supply of labourers and the demand for labour. They encourage population, without reference to the funds by which that population is to be supported. They persuade the lower classes to marry as soon as inclination prompts, as if it were needless to reflect whether they can maintain the probable issue of that marriage.

In the natural and healthy course of things, the case of a society increasing too fast can hardly occur in a state of civilization. Some part of the community, indeed, will be pushed to distress and indigence in all countries; but this is not to be set to the account of over-population; it results from the misfortunes to which mankind are subject, and the vicious conduct in which they indulge; and may exist to a considerable extent, where it could not be argued that the country was over-peopled. The natural arrangement is, that a man and his family should depend upon himself; should be supported by his own personal exertions; and knowing this, he considers before he marries whether the ordinary wages of labour in his peculiar vocation will support the probable expenses of the family which he has a right to expect: and if otherwise, he forbears to marry till he can either get better employment, or has laid by some provision to go in aid of his weekly earnings. When labour is so plentiful in the market, that he can only procure employ for half or two-thirds of the year; and when it is so scantily repaid, that though he may earn sufficient to support himself, he can do no more—then he has a clear intimation that he cannot marry without the risk of entailing severe want upon himself and his family. Therefore the labourers, and the demand for labour, keep pace together, by a gentle and equable arrangement, which acts wherever mankind are so far civilized as to know the use of reason, and so prudently governed, as to be allowed to exercise it.

But the law which compels the public to furnish employment to as many as come to claim it, and regulates the wages given in return, not according to the market price of labour, but according to the wants of the labourer, removes at once the natural spring which adjusts the proportion between the demand and the supply of labourers, and exposes the country to all the evils of a redundant population. For as matters are now disposed in England, the question is not whether the parent can support his probable family, but whether the parish will; and the parish pledges itself, by allowed custom, to discharge the parental duty, when it allots a regular addition to the wages of labour in proportion to the number of children. A large family of children is a treasure in America, because such is the demand for labour, that they can in very early life do more than maintain themselves: and they are a treasure in a country

Poor-Laws most unlike America, namely, in the agricultural districts of England, because, according to the lex Julia which prevails, they place more of the public money at the disposal of the father.

Strange to say, an elaborate defence of the poor-laws has been attempted on this very ground, that they are calculated to accelerate the progress of population at the cheapest rate to the community. Men are not inclined, it is said, to burthen themselves with a family, unless they can promise themselves a reasonable share of comfort. That comfort can only be secured by high wages. But high wages cannot be limited to those who deserve them by their services to the state, in rearing a numerous family: They must be given to single as well as to married men—to those with small families as well as those with large. This would be unpardonably extravagant. Let us therefore sink the price of labour, but secure a support to those meritorious members of society, who furnish the manufactories and the armies with their superfluous children. Let "the law say, "provide the state with children, if you are inclined to marriage; and, should the produce of your industry not be sufficient to rear them in health and vigour, here is a fund that will supply deficiencies; or, if the expense of rearing them prevents your making a provision for old age, here is a fund out of which you shall be supported with decency, whenever your infirmities prevent your power of supplying yourselves. Such a provision must soon counteract any natural impediment to a full supply of people; and if the application of the fund be guarded by wise provisions, securing a man's best exertions while capable, and those provisions are not perverted, the population raised thereby will be of the best sort; it will be robust, healthy, and industrious."*

An argument so rash and so contradictory to experience as this requires little confutation. A statesman ought to have far more than human sagacity, who takes upon himself to give direct encouragement to population, which he is allowed to do, by the advocates of the poor-laws, "when it shall appear that an increase of people is necessary to the further progress of a nation in wealth and prosperity."† This, surely, is an inquiry too profound and complex to be safely entrusted to any statesman: especially when we remember that encouragements to marriage, like those held out by our laws, cannot be appointed pro tempore: the engine, once set in motion, cannot be checked or suspended at pleasure; it is itself artificial, but the provisions for its safe operation must, after all, be those alone which nature has established, whose primary laws were violated in the original speculation. Nature has established an index, in the rate of wages, by which the wants of the society as to population may be clearly ascertained. To set aside this index, and substitute the temporary and short-sighted views of a statesman, as to "the wants, resources, and political re-

lations of a country," is as pernicious in practice as Poor-Laws it is unphilosophical in theory. Nature, besides, has provided by an universal principle, that the case supposed to justify this rash and impolitic legislation shall never really exist. It is a point proved beyond the possibility of gainsaying, that population will not only increase up to the limit of available subsistence, but beyond it;—will always reach a certain point of distress. Therefore, this instinctive principle, when left to itself, is always ready to fill up every channel of industry by which a family can be maintained. If, then, the politician ventures to interfere, and accelerate the natural force of this principle, he ought first to ensure the continuance of those circumstances which seem to him to require or justify such acceleration. If this is confessedly beyond his power, he has no right to interfere at all.

These obvious objections against disturbing the natural order of things have met with a most striking confirmation since the peace of 1815. The unnatural acceleration which had taken place during the war became at its conclusion the cause of such severe distress, as almost to render peace a doubtful blessing. Extraordinary circumstances continuing certainly for an unprecedented length of time, had given encouragement to extraordinary exertions; the common observer saw nothing unsound or unhealthy in the state, as long as things remained the same; but the first change of circumstances produced a dangerous revulsion, and proved the evil of empiricism in legislation.

This leads us on to the second mischief arising out of the present state of the poor-laws, which is closely connected with the preceding. They tend to overburthen the land, upon which the funds for their support are charged; and thus to introduce a system of universal pauperism.

Whatever be the nature of the funds destined to support population, the tendency of population is to increase beyond them. This is matter of experience in every department of labour, from the highest to the lowest. In all the branches of national industry, there are always more claimants for employ than can attain it; and, though the excess, for obvious reasons, is at different periods very different in degree, the redundancy is always on the side of the labourer;—there are always more workmen than can find employment in manufactures;—always more journeymen mechanics than can be supplied with work;—always more agricultural labourers, than, taking the year throughout, can be employed in useful husbandry. Not even the unhealthy, or degrading, or precarious nature of the employ prevents this effect of the expansive principle of population. Chimney-sweeping, street-sweeping, coal-heaving, mining, thieving, and begging, are all pursued beyond the possibility of maintenance; are all followed by claimants for support beyond the amount of support which they are capable of furnishing.

* Inquiry into the Policy, Humanity, and past Effects of the Poor-Laws, page 41. The same argument is supported by the late Mr Rose, in his Observations on the Poor-Laws.

† Weyland on Population and Production, p. 83.

POOR-LAWS. But this tendency to increase, while it stimulates industry and foresight, occasions little practical disturbance as long as the funds by which such claimants are to be maintained arise from productive labour, and are dependent on it. Because the pressure of population, while it requires fresh funds as means of support, contributes to increase those funds by the return which it makes in productive labour.

The case is widely different with respect to eleemosynary funds. Those who claim them are continually becoming more numerous; but the funds themselves, the parish funds, or whatever funds the state can employ, though not exactly defined, are necessarily limited by the ability of the payers. The population, therefore, which is dependent upon these funds, being freed from the restraints which, under usual circumstances, prevent its redundancy, must ultimately surpass any funds that are not equally unlimited, and do not admit of progressive increase in proportion to the progressive demand.

Universal Effect of Public Charities.

The experiment of supporting all who may require eleemosynary maintenance has been too often made to render this conclusion doubtful. Catholic countries, in which the nature of benevolence is every way misunderstood, afford, as might be expected, the most striking proofs that wherever gratuitous supplies are furnished, the demands soon rise above the means of meeting them, or, if the means are unlimited, increase in proportion. Rome, Naples, Cadiz, and indeed all the principal cities of Spain, are described by all travellers as being equally remarkable for indiscriminate bounties, and universal mendicity. The town of Oviedo, for instance, at the time when the late Mr Townsend visited it, afforded a most instructive example. There was an hospicio, or general workhouse, the revenues of which were L. 4000 Sterling; equal probably in Spain to thrice that sum in England; this also served as a foundling hospital; besides which refuge for the poor, and their children, the bishop ordered seventy reals to be distributed at his gates every morning to all comers, and weekly pensions both to widows and orphans. In addition to all this, the canons scattered alms plentifully as they walked through the streets; six convents administered bread and broth at noon, and a commodious hospital was ready to receive the sick and infirm. All these resources were too little, even among so small a population as 7500 souls. "Notwithstanding all that has been done," says that intelligent traveller "(and what more in the way of charity can be devised?) beggars, clothed in rags, and swarming with vermin, abound in every street."

In reading this description, we are struck at once with the folly of such undistinguishing charity. Yet what do we see in the account of Oviedo, but that state on a small scale, which the poor-laws are calculated to render universal in England?—Workhouses in every parish, supported at the public charge, and serving as foundling hospitals, and offer-

POOR-LAWS. ing a refuge to the poor and their children. Besides a regular donation to those who may not like the confinement of the workhouse, but can prefer the claim of a burthensome family. And all this independent of the private charity, which we have no wish to see curtailed, but which ought to stand alone; the "bread and broth at noon," judiciously administered, and the public "hospital ready to receive the sick and infirm." The difference in the circumstances and character of the two countries has rendered the consequences hitherto less calamitous in England than in Spain; but the tendency is similar, and the effect equally disproportionate to the means; legal provision has been seen to be no preventive to individual want, or national distress.

And why is this, but because the claimants are daily multiplying in number, and press closer and closer upon the funds destined to satisfy them? The increased and increasing burthen of the rates in England is a sufficient proof of the truth which we desire to establish. Notwithstanding the degradation of dependence,—the liability to vexatious, and often painful removals,—the restraint of workhouses,—and the murmurs of the reluctant dispensers of compulsory alms, to all which an English pauper must submit; experience has made it very evident that, as long as any public support can be relied on, the claimants for it will increase in number and importunity; and that, if any limit is to be set to the demand, it must be sought for somewhere else than in the forbearance of the people, or the decrease of indigence.

Already has the claim, in very many instances, exceeded the available resources. In numerous and extensive districts, during the years 1816, 1817, and 1818, it proved impossible for the contributor to furnish the quota which the necessities of those without labour, and, therefore, without support, demanded. Admission into the work and alms-houses, once dreaded as the last resort of hopeless penury, has been courted as a boon, and accepted as a favour. Whilst in London, and other great towns, many almost starving families were deterred from applying to the parish by the crowded, unhealthy, and horrible state of the workhouses into which they would be received, if indeed they could be received at all; many parishes were absolutely unable to raise the assessments, the increase of which, according to the existing laws, has tended only to bring more and more persons upon the parish, and to make what was collected less and less effectual; and yet there was an almost universal cry from one end of the kingdom to the other for voluntary charity to come in aid of the parochial assessments.*

In the mean time, the amount of the rates themselves, which was, in 1785, L. 2,000,000, in 1803, had reached L. 4,267,000, in 1813, L. 6,294,000.† This increase, great in itself, becomes still more important as a proof of the effect of the system, when

* Malthus on Population, 5th edition, Vol. II. p. 352.

† Report of Select Committee, 1817-1821. The "Letter to Mr Peel" estimates the increase in the price of wheat at 9 per cent. in 1803, and the increased population at 17. According to which, the amount ought to have been L. 2,438,670, instead of L. 4,267,965.

Poor-Laws. we remember that the intervening years had been years of unexampled demand for men and every kind of labour: and also, that, owing to the sudden growth of the burden during the scarcities of 1800 and 1801, a remarkable improvement had taken place in the collection and disbursement of the parochial funds, to so great a degree, that any material diminution cannot generally be expected from more prudent management, whilst the system itself remains. Under these circumstances, if the disorder had not been radical, the annual expenditure ought to have become less and less, instead of increasing, from 1803 to 1813, by a third of the whole, or about a sixth of the proportional amount, after allowing for the increase in population and the price of corn.

It is especially necessary that the price of corn should always be taken into the account. The public is very liable to be misled by an apparent decrease—a decrease in the actual sum, whilst the increase is really proceeding, and the burden heavier than ever. It is plain, that L. 100, with wheat at 40s. per quarter, is equal to L. 200, with wheat at 80s., and is paid with far more difficulty by the agriculturist, who furnishes the great proportion of the rates. If corn continues at the prices of 1822, the rates will not be effectually lower, till the L. 7,500,000 of 1819 are reduced to L. 4,000,000; an event which we no more expect to witness than the reduction of three millions of the population.

The alarming distress which followed the spring of 1815, the consequent increase of the rates, and the difficulty of meeting this demand, led to a long and diligent inquiry into the whole subject before a Committee of the House of Commons, in the session of 1817. From the returns which were then made from the manufacturing towns of Birmingham, Manchester, Coventry, &c.;* and also from many districts solely agricultural, it clearly appeared that the excess of demand above the funds prepared to answer it, was no theoretical or even distant danger, but one which some districts had already experienced, and to which all districts were more or less rapidly approaching. Distraint for rates became very general; and every distraint is an encroachment upon the national resources, and a conversion of capital into income. We soon become alive to the probable result where an individual does this; and if a nation is but an aggregate of individuals, national extravagance and individual extravagance must pay the same penalty, and end in the same fate.

It is impossible to predict, with any certainty, how long or how short a time the present system might go on, before such a crisis arrived. Whenever the charge upon the land for the support of those who do not add enough to the annual produce of the country to support themselves, is so great that the land can be no longer cultivated with a profit, then, of course, it will be thrown up. This charge is gradually increasing every year, if not actually, yet re-

Poor-Laws. latively to the price of corn; and the natural effect has already followed in some districts where the pressure is particularly severe. It is evident that, in proportion as this takes place, the rates become still heavier on those who continue to pay. So that the tendency is to contract the contributors annually into a narrower and narrower circle, each step bringing some upon the rates for support who had before assisted to pay them, till the whole cement of society gives way, and the natural gradation of ranks and fortunes, on which its prosperity depends, is sunk and lost in national pauperism.

Such a crisis was clearly apprehended by the Committee of the House of Commons; and with a short extract from their deliberate and valuable Report, we shall confirm, as well as conclude, our own reasonings:—

“Whether the assessment be confined to land and houses, as at present, or other denominations of property be made practically liable to the same charge, the Committee feel it their imperious duty to state their opinion, that, unless some efficacious check be interposed, there is every reason to think that the amount of the assessment will continue, as it has done, to increase, till at a period, more or less remote, according to the progress the evil has already made in different places, it shall have absorbed the profits of the property on which the rates may have been assessed: producing thereby the neglect and ruin of the land, and the waste or removal of other property, to the utter subversion of that happy order of society so long upheld in these kingdoms.

“The gradual increase which has taken place both in the number of paupers and in the assessment for their support, can hardly fail to have arisen from causes inherent in the system itself; as it does not appear to have depended entirely upon any temporary or local circumstances. Scarcity of provisions, and a diminished demand for particular manufactures, have occasioned, from time to time, an increased pressure in particular parishes. But by comparing the assessments in the two counties in this kingdom in which the largest portion of the population is employed in agriculture, namely, Bedfordshire and Herefordshire, it will be seen that there has been the same progressive augmentation in the amount of the assessments, as may be observed to have taken place in the manufacturing counties.”

* In Manchester, the relief given to the out-door poor increased within ten years from 1805 to L. 14,000, instead of L. 8000 per annum; and the whole expenditure, from L. 16,000 to L. 27,000, in the most moderate years—in dear seasons, one-third more. In Birmingham, the increase in ten years was one-third, being L. 20,000 in 1806, L. 30,000 in 1816.—Commons' Report.

POOR-LAWS. The evidence afforded by this table is not to be resisted. The charge on the rates, in 1815, not in two or three counties only, but taking England throughout, was double its amount in 1795; though, in 1815, the price of corn had sunk to a moderate average. What then, except a change in the existing laws and management, is to hinder their doubling again in twenty more years—at least virtually doubling, with respect to the ability of the payers? But it certainly cannot be supposed that land which now, in many cases, pays a rate equal, or more than equal, to the rent, can afford to double that charge, and be cultivated with a profit. In fact, many petitions were laid before Parliament, complaining that the annual value of the property assessed to the poor-rates, was not sufficient to maintain the numerous and increasing claimants, even if it were to be set free of rent; so that the parishes were threatened with a total abandonment of the occupiers of their land. And though these are, indisputably, extreme cases, there is quite enough in the general appearance of the country to warrant the conclusion expressed in the Report, and to justify the worst apprehensions respecting the eventual consequence of the system.

This is sufficiently proved by the experience of the five years succeeding 1815, as digested in the following table:*

Now, upon the first glance at this table, it will appear, that as the price of corn in 1815 and in 1820 was the same, the amount of the rates ought likewise to have been the same, with the addition of ten per cent. for increase of population. It ought, therefore, to have been six millions in 1820, according to the scale of 1815. But it is seven millions, giving a million, or one-sixth of the whole, as the actual growth of five years. This surely must satisfy every doubt concerning the ruinous tendency of the system, and shows that the only remaining question must be, not whether the evil is in its own nature progressive, but how the progressive evil may be most wisely and effectually restrained.

Such are the political consequences of the system of poor-laws, as now administered in England. Its moral effects are no less pernicious.

POOR-LAWS. 1. The first of these which we shall mention is that total improvidence which exists in so remarkable a degree both among the manufacturing and agricultural labourers. In the former class, this is particularly inexcusable. The demand for all labour is 1. Improviding, and liable to occasional and sudden variations. But in manufacturing labour such differences are of most frequent occurrence. A change of fashion at home, or a municipal regulation abroad, the discovery or failure of a mine, the wealth or poverty of a customer, all bear directly upon it, independently of the more important fluctuations arising from the hostile or peaceful relation of neighbouring countries. Therefore labour of this sort, though far more productive in its flourishing seasons, is far more precarious in its eventual success than any other.

The remedy against the inconveniences arising from these causes is to be found in that moral foresight which belongs to intelligent beings, and distinguishes, or ought to distinguish, the civilized and social man from the thoughtless savage. If it is the nature of manufacturing labour to be barren at one season, and productive at another, the superabundance of the harvest must provide against the time of scarcity. But notwithstanding all that must be clearly known, and bitterly experienced on this account, there is among the manufacturing bodies in our large towns a most profligate disregard of any moment beyond the present. The system of the savage is seen in the midst of a crowded population. For a time, on the sudden acquisition of plenty, there is the same waste, the same idleness, the same debauchery, which is quickly succeeded by a similar want, a similar necessity for extraordinary exertion. When the wages of the manufacturer experience a sudden rise, his weekly expenses rise in the same proportion. Perhaps he works but half the week, and spends the rest in low and profligate excess. Perhaps he squanders his superfluous wages in a manner the most absurd, and the most unsuitable to his station in life. But at all events, when the year ends, he is in no sense better than he was at the beginning; his advantages have been altogether thrown away; he is not richer, and in a moral sense he is poorer, because his dissolute habits are more confirmed. It appeared in evidence before the House of Commons, that the ribbon weavers at Coventry, who were at that moment requiring parish relief, had six months before been in the receipt of two or three guineas a week, which they had expended in the most sumptuous manner upon poultry and other luxuries; in selecting which they were so fastidious, that the usual market of the place was not good enough for them, and supplies were regularly sent down from London.

The agricultural labourer has fewer golden opportunities than the manufacturer; still most of them, with frugal habits, might save L. 5 per annum, whilst

* Report on the Poor-Rate Returns, ordered to be printed 10th July 1821.

† The particular sums expended in law and removals are not specified in the returns after 1815, and therefore cannot be subtracted from the total amount. They amounted in 1813, 1814, 1815, to about L. 330,000 per annum.

Poor-Laws. they are unmarried; whereas not one in fifty, perhaps, is master of that sum at any period of his life. Whenever their wages go beyond their actual necessities, the overplus is carried to the alehouse. If an accident, or an illness, or a failure in the demand for labour, keeps the man from work a fortnight, the parish is called upon to supply the deficiency. That he should have even a week's provision beforehand is entirely out of the question. It would be thought a most unreasonable expectation. Though perhaps he is a single man, and has no family demands; or a man in the flower of his age, who may have earned large wages at task-work for years; or an elderly man whose children are all off his hands. In short, whatever may have been his situation or opportunities, he has always lived, to use a common, but expressive phrase, from hand to mouth.

Now it is impossible to believe that the known and regular provision of the poor-laws is not at the bottom of this unprincipled extravagance, which has now become inveterate throughout the country. We cannot but suppose that in a land where so much intelligence, so strong a moral sense, so active a spirit of industry exists, men who knew that they were liable to accidents and reverses, if they also knew that they had only themselves to depend upon, would employ some part of their present earnings to provide against future contingencies. It may be said that to men who work hard, and are necessarily much collected together, the temptation to low dissipation and extravagance is irresistible. But these temptations are not stronger to one part of the community than the other; and in servants, petty tradesmen, and small farmers, considered as a body, there is much of that forethought and frugality which is the best foundation of individual and national welfare. Many of these, during the unparalleled vicissitudes of the last 25 years, have had more to struggle with than the labourers; yet they have not, in the same regular manner, fallen upon the parish funds, because to these classes such a resource is still considered a reproachful degradation. We argue, that similar frugality would have characterised our labourers also, if their natural disposition to sensuality had not been favoured, rather than restrained, by the assurance of a systematic provision, when vice and imprudence should bring on their necessary results, and terminate in penury.

2. Discontented Spirit arising from Errors as to the Causes of Poverty.

2. Another injurious effect of the poor-laws is the bad and discontented temper which is generated by ignorance of the real causes of poverty. Almost every thing which has hitherto been done for the poor has tended, as if with care and intention, to throw a veil of obscurity over this subject, and to hide from them the real origin of their difficulties. In all cases, the last man whom any one, labouring under misfortune, is inclined to accuse, is himself. But the poor-system tends to maintain the opinion, that he is the last person who ought to be accused. The workman who can find no employment; the labourer who feels his large and increasing family a burthen which he can ill support; the aged and decrepit, whose pittance barely furnishes them with the necessaries of life; each lay the fault of their particular distress upon the parish, or upon the over-

seer, or upon the magistrate: but never blame their own imprudence in neglecting a provision, or their extravagance in throwing one away. And when relieved, to the full extent that legal charity can relieve them, they never acknowledge any sense of obligation, unless they should be brought to a better mind by feelings which the poor-laws are rather calculated to extinguish than to awaken.

We can hardly be wrong in setting these errors to the account of the system itself. "On these occasions," as Mr Malthus justly observes, "the only way I have of judging, is to put myself in imagination in the place of the poor man, and consider how I should feel in his situation. If I were told that the rich, by the laws of nature and the laws of the land, were bound to support me, I could not, in the first place, feel much obligation for such support; and, in the next place, if I were given any food of an inferior kind, and could not see the absolute necessity of the change, which would probably be the case, I should think that I had good reason to complain. I should feel that the laws had been violated to my injury, and that I had been unjustly deprived of my right. Under these circumstances, though I might be deterred by the fear of an armed force from committing any overt acts of resistance, yet I should consider myself as perfectly justified in so doing if this fear were removed: and the injury which I believed that I had suffered, might produce the most unfavourable effects on my general dispositions towards the higher classes of society. I cannot, indeed, conceive any thing more irritating to the human feelings, than to experience that degree of distress which, in spite of all our poor-laws and benevolence, is not unfrequently felt in this country; and yet to believe that these sufferings were not brought upon me, either by my own fault, or by the operation of those general laws which, like the tempest, the blight, or the pestilence, are continually falling hard upon particular individuals, while others entirely escape; but were occasioned solely by the avarice and injustice of the higher classes of society.

"On the contrary, if I firmly believed that, by the laws of nature, which are the laws of God, I had no claim of right to support, I should, in the first place, feel myself more strongly bound to a life of industry and frugality; but if want, notwithstanding, came upon me, I should consider it in the light of a sickness; as an evil incidental to my present state of being, and which, if I could not avoid, it was my duty to bear with fortitude and resignation. What I received would have the best effect on my feelings towards the higher classes. Even if it were much inferior to what I had been accustomed to, it would still, instead of an injury, be an obligation; and conscious that I had no claim of right, nothing but the dread of absolute famine, which might overcome all other considerations, could palliate the guilt of resistance.

"I cannot help believing, that, if the poor in this country were convinced that they had no claim of right to support, and yet in scarcities, and all cases of urgent distress, were liberally relieved, which I think they would be, the bonds which unite the rich with the poor would be drawn much closer than at

Poor-Laws present; and the lower classes of society, as they would have less real reason for irritation and discontent, would be much less subject to such uneasy sensations."

3. To this habitual discontent is to be added the selfishness and mercenary spirit arising from the habit of looking to parochial assistance in every emergency. Instead of that sympathy and active charity which would be shown, we fully believe, in this country at least as much as any other, if the poor were not brought up to expect that relief must be awarded to all in whatever shape it is required, a certain price, an adequate repayment, is demanded, for every trifling service. If an aged parent is lodged under the roof of a child, the parish must give a remuneration. If an orphan is to be provided for, the first question of the relation is, what will the parish allow? If age or occasional illness require some domestic attendance, a demand is regularly made for trouble and loss of time. Dr Chalmers speaks the result of experience both south and north of the Tweed, when he laments it as "a heavy encumbrance on the work of a clergyman, that, in addition to the primary and essential evils of the human constitution, he has to struggle, in his holy warfare, against a system so replete, as pauperism is, with all that can minister to the worst, or that can wither up the best, affections of our species." (Christian and Civic Economy, No. 10.)

The effect upon the giver is certainly no better than that upon the receiver of these legal alms; and thus the most valuable part of real charity is thrown away. The immense sums distributed to the poor in this country by the parochial laws are improperly called charity. They want its most distinguishing attribute; and as might be expected from an attempt to force that which loses its essence the moment it ceases to be voluntary, their effects upon those from whom they are collected are as prejudicial as on those to whom they are distributed. On the side of the receivers of this misnamed charity, instead of real relief, we find accumulated distress and more extended poverty; on the side of the givers, instead of pleasurable emotions, unceasing discontent and irritation. How can it be otherwise? The rich, who are little affected by the amount of the rate, pay it as a tax, and either view it in no other light, or apply it as a quietus to their conscience, as if having furnished their legal assessment, they had fulfilled their duty in the way of charity. The middle classes, upon whom the burthen presses most severely,—as the little annuitants, small tradesmen, and inferior farmers,—not only pay it as a tax, but feel it as a tax, and consider that they have the usual

privilege of murmuring at its amount. Indeed, the Poor-Laws injustice of the system, as it sometimes falls upon payers of this nature, is so glaring, that nothing but the uselessness of remonstrance could prevent its being loudly heard. Those who are constantly supported on parish pay are better off than a large number of those who contribute; they are certain of receiving, as long as there is any capital stock on which a distress can be levied; but the power of paying in the others depends upon their customers, and upon many contingent circumstances. The pauper also is secure in the possession of his effects, those of the contributor are daily liable to be seized.* The pauper, too, can afford to live better, and to spend more on his family or himself throughout the year, than the petty tradesman, or annuitant, or renter of a little land, or many others in that humble but useful class just above the common labourer. These are the persons on whom a scarcity falls heavy; these are the persons who must diminish their consumption; these are the persons who feel the revulsions of trade, and the pressure of taxes; their families must commute bread for potatoes, while their pauper neighbours are living in comparative plenty. Under such circumstances, it is scarcely possible for man not to complain; or to acknowledge the truth of the Christian maxim, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

4. There are other immoral consequences of the Poor-Laws which are too obvious to need particular illustration. Husbands are encouraged to desert their wives, and fly from the burthen of their families, knowing that they will not be unprovided for. Women are encouraged to admit illicit intercourse, from a confidence that if it should prove fruitful, a marriage will be probably forced from the ordinary operation of the laws; a calculation which begins in vice, and can only end in premature and ill-sorted marriages. Indeed, their general effect on character admits of indisputable proof, independently of all argument or theory. It is notorious that the most steady, industrious, and moral workmen, on whom the employer can place his surest reliance, are those who do not legally belong to the parish in which they are living. It would be impossible to desire a more convincing evidence of the pernicious tendency of the present laws. We shall therefore conclude this branch of the subject, by noticing a collateral evil of the system, also tending to demoralize the people. It collects an undue proportion of the population into towns. The population of cities and towns, instead of comprising, as had been calculated during a considerable part of the last, and the whole of the preceding century, about one-third of the na-

* "You do not compel the poor man to sell his furniture before you relieve him?—No—certainly not. But if a man has to contribute to the relief of the poor, and from loss of trade, or from the pressure of children, he is not able to pay his rates, you sell his furniture and effects!—I have been compelled to sign a warrant of distress. Then, is not the pauper that is relieved in a much better condition than the pauper who contributes?—He is so far in a better condition, that what he possesses is more secure to him." Lords' Report, p. 25.

By a statute (54th Geo. III. c. 170, s. 11), such persons may now be, by magistrates, legally exonerated from charges.

Poor-Laws. tion, now approaches to nearly one-half. From 1801 to 1811, the increase of houses in the towns of Great Britain average 12 per cent., and the inhabitants 15 per cent. In the country, the increase of houses somewhat exceeds 11 per cent., and the inhabitants 13 per cent. Mr Colquhoun observes, that to whatever cause it may be attributed, there has been a considerable tendency to diminish the rural population, and to increase that of the towns in general.* But the cause is very evident to any one who has watched the operation of the poor-laws. Cottages entail upon the land so heavy a burthen, that no proprietor will suffer one to be erected upon his estate which is not absolutely necessary. He can obtain no rent which can indemnify him for the probable charges of an additional family, which will possess a perpetual claim for support upon his land. But in towns, where the property in land is much subdivided, the immediate advantage of letting small houses at a considerable profit, far overbalances the distant evil arising to the individual from the increase of the rates, to which all the inhabitants of the town will be forced to contribute their share. The consequence is, that there only are houses built, and thither the overflow of the country parishes resort, and going out into the neighbourhood for daily employ, spend their leisure hours in the town, and lose the simple habits as well as the simple recreations of the village.

Plan proposed for Amendment of the System.

Having now explained the poor-system, as it exists at present in England, and shown its injurious effects, both upon the moral and political health of the community, it only remains to advert to the several plans which have been hitherto proposed for its melioration or abolition. And of these, leaving the compulsory contribution to friendly or other provident societies; the assessment of all other property to the rates, as well as that upon which they have been heretofore raised; and the allotment of cottages, with a small quantity of land to the labourers who might have the most numerous families;—as either inadequate, inexpedient, or impracticable remedies—we shall confine ourselves to the two which best deserve the attention of the Legislature, and have obtained the most of it. These are, first, the establishment of a maximum, beyond which the annual amount of the rates in each parish shall not be increased; and next, the gradual abrogation of the law of Elizabeth, on which the whole system has been erected.

1. Plan of establishing a Maximum of the Amount to be raised.

The plan of fixing a maximum has been often recommended, under the alarm arising from the progressive increase of the annual rates. It is proposed to take the average of a certain number of years past, and fix that as the sum which no future assessment should exceed; so that, if the rates of any given parish had amounted, on an average of the largest and smallest sums during the last ten years, to L. 500, L. 500 should be considered as the utmost limit of charitable relief to which the claimants on that parish were legally entitled. A plan

of this nature was brought forward in Parliament in the year 1821; but clogged with so many objectionable alterations in the law of settlement, that it met with less attention than the respectability of the mover would otherwise have secured it. There are, however, radical objections to the plan itself. "Under such a law, if the distresses of the poor were to be aggravated tenfold, either by the increase of numbers or the recurrence of a scarcity, the same sum would invariably be appropriated to their relief. If, in the meantime, the statute which gives the poor a right to support, were to remain unexpunged, we shall add to the cruelty of starving them, the injustice of still professing to relieve them. If this statute were expunged or altered, we should virtually deny the right of the poor to support, and only retain the absurdity of saying that they had a right to a certain sum." (Malthus, III. p. 353.)

In order to obviate this evident objection to the measure, a provision was introduced into the bill allowing additions to be made to the fixed maximum, by an extraordinary assembly of the inhabitants and neighbouring magistrates, in very peculiar cases of local pressure or general scarcity. It is plain, however, that this is a virtual abandonment of the principle of the measure; and by necessary consequence, of the measure itself. The right of the people to certain support being recognized, no legislative fiat can limit the extent of that right. No inhabitant could resist the demands of the people; no magistrate could be expected to maintain the maximum, in any season of difficulty, when alone it would be of much practical value. If a dam, which is raised to keep out the encroachments of the water, is to be opened whenever the water presses forcibly against it, the surrounding country has little reason to trust to its effect, when threatened with an inundation.

This objection equally applies to an amendment which has been since proposed, to render the maximum a gradually decreasing maximum, by subtracting from its amount 10s. or 20s. per cent. annually, till the whole was extinct. But to any one acquainted with the manner in which the affairs of a parish are and must be conducted, taking the country at large, such impossibilities must occur in the execution of a law of this nature, as render it quite undeserving attention as a national measure. The business of overseer, for the first half of the year, would go on smoothly enough. By that time, three-fourths of the legal assessment would probably be spent. Then all, whatever might be their wants, must be put on short allowance, and future claimants excluded. But each of such claimants would justly consider that he had as good a right to be supported in his hour of need, as those who happened to be visited with misfortune a few months before; and those whose mischance it was to be in distress when the fixed sum was collected and expended, would be particularly ill used on being refused assistance, while so many others around them had enjoyed this advantage. If such a measure were pass-

* Colquhoun on the Population and Resources of the British Empire, p. 27.

Poor-Laws. ed, it would be virtually repealed in half the parishes of the kingdom before the expiration of five years.

Besides, there is nothing in any measure of this kind, which tends to stem the progress of pauperism; nothing to prevent the numbers from annually increasing, which require public assistance. All the channels by which the main stream is supplied, as described in the beginning of this article, remain the same; why, then, should we expect that the stream itself should grow narrower, or cease to overflow its bounds? If, then, the sum collected were to be divided among all who might be in want, however their number might increase, great misery must ensue; and all the blame of it would be laid, not without much apparent justice, to the charge of the society, which undertook the support of the poor, yet supplied them so sparingly, that they must necessarily die of hunger and disease.

2. Plan for the gradual Abolition of the Poor-Laws.

2. The only measure which can be considered as either politically wise, or practically efficient, is one which shall gradually annihilate the system by attacking directly its vital principle, and striking at the root of the disease. To this end Mr Malthus proposes that a regulation should be made, declaring that no child born from any marriage taking place after the expiration of a year from the date of the law, and no illegitimate child born two years from the same date, shall ever be entitled to parish assistance. And, to give a more general knowledge of this law, and to enforce it more strongly on the minds of the lower classes of people, the clergyman of each parish should, after the publication of bans, read a short address, stating the strong obligation on every man to support his own children; the impropriety, and even immorality, of marrying without a prospect of being able to do this; the evils which had resulted to the poor themselves from the attempt which had been made to assist by public institutions in a duty which ought to be exclusively appropriated to parents, and the absolute necessity which had at length appeared of abandoning all such institutions, on account of their producing effects totally opposite to those which were intended. "This would operate as a fair, distinct, and precise notice, which no man could well mistake; and, without pressing hard upon any particular individuals, would at once throw off the rising generation from that miserable and helpless dependence upon the government and the rich, the moral as well as physical consequences of which are almost incalculable."

Some measure of this kind is not only expedient, but indispensable, if the Committee of the House of Commons are justified in solemnly stating it as their opinion. That unless some efficacious check be interposed, there is every reason to think that the amount of the assessment will continue as it has done to increase, till, at a period more or less remote, it shall have absorbed the profits of the property on which the rate has been assessed, producing thereby the neglect and ruin of the land.

The chief practical objection which has been urged against such an enactment is, that it would create two distinct classes, which would exist together in the country for a considerable period of time,—the one class having, and the other not having, a claim

to public support; and that this would occasion Poor-Laws. confusion, discontent, and ultimately turbulence, by which the nation would be kept in continual disorder.

We are of a different mind: and that not only on general grounds, but for reasons of experience. No new measure, in truth, can reduce the lower classes to a more unequal state than the existing system. Every parish has its own rule, founded partly on the ability of the payers, and partly on the character of the overseers. Every district has its own scheme of administration, dependent on the discretion or indiscretion, foresight or carelessness, of the local magistrates. A few parishes, a few bright spots appear, which careful management has preserved from the infection of the surrounding plague; and those parishes are in all respects the best satisfied, because the most comfortable. An account of one of these appears in the evidence before the House, in which the custom of employing labourers by task-work has enabled them to support their families without application to the magistrate; and yet it comes out incidentally that this parish is so great a favourite, that false oaths and other fraudulent means are frequently taken to get into it.

Already, too, there exist in every parish those who have, and those who have not, a claim to support, according as it may happen that they do or do not legally belong to it. What keeps the residents who are non-parishioners from turbulence, or even from complaint? The known law. We argue, that the known law would have the same effect upon those who are born without claim upon any parish. Indeed, the whole country abounds with inequalities of condition among those whose claims are similar; of whom some are, and some are not, effectually relieved by the law on which their claims are founded. Nothing, for instance, can be more different than the degree of assistance awarded to the manufacturing and the rural labourer. In country parishes, the poor do really receive some compensation for their low wages; their children, beyond a certain number, are really supported by the parish; and though it must be a most grating reflection to a labouring man, that he can hardly marry without becoming the father of paupers; yet if he can reconcile himself to this prospect, the compensation, such as it is, is no doubt made to him. But in London, and all the great towns of the kingdom, the evil is suffered without the compensation. The population raised by bounties in the country, naturally and necessarily flows into the town, and as naturally and necessarily tends to lower wages in them; while, in point of fact, those who marry in towns, and have large families, receive no assistance from their parishes, unless they are actually starving: and altogether the assistance which the manufacturing classes obtain for the support of their families, in return for their lowered wages, is perfectly inconsiderable. Whereas the nominal rate of wages is of no more consequence to the labourer who is married and has a family throughout the South of England, than its rate in Hindostan. (See Malthus, II. p. 369.)

It is plain, therefore, that the poor of this country have been used to unequal and very different treatment, and that with much greater appearance of in-

Poor-Laws. justice than any difference which was founded upon an established law. To say nothing of the advantage which the impudent and daring have long possessed over the humble and unobtrusive character; which imposture has had over honesty, and shameless beggary over honest independence; the circumstance that men who were born in the same class, and labour in the same vocation, and are burthened with the same family, are liable to suffer, and do actually suffer, the widest variations according to the district in which they may happen to reside;—according as the magistrates of that district agree to act; according to the scale of relief they may have adopted; according to the strictness of the inquiry which they are in the habit of making, before they issue an order for relief; in short, according to the views they may take of their own duty and of public expediency. So that we should have no fear of discontent, in any material degree, from the operation of an enactment like that proposed. More especially, as the majority of those whom it concerned finding themselves, according to the natural order of things, so much the more prosperous in consequence of their depending on their own exertions, would be free from the principal temptation to murmur and complain.

It ought to be remembered, farther, that the system now in operation is by no means exempt from the danger of discontented turbulence. Every one is brought up with the belief that the state is bound to provide him with employment and support. When, therefore, the employment assigned him is such as he does not approve, and the recompense awarded him falls below his expectations (and when the employment is a loss to the public, the recompense must often be below even reasonable expectations), he becomes an irritated and uneasy subject; and unless he is restrained by the fear of detection, or by the better influence of moral principles, he vents his spleen by any mischief that is in his power; and the burning of stack-yards, or the destruction of machinery, results from an unsatisfactory interview with the overseer, or an ineffectual appeal to the bench of magistrates. Proofs of this have been already too visible; and vestry meetings, in some counties, have assumed a very seditious appearance: quite enough to prove the evil of accustoming the mass of the population to depend upon any thing except the natural demand for their labour.

Should it, however, be considered that more caution and preparation is necessary to pave the way for a total alteration in a system of laws which are unhappily interwoven with the habits of the people; it would be an important step, to begin by repealing that part of the statute of Elizabeth, which empowers the overseers to set the poor to work; that

is, in effect, which empowers the labourer to demand Poor-Laws. work, or money as its substitute. This would confine relief to the impotent and aged, and would take away that part of the law which is most confessedly adverse to all sound principles of policy, and is least capable of any rational defence. There is a satisfaction, no doubt, attendant upon the knowledge, that every individual in the country, if reduced to helpless indigence, has a "local habitation" and a home; that the aged, and the infirm, and the orphan, have a sure provision.* And though man may, no doubt, become improvident, and parents may sometimes be induced to abandon their children, from a conviction, that they will not be allowed to starve, yet if relief had never been extended beyond these objects, the evil would not have become practically burthensome as it is now experienced to be.

If then it should be determined, for the present No Able-bodied Labourer to be relieved. at least, to retain this part of the system, let a wiser course be commenced, by laying aside the attempt to "set the poor on work;" and let it be declared that from such a time, no able-bodied man shall have any claim to employment or relief from the parish for himself or his family. Such a measure has the advantage of being strongly recommended by the Report of the Committee, to which we have so often alluded. Indeed, a decided opinion is there given, that, even as the law now stands, "an order for relief is invalid, which does not adjudge the party to be 'impotent,' as well as 'poor.'" And a mode is suggested in which this alteration of the prevailing system might be effected humanely and gradually. It is submitted to the consideration of the House, whether, when the demand for labour may have revived, it may not be safely provided, that from and after a certain time, no relief shall be extended to any child whose father, being living, is under years of age; a principle which, by altering the age from time to time, might, if it should be thought desirable, be carried still further into operation. It may also be provided, with a similar view, that from and after a specific time, no relief shall be provided for any child whose father, being living, has not above children, under years of age. The Report proceeds to suggest that it may be hereafter enacted, that no person should be provided with work by the parish other than those who are already so provided, and who might be permitted to continue till they could provide for themselves; but if the change made by this provision might be thought too rapid, limitations might still be introduced, the effect of which would render it more gradual: as, by enacting that none shall be provided with employment who are between the ages of 18 and 30, and then, after a certain

* This feeling has induced the author of the Letter to Mr Peel, who well deserves attention, to make the following reflection:—"Let me thus dismiss the present branch of the argument, with the hope that indigence, arising either from infirmity, age, infancy, great number of children, and even accidental failure of employment, may possibly be relieved by law—not fully and adequately to our feelings—yet permanently and systematically, without necessarily extending the evil."

Such a concession, from one so well aware of the moral evils of the poor-laws, shows the embarrassments with which the subject is involved.

Poor-Laws. lapse of time, that none between 16 and 35, 40, and so on, till the object shall be gradually effected.

We entertain no sort of doubt that a law of this kind would, in a very short time, benefit the labourers themselves. What, indeed, can be more depressing or injurious to them, than the system which is common in some districts, according to which labourers, under the denomination of roundsmen, are sent from farm to farm, and paid at the lowest possible rate, and that rate not depending upon their skill or industry, but upon the largeness of their families? and not by the person for whom they labour, but, in a great part, out of the parish funds? Both the Committees reprobate this practice in pointed terms, but the Lords do not seem to have observed that it grows naturally out of the system of our poor-laws; and if that "system is essentially maintained," every labourer in the kingdom must in the end be treated as a roundsman. The poor-laws encourage the increase of the number of workmen beyond the demand for their labour: the poor-laws then oblige the parish to employ these supernumeraries at its own expense. But none of the employers of labour are in want of these hands, otherwise they would not be left to seek for work: still they must be supported: what alternative is there, except either to maintain them in idleness, or to parcel them out in the district which contributes to the rate? Certainly it is a plan which reduces the free labourer to the condition of a slave; but let the blame fall where it is due, upon the law itself; or let it be shown how some such scheme can be avoided, unless the men are to be unemployed altogether.

With such a Provision, the Plan of a Maximum might be advantageously limited.

In conjunction with some enactment denying the claim of the able-bodied labourer to legal relief in any shape, and so tending to undermine the whole system—a limitation of the assessment to be annually raised might be useful, because it would be a sort of acknowledgment of the indisputable truth, that the Legislature had hitherto taken more upon itself than it was able to accomplish, and that the funds for the relief of the distressed, as well as for the employment of labour, really are limited, though the practice of the country supposes them inexhaustible; and that, in point of fact, they have already reached the bounds beyond which it is either not possible or not safe to proceed. This would gradually open the eyes of the poor to a truth which cannot be long concealed, and induce them to depend upon themselves. It would also furnish an argument to those who attempt to restore, or rather to create, in the poor a feeling of reliance on their own industry. As matters stand at present, all recommendations of Saving Banks, all enforcements of the necessity of foresight, are cut short by reference to the parish. You may be out of work; the parish must find it for me. You may be overburdened with a young family; the parish must allow accordingly. You may grow infirm or old; I can but come to the parish. But if a positive limit were set to the parochial assessment, what is theoretically absurd, might be practically useful; because there would be opportunity of rejoinder to these conclusive reasonings, from the inadequacy of the parish allowances; and a whole meal from former savings might

Poor-Laws. appear better than the half loaf which public charity would procure. But, in the mean time, the encouragement of frugal habits is proved to be a visionary hope among the lower classes of the community; and the declaration of the Lords' Committee, however undeniable, will remain a dead letter as to practical effect: "Parochial relief, under the best and most considerate administration of it, can never be so satisfactory to the person who is the object of it, or so consistent with those honourable feelings of pride and independence which are implanted in the heart of man, as that resource which is the result of his own industry and the produce of his own exertions." This is unintelligible language, to those at least who have been born in the south of England within the last forty years. Parish relief, instead of being dreaded as a disgrace, or looked to as a last resource, is, in truth, the first consideration. To become domiciliated in a good parish is the grand object, and leads to numberless cheats and perjuries; the next concern is to obtain as much as possible from it; which the single men effect by threatening to bring a wife and family upon the parish funds, if they are not relieved to their satisfaction; and the married men by actually doing so. A system which encourages these feelings and habits has been called a humane, a wise, an economical system; and justly, if it is humanity to support profligacy at the expense of the industrious; if it is wise to diffuse habits of improvidence, vice, and dishonesty throughout the land; if it is economical to sink capital in order to furnish income to the extravagant.

The most plausible objection to this plan of commencing an improvement in the principle of the poor-laws, by confining relief to the impotent poor, arises from the variations in the price of corn; a recurrence of which it seems right to anticipate in the present state of our agriculture and population. There have been many years since 1795 in which the market rate of wages would not generally support a family: neither is it in the nature of things that the wages of labour should rise with the price of corn, when that increase of price is occasioned by a deficiency in the supply. To raise them arbitrarily, as some persons have ventured to recommend, would only be to relieve one evil in the body politic by the introduction of another; and, though no remedy could easily be worse than the present disease, it is wiser, at all events, to "bear the ills we have, than fly to others which we know not of."

In reply, however, to this objection, it may be remarked, that the natural price of labour will be more nearly approached by the market price, in proportion as parochial payments are done away; and the employer will still be a gainer, because his assessment will be diminished in the same proportion: while population and production, keeping more even pace together, when relieved from the disturbing influences which prevail at present, the prices of corn will be subject to less variation. In the case, however, of any unusual disparity between the price of labour and the price of provisions, such as occurred in the years 1795 and 1800, or of any temporary or local pressure, from a difficulty in procuring employment, such as must always be expected

Poor-Laws. in some districts of a great manufacturing county, and which was almost universal in the years immediately succeeding the peace;—the principal inhabitants ought to agree together on the most practicable mode of assisting the largest families, and enabling their poorer neighbours to weather the exigencies of the season.* The political objections which exist against indiscriminate relief do not affect extraordinary cases. That which would be most pernicious as daily diet, when applied as medicine, restores health to the constitution. Neither are we so forgetful of the duties enjoined upon us as Christians as to exclude charity from our domestic economy: our object is not to annihilate charity, but to render it profitable both to the giver and receiver. This is truly the case when our assistance, of whatever sort, is bestowed upon a known object, and for a definite purpose, instead of being thrown into a common fund, for which all scramble, and from which those who scramble most shamelessly get the largest share. The known claim to parochial aid, and the actual pressure of the funds which it demands, are an impediment, in the present state of the law, to private benevolence; together with a general conviction, that what is called, though falsely called, the charity of the country, has increased the distress which it professes to relieve.

And to say the truth, when we consider the degree of labour, and attention, and intelligence employed upon the concerns of the poor in late years, we may justly affirm, that, if it had been possible for things to go on well upon a wrong system, and to succeed on an erroneous principle, they must have succeeded, and the condition of the poor in England must have been most prosperous; and that it has not been so, with all these advantages, is in itself a sufficient evidence that the principle is radically unsound.

It will be observed, that our remarks in the preceding article apply principally to England, as the native country of the poor-laws, and to those few districts of Scotland where the practice has been assimilated to that of England. An abstract of the laws which relate to the assistance and management of the poor in Scotland will be found in the Encyclopaedia. We must add, however, that, since that publication, a very important case has been determined by the Court of Session, which turned upon this question; viz. Whether, under the Scotch poor-laws, those persons are entitled to relief who, without any personal infirmity, are rendered unable, by the high price of provisions, to maintain themselves in time of

dearth? And whether an assessment for the relief of Poor-Laws such persons was legal? The Court decreed, on the 17th of January 1804, that such relief and assessment were legal under the statutes; and the arguments used to obtain a contrary decree were, not that the statutes were not in force, but that they did not strictly include this particular case. It came from the parish of Dunse in Berwickshire.

The Court of Session has also repeatedly decided that "a pauper has a title to the charity of any parish in which he has resided three years, supporting himself during that period by his own industry."

In consequence, many parishes have had recourse to legal assessments. "In small country parishes, or in parishes where there are no considerable towns or villages, the assessments are levied according to the valued rent of the lands, the one-half being paid by the heritors, and the other half by the tenants. But in large parishes, the assessments are made according to the real annual rents of lands and houses, a fourth part being deducted to the proprietors of houses for reparations; the half of the assessment is paid by the proprietors or landlords, and the other half by the tenants or possessors. The assessments are made annually by a joint meeting of the heritors and kirk-session of the parish, held, by act of Parliament, on first Tuesday of August or first Tuesday of July, who appoint a collector, who makes a new rental each year of lands and houses.†

The parishes in which such assessments have been enforced present a striking contrast to those which are managed upon the more primitive and economical system. The demands upon the legal funds have increased at least tenfold, and thus furnish a remarkable confirmation of the arguments by which the English poor-laws are impugned; against the further admission of which into this comparatively prudent and well regulated country, all its wisest and most benevolent members are lifting up their voice of warning and exhortation.‡

Dr Chalmers, in particular, in addition to all his other important obligations, has recently conferred a new benefit upon the public, by practically showing that even the unpromising population of Glasgow may be satisfactorily provided for through the old channel of voluntary contributions, without recourse to compulsory funds. We would gladly refer any readers of the foregoing article who may entertain a prejudice against its tendency, to the Speech delivered by that gentleman before the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in May 1822, and especially to the practical details related in the Appendix to it. (N. N. N.)

* In this way of occasional contribution, great local distress in Ireland has been effectually relieved during the summer of 1822. But what miserable politicians would those prove, who, on account of a temporary evil in a country so every way anomalous as Ireland, would venture to introduce, and apply to the Irish character, a permanent system of parochial legislation?

† See Notes on the Scotch Poor-Laws, by the Reverend Sir Henry Moncreiff Wellwood, and the late Mr Horner, appended to Mr Whitbread's Speech on the Poor-Laws, 1807.

‡ Report of the Committee of the General Assembly, 1817, appended to the Report of the House of Commons.