The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Lectures On Political Economy.
• Part First.: of Political Economy Proper. (continued.)
• [continuation of Book Second.]: [of National Wealth.]
• [chapter III.]: [of Trade.]
• Sect. I.—: Of the Freedom of Trade.
• [sect. II.]—: Of the Corn Trade.
• [sect. III.]—: On Subjecting the Commerce of Money to the Regulation of Law.
• [sect. IV.—: On Subjecting the Commerce of Land to the Regulation of Law.]
• [chapter IV.]: Of Taxes.
• [sect. I.—: Of Taxes In General.—introductory.]
• [sect. II.]—: Taxes Upon Land. *
• [sect. III.]—: Taxes Upon the Rent of Houses.
• [sect. IV.]—: Taxes Upon Profit, Or Upon the Revenue Arising From Stock.
• [sect. V.—: Conclusion.]
• [book Third.]: [of the Poor—their Maintenance.]
• [chapter I.]: [historical Sketch of the Poor-laws.]
• [sect. I.—: Of the English Poor-laws.]
• Sect. II.—: Of the Scottish Poor-laws.
• [chapter II.]: [subsidiary Measures For the Relief of the Poor.]
• [sect. I.—: Of Charity Workhouses.]
• [sect. II.—: Of Benefit Clubs, Or Friendly Societies.]
• [sect. III.—: On the Distresses of the Poor, In So Far As They Proceed From Their Own Evil Habits.]
• [book Fourth.]: [of the Education of the Lower Orders.]
• [part Second.]: [of the Theory of Government, Or Politics Proper. * ]
• [chapter I.]: Of the Simple Forms of Government.
• [sect. I.]—: Introduction.
• [sect. II.—: Of the Simple Forms of Government In Special.]
• [chapter II.]: Of Mixed Governments.
• [sect. I.—: Of Mixed Governments In General.]
• [sect. II.—: On, In Special; and Particularly] of the English Constitution.
• Appendices to Parts First and Second.
• Appendix I.—: To B. II. Ch. III. § 3, P. 114.
• Quotation On the Exportation of Grain, From Howlett.
• Appendix II.—: To Part I., P. 326.
• A Conclusion of the First Three Books of Political Economy,—strictly So Called.
• Appendix III.—: To Part II., P. 452.
• An Earlier Conclusion of Politics Proper.

[SECT. I.—

OF THE ENGLISH POOR-LAWS.]

From the review which I am now to offer, it will appear with what extreme difficulty this branch of legislation is accompanied, and how frequently the best intended, and, apparently, most wisely-concerted schemes have been found to aggravate the evils which they were meant to remedy. Such a review, while it serves to animate our wishes for the improvement of what is defective or erroneous in the established system, will be no less useful in moderating our confidence in the most plausible plans that may be proposed with that view. For the same reason, I shall not be very forward in suggesting any ideas of my own on this subject. I shall aim rather at giving a useful direction to your future inquiries, contenting myself at present, with remarking, in general, the striking illustration which this subject affords of the danger of multiplying unnecessarily the objects of law, by attempting to secure artificially, by the wisdom of man, those beneficent ends which are sufficiently provided for by the wisdom of nature.

But it is not to those alone who study Political Economy, with a view to the improvement of the theory of legislation, that this is an interesting subject of speculation. Every individual in a private capacity, is daily induced by the impulse of compassion to administer assistance to the indigent, and needs some general principles to guide his benevolence, without which he may be in danger of counteracting the purposes which he wishes to serve. I have no doubt that the want of these prevents many from doing the good, which they would be both willing and able to do, if they had some fixed and acknowledged rule of conduct. Nor is this at all surprising; for there is certainly none of the private offices of duty in which men have been more misled from the general advantage of society, by false and partial views, than in the administration of individual charity. To the justness of this remark, every country of Europe bears witness, in the numberless establishments founded in the dark ages, by the pious charity of individuals. In the present times, however, the charity both of individuals and of the State ought to be regulated by views of general and permanent interest, not by any view of partial or temporary advantage.

I had formerly occasion [supra, Vol. I. p. 113] to take notice of the servile condition of the lower orders of men all over Europe, for a long time after the settlement of the barbarous nations in the different Roman provinces; and more particularly, I observed, that during the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, slaves seem everywhere to have formed the most numerous rank in the community. While this continued to be the case, that order of men which is called the begging poor, could not have an existence. The obligation to serve another for life, implies a reciprocal obligation on the master to supply his slave with the necessaries of life; and a regard to his own interest will usually secure the fulfilment of this obligation, though in times of general scarcity it is possible that the labouring classes may be exposed to severe hardships. It is hardly necessary for me to remark here, that this consideration does not lead to any conclusion favourable to the institution of slavery, which opposes a great and almost insurmountable barrier to the opulence and population of a country. The number of individuals to whom it secures the bare necessaries of life, bears no proportion to those who, under a more liberal system of policy, would have enjoyed many of its comforts and accommodations. Where all men have the prospect of bettering their condition, we may expect to find some unfortunate adventurers; and although it will always be the object of a wise Legislature to diminish the number of these, yet the existence of indigence and of those other calamities which are its usual concomitants, may be regarded as a decisive proof that the labouring orders have already emancipated themselves from the tyranny of their domestic masters, and that they have entered on that career which is gradually to raise them to a more elevated rank.

This reflection, while it furnishes a satisfactory answer to those arguments in favour of the African slave trade, which are founded on a comparison between the situation of the begging poor in Great Britain, and that of the negroes in our West India colonies, may serve to reconcile us to those partial evils which appear to be the inseparable attendants of national opulence; not that I would willingly grant in its fullest extent the truth of the remark on which these observations proceed.

It does not belong to the present subject to trace the various steps by which the practice of villanage gradually wore out in England. One circumstance, unquestionably, which contributed very powerfully to the rise of the lower orders, was the endeavours of the different sovereigns from Henry II., to counterbalance the overgrown weight of the feudal aristocracy, by encouraging the manumission of bondsmen, and taking the towns under their protection. This policy was pursued with great steadiness by Edward III. during his long and vigorous reign; nor was it abandoned under the feeble administration of his successor, Richard II. It seems, indeed, to have been in the course of this last reign that the most general emancipation of bondsmen took place.

This sudden emancipation of the lower orders, produced the consequences which might have been expected. Restored all at once to their natural rights, without being sufficiently prepared for liberty, they felt an impatience of all legal restraint. Nor was it in the power of any laws, however rigorously executed, to correct these disorders, at a period when the arts and manufactures furnished employment to so very small a proportion of the people. These consequences were felt even during the reign of Edward III., and still more under the weak administration of his successor, in whose time, we find in the records of Parliament, numberless complaints of the vagrants, rogues, and deserters of their service, who were wandering over the country doing mischief, &c. In 1376, the year before Edward’s death, the Commons made a great complaint, that masters were obliged to give their servants great wages, in order to prevent them from running away; that many of them who left their service became sturdy beggars, who infested the kingdom, &c.; to remedy which evils, they proposed “That no relief should be given to those who are able to work, within boroughs or in the country; that vagrant beggars, and staff-strikers, should be imprisoned till they consent to return home to work; and that whoever harboured any runaway servant in his service, should be liable to a penalty of £10.”* It does not appear that the King assented to this proposal; but, as Sir Frederic Morton Eden observes, it seems to have been the groundwork of a subsequent statute, and shows the early opinion of Parliament on the subject of mendicity. It is in this statute that beggars are first mentioned; and from the language used, they appear chiefly to have lived in towns and burghs, where the principal part of the national wealth was concentrated. Of the progress which these evils rapidly made, some idea may be formed from a statute passed at the commencement of the subsequent reign, (1st Richard II.) By this Act, the excesses of the villains were repressed by severe punishments, their farther emancipation checked, and every method employed by the great barons to prevent others from becoming free; insomuch, that in the fifteenth year of Richard II., they endeavoured to obtain a law, that no villain should be allowed to send his son to school; a memorable instance of that short-sighted policy, not without its influence, alas, in our own times, which attempts to preserve the order of society by withholding from the people those means of intellectual improvement which alone lay a sure foundation for good morals, and peaceable subordination to authority.

It was during this reign that the Legislature found itself first called upon, not only to provide for the punishment of vagrants, but also for the relief of the aged and impotent. In earlier times, it may be presumed, that the villain, when unable to work, was maintained by his lord, as the pauper now is by his parish; and as the number then engaged in manufactures was comparatively small, there is great reason to believe that the indigent workmen were supported from the funds of the corporation or society to which they belonged. By the statute 1388, among a variety of other regulations, it is enacted, “That impotent beggars should continue in the cities or villages where they lived at the time of the passing of the Act; and if the inhabitants of those places were neither able nor willing to maintain them, they were to be taken to other towns within the hundred, or to the place of their birth, where they were to continue for life.”* From the language of this statute, Sir Frederic Eden argues, “I should infer that the district where impotent beggars were directed to reside, was bound to maintain them; and that the justices of peace, who had a considerable latitude of discretionary power, in some cases regulated both the place of their abode, and the amount of the alms they were to receive.”*

These details may appear minute and tedious, but they form a very important part of this historical sketch, as they show that the great outlines of a scheme for the compulsory maintenance of the poor, which is commonly believed to have originated in consequence of the Protestant Reformation, had been conceived as early as the reign of Richard II. The Act, too, was confirmed in the reign of Henry IV.

During the subsequent reigns, various regulations were enacted, by the Legislature, by which the harsh provisions of former statutes against vagrants were somewhat moderated; and at last, in the reign of Henry VIII., they received the sanction of an express statute. The Protestant Reformation, with some other events immediately connected with it, in particular the suppression of the monasteries by Henry VIII., had a powerful influence on the condition of the lower orders in general, and tended greatly to increase the number of the begging poor. Not to mention the multitudes whose subsistence depended on the alms distributed at the gates of the religious houses, and who, in consequence of their suppression, were thrown at once on the bounty of their fellow-citizens, 50,000 monks were compelled to have recourse to the active exertions of industry, and reduced to the same state of dependence and indigence. The first effects, too, of this violent and arbitrary measure on the general industry of the country, must have been far from favourable. Instead of the gentle dominion of the abbots who, with all their vices, seem to have been kind and indulgent landlords, and who, in consequence of the great hospitality which they exercised at home, consumed the greater part of the produce of the land on the spot, the people found themselves exposed to the extortions of new masters, who spent their revenues in the capital, and to the still more intolerable rapacity of their stewards. “Old Henry Jenkins lamented, with reason, that the days were over in which he used to be invited to the Lord Abbot’s chamber, to feast on quarters of a yard of roast beef, and wassel in a black jack: he was probably not the only sufferer.”* And though it certainly was not desirable that the great luxury of the monks should have been perpetual, yet it cannot be doubted that the violence with which the remedy was applied, must have disordered, for a considerable time, the general police of the country. A prohibition against admitting novices in future, would have been an equally effectual preventive, and would have saved that injustice and cruelty with which the measure was actually carried into execution.

When I mention the Protestant Reformation, and the sudden suppression of the monasteries, as one cause of the increase of the begging poor, I would not be understood to admit with some advocates of the Roman Catholic faith, that during the Popish times beggary was attended with no inconveniences to the community in general, the burden falling exclusively on the religious houses. Abundant evidence of the contrary is afforded by the facts already stated. The following document, however, is so curious, that I shall make no apology for subjoining it as an additional confirmation of the same thing, more especially as it will serve to illustrate the unreasonableness of certain other popular clamours which have been renewed in our own times. It is an extract from Lewis’s History of the several Translations of the Holy Bible, [1731,] and evinces completely the disorders which existed in England, in consequence of the prevalence of beggary, even when the Popish institutions subsisted in all their vigour. The passage, at the same time, it sufficiently appears, is exaggerated in some of its statements, as well as unfounded in some of its inferences, being the composition of a warm advocate for the Reformed faith, at a period when the minds of men were too much heated to judge, or even to observe, with coolness.

“Before I proceed to give an account of the next edition of the English Bible, it may not, perhaps, be wholly unacceptable to the reader, to observe to him an historical passage in the Preface of Coverdale’s to the Bible just now spoken of, relating to the increase of the poor here in England; and that the rather, because of the pompous boasts made by the Romanists of their charity, and the hard reflections made on us by them for the want of it, as if the great number of beggars were owing to the Reformation, and particularly to the dissolution of the religious houses, as the monasteries were falsely called, at whose gates a professed Protestant tells us, all the poor of the nation were supported. But now Coverdale here appeals to the senses of his reader, and bids him lift up his eyes and see how great a multitude of poor people runne thorowe every towne: and this, too, at a time when these religious houses were at the very height of their prosperity. Sir Thomas More speaks of people’s going about sick of the French pox and begging with them, though he adds, ‘that thirty years ago there were five against one that begged with them now.’ In his Utopia he proposed, ‘That the beggars should, by a law made on purpose, be all placed in the convents of the Benedictines, since it was owing in a great measure to the avarice of these wealthy abbeys, who laid down their arable lands to pasture, that the number of beggars was so much increased.’ ”*

That I may not lose myself in a field of such immense extent as this, I shall pass over the various attempts of the Legislature to secure a maintenance to the impotent, and employment to the idle part of the community, during the reigns of Edward VI. and of Philip and Mary, and shall proceed at once to the Act for the relief of the poor, passed in the year 1601, in the forty-third year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign; which, having concentrated all the former laws relative to this subject, has remained the foundation-stone of our present establishment.

The most important provisions of this Act were copied verbatim from an Act passed a few years before, by which four overseers were directed in each parish, to take measures for setting poor children and persons, in want of employment, to work, and for raising a stock of materials for that purpose, &c.

As the distresses of the poor, in consequence of the scarcities which prevailed towards the conclusion of the last and beginning of the present century, have engaged a more than ordinary degree of attention in our times, particularly among speculative men, it may not be altogether useless for me to remark here the extreme danger of being hurried, by the pressure of accidental or temporary evils, into measures which may entail permanent and incorrigible mischiefs on the community. The consequences of the Act 1601 in England, during the last two centuries, have been long and deeply deplored; and they are now so interwoven with the general system of English prosperity, that it is hardly possible to conceive how they can be effectually remedied. And yet there are, I think, strong reasons for believing that this fatal Act arose entirely from the severe hardships under which the poor had laboured for some years previous to its date. An uninterrupted course of scanty seasons and unfavourable crops closed the sixteenth, as it has since done the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; and an examination of the state of the country at the end of the first of these periods, may not be uninstructive to many persons even in the present times.

“In 1587, wheat rose to £3, 4s. the quarter; in 1594, it was £2, 16s.; and in 1595, £2, 13s. the quarter.—Blomefield, in his History of Norfolk, informs us, that the scarcity of Norwich in the year 1595, was so great, that the magistrates were obliged to send for a large quantity of rye from Denmark; but the winds hindering its coming, the project was of no service till late in the year. When it arrived, it was sold to the poor at the reduced price of 4s. the bushel. This charitable act cost the corporation above £200. I subjoin Blomefield’s account of the prices of several other articles of diet at Norwich this year, as it corroborates the assertions of other historians respecting the dearth of this period: wheat was £2 the quarter; rye, £1, 10s.; barley, £1; oatmeal, £2; beef, 3s. the stone; the best sheep, 14s. a piece; a lamb, 5s.; a calf, £1; a fat capon, 3s. 4d.; a pigeon, 3d.; a rabbit, 8d.; and cheese, 4d. the pound. Blomefield adds, that in the beginning of 1596 prices fell; ‘but by reason of a wet May, they rose again to such large prices that it was a very hard year with the poor, and so continued to the next harvest, when, by God’s mercy, things fell, on account of their plenty, to their usual prices.’ ”*

In 1601, when the Act in question was passed, the crop was plentiful, and the seasons continuing favourable for a series of years, the situation of the poor became comparatively easy, and the Legislature exulted in the happy consequences of its own foresight. It appears, however, from D’Ewes’s Journal that there were a few members who had the sagacity to perceive, that the only permanent foundation for plenty was to be laid in a prosperous agriculture. In the debate on the propriety of continuing the Statute of tillage, a Mr. Johnson made a speech, the substance of which is thus reported by D’Ewes:—“In the time of dearth, when we made this Statute, it was not considered that the hand of God was upon us; and now corn is cheap; if too cheap, the husbandman is undone, whom we must provide for, for he is the staple man of the kingdom.”† Another speaker who rose above the prejudices of his age, was Sir Walter Raleigh, who, in the course of the same debate, recommended as the most effectual plan for securing the permanent prosperity of the nation, to set tillage at liberty.

With respect to the comparative number of the receivers and payers of parochial contributions, immediately after the establishment of the poor’s-rates, it is impossible for us, at this distance of time, to form any accurate estimate. But it seems highly probable, as Sir Frederic Eden observes,‡ that the number of poor receiving or wanting parish relief, at the close of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century, bore a less proportion to the other classes of the nation than the number of those in similar circumstances does at present. About the year 1590, the city of London is said to have contained 160,000 inhabitants. In the year 1595, a year of great scarcity, a survey was made, by direction of the Lord Mayor, of the number of poor householders, who were found to amount to 4132. But it is not mentioned whether the individuals in each family were included in this enumeration, or what class of persons was understood to fall under the denomination of householders. Making, however, a very full allowance for these omissions, we shall be justified in supposing, that the increase of the inhabitants of the metropolis has by no means kept pace with the increase of the poor. The legal assessments and voluntary contributions now raised in London for relief of the poor, together with the expense of the many beneficent establishments and public charities which it contains, are estimated by Mr. Colquhoun, who published in the year 1797, at £850,000 per annum.* And the same author asserts, in another part of his work, “that upwards of 20,000 individuals rise every morning in London, without knowing how, or by what means, they are to be supported during the day, or where, in many instances, they are to lodge on the succeeding night.”†

If we examine the condition of many of our country towns, even of those which are considered as the most advanced in opulence and industry, we shall find the proportion of the poor far exceeding anything noticed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

Of the amount of the rate annually levied during her reign, and during that of her successor, James I., history is silent. But we know that after the passing of this Act, the situation of the poor is represented as extremely deplorable. The assessments are said to have been so low, that many perished for want. During the reign of Charles I., the Legislature were too much occupied in discussing questions of a political and constitutional nature, to attend to the internal police of the country: accordingly, little information is known with regard to the state of the poor, till the accession of Charles II. “Of the thriving condition of England during the short period of the Commonwealth,” says Sir Frederic Morton Eden, “we have the concurrent testimony of several contemporary authors. The great increase of trade, high price of wool, and advance of rents about the year 1652, are indubitable proofs that industry and its attendant comforts had not deserted the land.”*

In the year 1662, the important Statute which is the foundation of the present law of settlements, was enacted not only for the purpose of determining who were to be considered as the poor of each parish, but to prevent labourers in general, even before they became actually chargeable from wandering from the usual place of their abode, lest particular parishes, which, from their situation, held out inviting prospects to the industrious, should, in the end, be overburdened with their poor. Previous to the passing of this Act, the poor were at liberty to seek employment wherever it could be had; and none were obliged to reside in the place of their settlement, this place of settlement being fixed by an abode for three years. But by the 13th and 14th of Charles II., it was enacted, that the residence in a parish necessary in order to receive a settlement should be reduced to forty days; and that within that time it should be lawful for any two justices of the peace, upon complaint made by the church-wardens and overseers of the poor, to remove any new comer to the parish where he was last legally settled, either as a native, householder, sojourner, apprentice, or servant, for the space of forty days at the least.Ӡ

I have mentioned this Act thus particularly, because, according to Sir Frederic Eden, the single clause now quoted from this short Act, has occasioned more doubts and difficulty in Westminster Hall, and he adds, has been more profitable to the lawyers, than any other part of English jurisprudence.‡ It has been justly remarked of it, that it is deficient with regard to the subjects of foreign nations. Scotch and Irish labourers, for instance, if they do not fall under the class of vagrants, could not be removed under its provisions, because they never could become chargeable. However, as they might and still may continue undisturbed, without the entanglement of a certificate; and if they cannot secure a claim for themselves, as they yet can establish one for their children, servants, and apprentices, they were, in this respect, placed in a better situation than the natives.—This glaring defect in the Act, rendering strangers the only persons capable of residing in any part of England which they chose, has at length happily been corrected; and English labourers are now, by the 35th George III., authorized to remain in any place till they become actually chargeable. Some inconveniences are stated as consequences of this Statute, equitable and liberal as it appears, in a Pamphlet by Mr. Bates Dudley, published in the year 1802.*

The obstruction which this law of settlement opposes to the free circulation of common labour, has been justly called by Mr. Smith, “the greatest of all the disorders in the police of England.” Of the rise, progress, and state of the evil at the time when he wrote, a succinct account will be found in his Wealth of Nations.†

According to Mr. Smith, the very unequal price of labour which we frequently find in England in places at no great distance from one another, is probably owing to the obstruction which the law of settlements gives to a poor man, who would carry his industry from one parish to another without a certificate.”‡ And to the same purpose, Lord Kames, in his Sketches of the History of Man, observes, that while in Scotland the price of labour is generally the same in the different shires and parishes, “it varies in every parish of England. A labourer who has gained a settlement in a parish, on which he depends for bread when he inclines to be idle, dares not remove to another parish where wages are higher, fearing to be out of a settlement altogether.”§ The assertions of these two very respectable writers concerning the uniformity in the rate of wages over Scotland, compared with the state of England in the same respect, are controverted by Mr. Howlett, in his Examination of Mr. Pitt’s Speech on the Poor-laws, [1796;] and Sir Frederic Eden has given it as his opinion, that Mr. Howlett’s censures are justified by an appeal to facts. “I am persuaded,” says Mr. Howlett, “that had the Doctor lived to have read Sir John Sinclair’s Statistical Account of Scotland, he would perhaps have been inclined to some slight alteration of sentiment. He would have discovered that the price of labour is as various in the northern part of Great Britain as in the southern, and the slightest view of our towns of Leeds, Liverpool, and innumerable others, might have convinced him that the circulation of labour is as free, and the scarcity of hands in one place as amply supplied by their superabundance in another, on the south side of the Tweed as on the north.”* And to the same purpose, Sir Frederic Eden asserts, in terms still stronger, that “neither of these writers seems to be warranted by fact in their supposition, that the price of labour, in their own country, is far more equal than it is in England; and that the inequality here is principally occasioned by the obstruction which the law of settlements gives to a poor man, who would carry his industry from one parish to another without a certificate.”†

I cannot help thinking, that both of these gentlemen have gone too far in their censure on our Scottish politicians. Without entering into any particular discussion of facts, we have decisive evidence, I think, against these conclusions. It seems to be one of the most incontrovertible positions which can be imagined, that the law of settlements, though not the only cause of the inequality which prevails in England, must increase that inequality; and that when it is once established, it must oppose an almost insurmountable barrier to the operation of those natural causes which tend gradually to bring down the rate of wages to a level. On the other hand, it is most undoubtedly true, that in Scotland the uniformity of wages is not so complete as we might expect from a theoretical view of the subject; and it must, perhaps, be granted, that the language employed by Lord Kames is too general and unqualified. But this only amounts to a proof of what Mr. Smith says in another part of his work, that “after all that has been said of the levity and inconstancy of human nature, it appears evidently from experience, that a man is, of all sorts of luggage, the most difficult to be transported. If the labouring poor, therefore, can maintain their families in those parts of the kingdom where the price of labour is lowest, they must be in affluence where it is highest.”* At the time when Mr. Smith wrote, tenpence was the current price of a day’s labour in Edinburgh and its neighbourhood, and at a few miles distance eightpence, which he considers as the common price of labour in the greater part of the low country of Scotland, where it varies a good deal less than in England. “Such a difference of prices, which it seems is not always sufficient to transport a man from one parish to another, would necessarily occasion so great a transportation of the most bulky commodities, not only from one parish to another, but from one end of the kingdom, almost from one end of the world to the other, as would soon reduce them more nearly to a level.”† But the influence of these local attachments is common to both parts of the island, and cannot possibly produce so great an effect when it operates alone, as when other causes concur of a still more uncontrollable and universal efficacy.

I shall only add farther on this subject at present, that the inequalities in the wages of agricultural labourers are increased, in both parts of the island, by a circumstance which I had occasion to illustrate in a former part of the course.‡ I mean the slow circulation of agricultural knowledge, arising from the peculiarly obstinate prejudices of this order of men, in consequence of which, striking inequalities in the state of improvement may be remarked by the most careless observer, even in contiguous districts. Hence corresponding inequalities in the skill and industry of agricultural labourers in the same neighbourhood, and an effectual check to the operation of those causes which seem to promise, in theory, a speedy reduction of wages to one general level.

Whatever opinion, however, may be entertained on this subject, every person must assent to the strong terms in which Mr. Smith has reprobated the law now under consideration. “To remove a man, who has committed no misdemeanour, from the parish where he chooses to reside, is an evident violation of natural liberty and justice. . . . There is scarce a poor man in England of forty years of age, I will venture to say, who has not, in some part of his life, felt himself most cruelly oppressed by this ill-contrived law of settlements.”* I find, indeed, that this fact is controverted by Mr. Howlett, who contends, in his Examination of Mr. Pitt’s Speech, that the law of settlements has no effect in this way at all. But in this particular, Mr. Smith’s statement is supported by the testimony of so many respectable writers, that it is impossible to call its accuracy in question. Sir William Young, who is extremely well informed on such subjects, asserts positively, that the prosecutions occurring on this law are frequent.†

Some of these remarks may appear, at first view, to be foreign to the subject which introduced them. As, however, the political disorder to which they relate has been the necessary consequence of the compulsory maintenance of the poor, and can only be effectually removed by an alteration of that principle, they will not, I hope, be considered as forming a useless or improper digression.

In the period immediately subsequent to this regulation, few alterations were made on the existing laws with regard to the poor. The war which engaged the attention of the nation during the first eight years of King William’s reign, the formidable preparations made by France to invade England, and the actual invasion of Ireland, together with the encouragement given to both by the dark and dangerous intrigues of a powerful body of domestic malcontents, were very unfavourable to the removal of those abuses which had been accumulated by the neglect and misfortunes of half a century. About this time, indeed, some speculative men distinguished themselves by their attempts to draw the attention of the public to this important subject, among others, the celebrated Mr. Locke, who was then one of the Commissioners of the Board of Trade. A reference had been made to the Board of Trade in the year 1696, to consider of the proper methods to be adopted for employing the poor; and it was in consequence of this reference that he drew up his Report [1697,] respecting their relief and maintenance, which was shortly after delivered to the King. The observations of this eminent philosopher and politician respecting the effects of the Poor-laws, deserve attention from all who wish to examine with accuracy the progress of English legislation in this department, more particularly as many of his suggestions appear to have formed the basis of a plan which, a few years ago, was under discussion, for amending the regulations of our parochial assessments. It is probable that a law framed upon his plan would have taken immediate effect, as the state of the poor had been recommended to the consideration of Parliament in the King’s Speech, the very year after the delivery of the Report, had not the public mind been too much agitated by the altercations which, about that time, took place between King William and his Parliament, and which increased in violence during the latter part of his reign.

In the reign of Queen Anne, few Acts were passed relative to the poor. But some important and original ideas were started on the subject by Daniel Defoe, in his excellent address to Parliament, entitled, Giving Alms no Charity, (1705.)

The reign of King George I. is equally barren of materials for our purpose. One Act, however, was passed during that reign, which deserves to be mentioned; 9th Geo. I. Among other improvements of the existing laws, this Act provides that the church-wardens and overseers of the poor of any parish, with the consent of the majority of the parishioners, publicly given, may purchase or hire any house or houses in the parish or place, and contract for the lodging, employing, and keeping of poor persons. Soon after the passing of this Act, many parishes availed themselves of the powers conferred by it; and in a publication which appeared in the year 1725,* it is said that this method of maintaining the poor met with approbation and success throughout the kingdom. The same work was republished in 1732, with considerable additions, and in its enlarged state affords much curious information respecting workhouses. In consequence of the indefatigable zeal of the planners of this institution, the poor-rates are understood to have been considerably reduced in many instances. But from comparing the present state of those parishes in which workhouses were established with their condition seventy years ago, it would seem that the expectations of the nation, that great effects would have followed from the institution, have not been realized. From the view given in Sir Frederic Eden’s Treatise, of the state of those parishes which had erected workhouses, it appears that the poor had advanced very rapidly notwithstanding the aid of workhouses, perhaps as rapidly as in other parishes where they were supported by occasional assessments.†

The way in which these workhouses, as at first established, effected a reduction in the poor-rates, was by deterring the poor from making application for relief, by the terror of being sent to a workhouse. Accordingly, Mr. Townshend, in his excellent Dissertation on the Poor-laws, [1787,] says, that “the terror of being sent to a workhouse acts like an abolition of the poor’s-tax on all who dread the loss of liberty. It is in effect a virtual repeal, as far as it extends, of those laws which should long since have given place to better regulations. But, unfortunately, the most worthy objects suffer most by this repeal, and the advantage to the public is little more than negative. The quiet and the cleanly dread the noise and nastiness, even more than the confinement of a workhouse. They pant for the pure and wholesome air, which they can never hope to breathe where numbers are confined within narrow limits, and sigh for that serenity and peace which they must despair to find where the most profligate of the human species are met together. By the fear of being sentenced to such society, many who deserve a better fate struggle with poverty till they sink under the burthen of their misery.”*

During the reign of George II. various attempts were made, both in and out of Parliament, to procure a radical alteration in the system of parochial administration, established by the 43d of Elizabeth. About the year 1753, in particular, this subject seems to have excited a very general attention, which, however, produced no material alteration on that branch of legislation to which it related. It is a curious circumstance, that in the very same year, the same branch of police was under discussion among the French politicians; and most of these warmly recommended to their countrymen the English system of parochial assessments, at the very time when long experience of the inconveniences attending that system was producing a multitude of English pamphlets in praise of the French hospitals.

Under the reign of our present Sovereign very few alterations have taken place, except with respect to removal; the vexatious consequences of which will, in some measure, it is to be hoped, be remedied by the Act of 1795, for preventing the removal of persons who are not actually chargeable. Several local acts, however, have been passed of great importance to the places to which they relate; and, indeed, there are some of these which may, without impropriety, be considered as general, rather than as local, regulations. Those, for instance, which relate to the improvement and correction of the Poor-laws within the city of London, may very properly be viewed in this light, as that is a district which contains a population equal to one-tenth of the whole inhabitants of the kingdom.

The historical deduction now given, for the details of which I must acknowledge myself to be much indebted to the labours of Sir Frederic Eden, is sufficient, without any commentary, to convey an idea of the imperfections of English legislation in this important article of Political Economy; and the rapid progress which the evil is daily making, seems to require the application of some immediate remedy.

Towards the close of the seventeenth century, the amount of the rates exceeded £840,000 a year. This, at least, is the calculation of a writer, who, in 1673, published a work under the title of The Grand Concern of England explained, and which, I believe, is the earliest publication in which any attempt is made to compute the extent of this burden. “This,” he adds, “is employed only to maintain idle persons; doth great hurt rather than good; makes a world of poor more than otherwise there would be; prevents industry and laboriousness, men and women growing so idle and proud that they will not work, that lie upon the parish wherein they dwell for maintenance, applying themselves to nothing but begging or pilfering, and breeding up their children accordingly; never putting them upon anything that may render them useful in their generations, or beneficial either to themselves or the kingdom.”* In 1783, 1784, and 1785, the money raised by assessments in England and Wales amounted, taking a medium of these years, to £2,167,749, sterling, according to the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons, founded on returns made by the overseers for the poor, in obedience to an Act passed in the year 1786. Sir Frederic Eden, whose work was published in the year 1797, states their amount at this time to be £3,000,000, sterling,† and adds, “that they had doubled their amount in the course of the twenty years preceding.”‡ From the very accurate returns laid before Parliament, it appears, that exclusively of all collateral expenses, (for the militia, &c.,) raised at the same time with the assessments for relief of the poor, there had been raised, in the year ending Easter 1803, for the maintenance and relief of the poor, £4,257,000, being almost double the sum raised for the same purpose on an average of the years 1783, 1784, and 1785, and very nearly triple the sum raised in the year 1776. From the same returns it appears, that on the population of England and Wales, exclusive of the army and navy, amounting to 8,070,000 souls, not less than 1,234,080 are partakers of parochial relief; that is, nearly one-seventh of the whole population are indebted to the rest, in whole or in part, for their support, and by far the larger part of these are wholly subsisted without any exertion of their own. The amount of this rate, too, great as it is, gives but an inadequate idea of the extent of this branch of expenditure in England. In an account published at Edinburgh of the management of the poor in Hamburgh, the author, Mr. Voght, who had access to the best information during his tour through England, states the sum expended on workhouses at upwards of £1,000,000, sterling, on a low estimate. And if we take into account the vast sums distributed annually in voluntary charity, the whole sum of British charities cannot well be estimated lower than at £5,000,000 a year. According to a very well-informed and accurate writer, Lord Sheffield, the sum expended on the relief of the poor is equal to one-half of the rental of England at this time.

This increase of the poor’s-rates is the more astonishing, when we reflect on the progress which has been made within the last few years by Benefit Clubs or Friendly Societies, one of the happiest institutions, undoubtedly, ever introduced into this country. We are assured by Sir Frederic Eden, after all his extensive inquiries on this subject, “that he has not found any parish burdened with the maintenance of any one member of a friendly society, nor the instances numerous of the families of members becoming burdensome.”* The economy of which this institution has been productive to the nation, is incalculably great. Abstracting altogether from the various salutary ends to which they are plainly conducive, it is sufficient to remark the industry, frugality, and independent spirit which it is the tendency of friendly societies to extend among the people. But of these different effects of this institution, I shall have occasion to speak more particularly afterwards. At present, I shall only remark, that if with all the savings which have thus been occasioned by benefit clubs, and if, notwithstanding the uniform success with which they have been attended, wherever they have been carried into execution, the poor’s-rates have doubled their former amount within the last twenty years, it only proves that the malignity of this political disorder is incomparably greater than, on a superficial view, we might be led to expect. I presume, that no person will go so perversely wrong, as to impute this increase to the institution of friendly societies, which are manifestly of the most salutary tendency. Notwithstanding, however, the vast and acknowledged mischiefs connected with the English system of Poor-laws, so deeply does the evil appear now to be rooted not only in the political condition of the country, but in the habits of thinking among the people of England, that not longer ago than the commencement of the present century, the following most extraordinary assertion was publicly maintained:—“The poor have as good a right to their portion of my estate, as I have to my own,” &c.

The facts which have been already stated, together with the incidental remarks interspersed, seem abundantly to authorize doubts, whether, on the whole, it would not have been better if no national provision for the poor had been thought of by the English Legislature; and if the care of this unfortunate class of men had been left entirely to the voluntary charity of their fellow-citizens. That this was the opinion of Montesquieu, may be inferred from the following clause, where, speaking of Hospitals, he remarks, that “occasional provisions for the poor are better than perpetual foundations. The evil is temporary; the remedy must, therefore, be of the same nature, and applicable to the particular circumstances.”* The same sentiment, too, was long ago expressed still more explicitly by an eminent writer of our own country, Mr. Henry Fielding, whose opinion on the subject is of peculiar weight, from his long and intimate acquaintance with the manners and habits of the lower orders of this country. “To say the truth, as this law hath been perverted in the execution, it were, perhaps, to be wished it had never been made. Not because it is not our duty to relieve real objects of distress, but because it is so much the duty of every man; and I may add, so much the inclination of most Englishmen, that it might have been safely left to private charity.”*

Among our later politicians, this conclusion has been very generally adopted; and it must be granted, that a strong argument in its favour, arises from a consideration of the motives which are the great springs of human industry. What would become of the business of human life, if the passions of hope and fear were extinguished; and, in the case of the lower orders, by what can their exertions be excited, but by that which ministers to the necessities of their present condition? The influence of honour and ambition, the passions which actuate the higher orders, is scarcely felt among them; nor is there anything to excite them to uniform exertion, but the necessity of providing for the passing day, and the prospect of securing some store for the helplessness of old age. To strengthen the influence of these motives, is one of the most important ends at which a legislator can aim; and where his institutions, unfortunately, have an opposite tendency, it is vain to hope to remove, by means of any corrective police, that idleness, vice, and misery, of which he himself is the author. On this subject, a variety of excellent and striking observations have been lately made by Mr. Malthus, in the new edition of his Essay on the Principle of Population. The result of these observations is, that if the Poor-laws of England had never existed, “though there might have been a few more instances of very severe distress, the aggregate mass of happiness would have been much greater.”† For the reasonings by which he supports this conclusion, I refer to his very valuable work.

It is, however, a very different question, whether, supposing no legal provision had been made for the poor, it would have been expedient to establish one; and whether, circumstanced as England actually is, it would be wise to abolish that part of her policy, by a direct repeal of the existing Laws? According to Sir Frederic Eden, “no temperate political speculatist of the present day has ventured to recommend the wholly lopping off this vast member of our system of jurisprudence. Among the various opinions as to the mode of relieving the wants of the distressed classes of the community, and of correcting the abuses which have insensibly crept into the administration of the Poor-laws, it seems to be very generally agreed, that a modification only of those laws, and not a total repeal of them, can be attempted.”*

To these observations, I shall take the liberty of adding, that there are many cases in which laws that are strictly conformable to the great principles of justice and expediency, and which, undoubtedly, would form a part of a perfect system of legislation, would be attended with dangerous consequences, if connected with institutions which were not of a congenial spirit and tendency. Supposing, for example, that all the other principles of Political Economy, with regard to the freedom of trade, &c., were established and acted upon, there cannot be a doubt, that anything approaching to a compulsory maintenance of the poor, would be a glaring absurdity. But it is not equally clear whether a deviation in one instance from what is politically right, may not require other deviations of a similar nature. Into this discussion, however, I cannot now enter.

These considerations, obvious and just as they undoubtedly are, do not furnish any argument in favour of a compulsory maintenance of the poor, as a wise political institution. On the contrary, they take for granted, that it is an evil when considered abstractly. But they seem to render it somewhat doubtful, whether, with the different reforms required in that department, it might not be necessary to combine others relating to very different articles of Political Economy. Without, however, making any immediate or violent alteration on the general outline of the existing Poor-laws, there are some principles on which it is supposed by the more temperate reformers, that the Legislature might safely proceed, in checking the farther progress of the evil. Such is the measure proposed by Sir Frederic Eden, for limiting the assessments of the poor to the average of a certain number of years; permitting a new average to be afterwards made at the end of certain stated periods. “There would thus,” in the apprehension of this very respectable writer, “be room for future economy, though not for future extravagance.”* This proposal of a limited assessment has been repeatedly sanctioned by the opinions both of statesmen and of speculative politicians of no inconsiderable note; by Mr. Gilbert, for instance, who for so many years distinguished himself as a useful and active member of the Lower House, on all questions connected with the internal improvement of the country; and by Sir William Pulteney, whose indefatigable industry and zeal in promoting every measure which might be productive of general utility, are universally known in both parts of the United Kingdom; and it has, for many years, found a zealous advocate in Mr. Arthur Young, to whom, indeed, the first idea of the plan is ascribed by Mr. Whitbread in his late Speech on the Poor-laws.†

Simple and safe, however, as this measure may, at first view, appear to be, it has been warmly opposed by different writers: by Mr. Howlett, in particular, in a work published by him in the year 1788, entitled, The Insufficiency of the Causes to which the Increase of the Poor has been commonly ascribed. Among the different objections urged by this last writer against a limited assessment, the most plausible is founded on the fatal consequences which might result to the impotent poor, from the scarcity of an inclement winter, when the assessment would be found inadequate to their wants. This objection has been lately pushed farther, and urged with still greater ability, by Mr. Malthus, in the Appendix to the last edition of his Essay. “Under such a law,” he observes, “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 be invariably appropriated to their relief. If the Statute which gives the poor a right to support, were to remain unexpunged, we should add to the cruelty of starving them, the extreme 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.”* The same view of the subject has been adopted by Mr. Whitbread, in his Speech on the Poor-laws, where he concludes a very able argument in support of Mr. Malthus, by expressing his own conviction, that “if an allowance is to be made to the poor, it ought to be co-extensive with the necessities to which it is to apply.”†

On a question of this sort, relating to which my own means of information are so scanty, compared with those of Mr. Howlett, Mr. Whitbread, and Mr. Malthus, I certainly am not entitled to deliver any opinion. But I may be allowed, without the imputation of undue presumption, to observe, that the objection which they have stated against the expediency of a limited assessment, is, in some measure, inconsistent, as it seems to take for granted the very principle uniformly denied by those who support the scheme of a compulsory maintenance of the poor. The principle I allude to is, that the voluntary chairty of individuals is not a sufficient resource for the poor in times of scarcity. But against this assumption, a variety of strong facts may be urged. Vast as our legal establishment is, and abundant as the means it affords of accomplishing its objects undoubtedly are, much still is entrusted by law to the unconstrained charity of individuals. Nor does it appear from experience, that the more opulent classes fail in discharging this duty, notwithstanding the effect which the legal provisions produce both in damping the spirit, and in exhausting the means of their beneficence. And it may, perhaps, be doubted, whether the cases in which their charity has been blameably deficient, be so numerous as those in which it has exceeded what is politically expedient.

Although, however, the plan of a limited assessment seems to me to deserve a still more ample discussion before it is finally rejected, I must acknowledge, that I am much less sanguine in my hopes of its practicability, after the decided tone in which it has been reprobated by these three individuals, all of whom are so intimately acquainted with the local details, and with the established prejudices of the English nation. Nor must I omit the dexterity with which Mr. Malthus has quoted Mr. Young against himself, on this very question; an inconsistency, which I am the more disposed to take notice of, as it tends to justify a censure which I passed, in a former part of this course, on the numerous contradictions and inconsistencies which abound in the words of this industrious and public-spirited writer:—“The National Assembly of France, though they disapproved of the English Poor-laws, still adopted their principle, and declared, that the poor had a right to pecuniary assistance; that the Assembly ought to consider such a provision as one of its first and most sacred duties; and that with this view, an expense ought to be incurred of fifty millions a year. Mr. Young justly observes, that he does not comprehend how it is possible to regard the expenditure of fifty millions a year as a sacred duty, and not extend that fifty to one hundred, if necessity should demand it; the one hundred to two hundred, the two hundred to three hundred, and so on in the same miserable progression which has taken place in England.”* It is unnecessary for me to remark, that this is precisely the argument employed by Mr. Malthus against Mr. Young’s own plan of a limited assessment, with this important difference, however, (I must in justice to Mr. Young observe,) that the National Assembly of France had sanctioned, by a legislative act, those very dangerous prejudices which previously had no existence there.

Another plan for a gradual abolition of the Poor-laws has been proposed by Mr. Malthus. The leading idea of this plan is, that “no child born of any marriage taking place after the expiration of a year from the date of the proposed law, and no illegitimate child born within two years, should be entitled to parish assistance.”* To this proposal, Mr. Whitbread has objected in very strong and pointed terms in his Speech on the Poor-laws, and has even gone so far as to say, that it would necessarily be repealed within two years of its establishment.† For my own part, I must confess, that the considerations stated by Mr. Whitbread in support of his opinion, do not carry conviction to my mind. Of the difficulties to be expected in carrying the plan into execution, I am perfectly aware; but if these are not altogether insurmountable, we ought to weigh carefully in the other scale of the balance the magnitude of the evil which it is its object to remedy. The plan has, at least, the merit of conformity to general principles, inasmuch as it involves a disavowal of the whole system of compulsory maintenance, while, at the same time, it avoids all rejection of those claims which individuals might be expected to allege, if any privileges were withdrawn from them by law, which they had, from infancy, been taught to regard as their right.

Before leaving the subject of the English Poor-laws, it is proper for me to observe, that the general principle of compulsory maintenance upon which they are founded, strongly as the preceding facts and reasonings appear to conclude against it, is by no means abandoned as either unjust or inexpedient by all our speculative politicians, even in the present times. The ingenious author of an Essay on the Right of Property in Land, which was published a few years ago, extols them as the most generous and reputable branch of our internal legislation; and Mr. Howlett has pronounced the general system on this subject to be “a venerable pile, raised by the hands of skilful architects, and to stand a distinguished monument of the wisdom and humanity of the British nation. Like every other edifice,” he continues, “it is liable, indeed, to the injuries of time and seasons, and must want occasional repairs and occasional improvements; but if pulled entirely down, we might stand a chance of either being buried in its ruins, or, at best, of never raising anything in its stead of equal grandeur, utility, or beauty.”* The same opinion he has since maintained in the Examination of Mr. Pitt’s Speech in the year 1796:—“To me this system appears a most judicious union of wisdom and humanity. This is the true spirit of our Poor-laws.”†

The increase of the poor, which is commonly ascribed to our injudicious system of Poor-laws, and their defective execution, is chiefly owing, in the opinion of Mr. Howlett, to a greater advance in the price of provisions than in the price of labour. His remarks on the point are extremely interesting and valuable. But admitting them to be perfectly just, all that they prove is, that the increase of the poor in England is not to be ascribed solely either to the existing Laws, or to their injudicious execution; and that other powerful causes co-operate in aggravating the evil. That the increase of mendicity arises, partly from some general causes affecting other countries of Europe, as well as England, may be inferred from some facts collected by Mr. Howlett, with respect to the multiplication of the poor in Scotland and in France. His information concerning the latter kingdom, particularly, is curious, and it seems to have been communicated to him by a very intelligent and authentic writer. “I can venture to assert, with the utmost confidence,” says Mr. Howlett’s correspondent in a letter dated in 1788, “that the poor of France, within a very few years, have been extremely multiplied; that, notwithstanding the public contributions for their maintenance are much more abundant than ever, they are still in a very deplorable situation, and that the capital is by no means the only city in which are at once presented to the view, the astonishing contrast between the most extravagant luxury on the one hand, and the most shocking distress on the other. Orleans being situate between the richest and the poorest provinces, may be considered as a kind of standard or medium by which to judge of the kingdom at large; the total population of this city is 50,000 persons, of whom one-third receive charitable assistance from their superiors.” All measures, both severe and mild, have been tried to reduce the number of poor in this town. The amount of the several contributions for their relief, the same correspondent states, “at about 360,000 livres, or £19,000 a year. But notwithstanding these, and similar exertions of benevolence in every part of the kingdom, no season of uncommon severity arrives, but vast numbers of entire families, especially in the country, perish for want, are strictly and literally starved and frozen to death.”*

An examination of the causes of this multiplication of the poor in countries where no legal provisions are made for them, could not fail to lead to important conclusions. But although it might shew, that the mischiefs of the English Poor-laws have been somewhat exaggerated, it would never tend to a vindication of the general principle on which they are founded. With respect to the facts on which so much stress is laid by Mr. Howlett, as establishing the disproportion between the rate of wages and the price of provisions, I do not mean to enter at present into any discussion. I shall only remark, that the rate of wages cannot be expected to fluctuate, nor is it expedient that it should fluctuate, with the occasional variations in the money price of corn. I have already had occasion to shew that the price of wages has a natural tendency to adjust itself to the average money price of the necessaries of life. That this natural tendency is beneficial, on the whole, to all the parties concerned, may be easily demonstrated. Nor does it seem possible for the law to interfere for regulating it on any other principle, without aggravating the evil. Supposing that the price of labour were regulated, as has been proposed by some speculative men, and men mentioned in our National Assembly, by the price of corn, what would be the consequence in a year of scarcity? Manifestly this: that as the most numerous class of consumers would be enabled to purchase the same quantity as in a year of plenty, the same consumption would take place in the one case as in the other, and the necessity of that economy would be superseded, which can alone prevent a dearth from ending in a famine.

I would not be understood, by these remarks, to give any opinion on the question, Whether the real reward of labour has been increasing or declining, within the last fifty years? Mr. Howlett’s opinion on this question has been already stated. The contrary is strongly maintained by Sir Frederic Eden, who published in the year 1797; and by Mr. Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, published about twenty years before. Mr. Burke, too, in a paper written in November 1795, asserts confidently, that “even under all the hardships of the last year, the labouring people did, either out of their direct gains, or from charity, in fact, fare better than they did, in seasons of common plenty, fifty or sixty years ago; or even at the period of my English observation.”* The question, in truth, resolves ultimately into a still more general one, with respect to the progressive or declining state of the funds destined for the employment and maintenance of labour; a question, undoubtedly, of the most interesting nature, but which, in whatever way it may be decided, does not appear to have any immediate connexion with the discussion concerning the expediency of a legal provision for the poor, or of a legal limitation of the rate of wages. For even on the supposition that the circumstances of the country were in this respect declining, the evil, obviously, is not of a kind which admits of a legislative correction, in any other way than by supplying what is defective, or amending what is erroneous in the general system of Political Economy.

So much with respect to the legal establishment for the provision of the poor as it exists in England, and the various subordinate articles which seem to be more particularly connected with that branch of police. On the various plans which have been proposed for the gradual amendment and reformation of the English system, I do not presume to offer any opinion; nor, indeed, am I qualified to do so, without having had an opportunity of ascertaining, by personal observation, a great variety of facts about which I find the most contradictory statements in the works of authors who are all equally entitled to credit for their talents, their characters, and their means of information. One good consequence which is, at least, to be expected from the succession of bad years which lately took place, is, that the mass of important information which these were the occasion of bringing before the public, is likely to invite speculative men to attend to the reformation of this branch of police, at a time when the general principles of Political Economy are unquestionably much better understood than at any former period when it was an object of legislative attention. The labours of Sir Frederic Eden in this department are entitled to peculiar praise. They do great honour to his persevering industry as a collector of facts, and to his enlightened zeal as a good citizen; and whoever undertakes the subject after him, will find the consideration of it much facilitated, by the extent and accuracy of his researches. It is to be regretted, that he had not bestowed a little more time in condensing and arranging his materials; as his valuable work, certainly, is not likely, in its present form, to attract the attention of an ordinary reader. In justice to this author, however, I must observe, that this very defect seems to have been owing, in a great measure, to a motive which reflects greater honour on him than the attainment of literary fame; an anxiety, while Mr. Pitt’s Poor Bill was under the examination of Parliament, to contribute whatever information he was possessed of that might have the most remote tendency to enlighten and direct its proceedings. For the inelegances of style which the work contains, no better apology can be offered than in his own words: in quoting which, I cannot help remarking, how completely they prove with what facility he might have added the graces of composition, if he had aimed merely at the fame of an eloquent writer. “I have endeavoured to be plain, simple, and perspicuous, but have never wasted that time in polishing a sentence which I thought I could better employ in ascertaining a fact; and even in matters of fact thus brought forward, there will, I more than doubt, be too often found something to object to as inaccurate.”* In compiling the foregoing historical sketch, I have availed myself very largely of the assistance which this writer’s work afforded me, confining myself, however, to the most prominent facts, and distinguishing them, as much as possible, from details of inferior importance. The view which I have exhibited, with all its imperfections, will, I hope, be sufficient to convey a general idea of the present system of Poor-laws in England, and of the most interesting discussions to which it has given rise.

[* ] [Eden’s State of the Poor, 1797, Book I. chap. i.; Vol. I. p. 42, seq.]

[* ] [Ibid. p. 44.]

[* ] [Ibid. p. 61.]

[* ] [Ibid. Book I. chap. ii.; Vol. I. p. 97.]

[* ] [Chap. ii. pp. 100-102, third edition.]

[* ] [Eden’s State of the Poor, Book I. chap. ii. Vol. I. p. 134.]

[† ] [Journal, p. 674.]

[‡ ] [State of the Poor, Book I. chap. ii. Vol. I. p. 133.]

[* ] [Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis, Chap. xiii. p. 358, seventh edition.]

[† ] [Ibid. Chap. xi. p. 313, seventh edition.]

[* ] [State of the Poor, Book I. chap. ii.; Vol. I. p. 171.]

[† ] [Ibid. p. 175.]

[‡ ] [Ibid. p. 176.]

[* ] [Observations on the Present State and Defects of the Poor-Laws.]

[† ] [Book I. chap. x.; Vol. I. pp. 212-222, tenth edition.]

[‡ ] [Ibid. p. 218.]

[§ ] [Book II. Sketch x.; Vol. II. p. 40; edit. 1774.]

[* ] [Examination of Mr. Pitt’s Speech, &c., Sect. I. pp. 15, 16.]

[† ] [State of the Poor, Book I. chap. ii.; Vol. I. p. 181.]

[* ] [Wealth of Nations, Book I. chap. viii.; Vol. I. p. 113, tenth edition.]

[† ] [Ibid.]

[‡ ] [Supra, Political Economy, Vol. I.; (Works, Vol. VIII.) p. 181.]

[* ] [Wealth of Nations, Book I. chap. x.; Vol. I. pp. 219, 220, tenth edition.]

[† ] [See Eden’s State of the Poor, Book I. chap. iii.; Vol. I. p. 397.]

[* ] [An Account of several Workhouses, &c.]

[† ] [State of the Poor, Book I. chap. iii.; Vol. I. p. 270.]

[* ] [Sect. xiii. p. 80, seq., edit. 1817.]

[* ] [Quoted in Eden’s State of the Poor, Book I. chap. ii.; Vol. I. p. 188.]

[† ] [Ibid. Book I. chap. ii.; Vol. I. p. 131.]

[‡ ] [Ibid. Pref. p. xxv.]

[* ] [Ibid. Pref. p. xxv.]

[* ] [Esprit des Loix, Liv. XXIII. chap. xxix. Part II. p. 107.]

[* ] [Inquiry into the Causes of the Increase of Robbers, &c., Sect. iv.; Works, Vol. IV. p. 554.]

[† ] [Book III. chap. vi.; Vol. II. p. 177, edit. 1806.]

[* ] [State of the Poor, Book II. chap. i.; Vol. I. p. 470.]

[* ] [Ibid. p. 484.]

[† ] [P. 12.]

[* ] [Vol. II. p. 529, third edition.]

[† ] [P. 15.]

[* ] [Essay on Population—Appendix, Vol. II. p. 529, third edition.]

[* ] [Ibid. p. 396.]

[† ] [P. 16.]

[* ] [The Insufficiency of the Causes to which the Increase of our Poor and of the Poor’s-rates have been commonly ascribed, &c., 1788, Part III. sect. iii. p. 118.]

[† ] [Sect. I. p. 5.]

[* ] [Insufficiency of the Causes, &c., Part I. sect. i. pp. 16-18.]

[* ] [Thoughts and Details on Scarcity; Works, Vol. VII. p. 379, edit. 1808.]

[* ] [State of the Poor, Preface, p. xxix.]