A. D. 1795. Some grievous abuses were this year introduced into the administration of the poorlaws. The price of corn, which for three years preceding had averaged 54s., rose to 74s. a quarter. As wages continued stationary, the distress of the poor was very great, and many ablebodied labourers, who had rarely before applied for parish assistance, became claimants for relief. Instead of meeting this emergency by temporary expedients, and by grants of relief proportioned to the urgency of each individual case, one uniform system was adopted. The magistrates of Berks and some of the southern counties issued tables, showing the wages which they thought every labouring man ought to receive, according to variations in the price of bread and the number of his family; and they accompanied these tables with an order, directing the parish officers to make up the difference to the labourer, in the event of the wages paid to him by his employer falling short of the tabular allowance. An act was at the same time passed to allow the justices to administer relief out of the workhouses, and also to relieve such poor persons as had property of their

own.

This system, as might have been foreseen, did not close with the temporary necessity in which it originated, and its evils have been threefold. 1. To make wages vary with the price of bread, takes away all motive for economising its consumption in dear years, and thus throws the entire pressure of a scarcity on the payers of poor-rates, especially the

middle classes, who may themselves be suffering from the high price of provisions. 2. To proportion the parish allowance to the number of children, was granting a bounty on marriages to the positive injury of the single man. 3. To render wages uniform, by raising them all up to a fixed standard of remuneration, by payments out of the rates, was placing the idle and dissolute on a level with the orderly and industrious. It was a complete system of levelling as subversive of the rights of industry, as an agrarian law, in its vulgar acceptation, would be of the rights of property, destroying all motives to independent exertion, economy, and forethought.

A. D. 1796. On the 12th of February Mr. Whitbread, on moving in the House of Commons, that a bill to regulate the wages of labourers in husbandry be read a second time, made this statement. He said that" in most parts of the country the labourers had long been struggling with increasing misery till the pressure had become almost too grievous to be endured; while the patience of the sufferers, under their accumulated distresses, had been conspicuous and exemplary." This appears a very extraordinary representation when it is considered that the intolerable load of war taxes had hardly begun to be felt, and as the Bank of England had not ceased to pay in gold, it was anterior to the depreciation of the currency, Yet there were evident symptoms, even at this period, of an over-supply of labour, and the remedies suggested for this redundancy were of a most singular description. Mr. Whitbread recommended the im

mediate establishment of a minimum of wages; a measure as unjust against the employer as a maximum would be against the employed. Mr. Pitt, in reply, admitted that the condition of the poor was cruel, and such as could not be wished on any principle of humanity or policy. But he argued against the proposition of Mr. Whitbread as contrary to sound principles, and concluded in these words: "What measures then could be found to supply the defect? Let us," said he, "make relief (by the parish), in cases where there are a number of children, a matter of right and an honour, instead of a ground for opprobrium and contempt. This will make a large family a blessing and not a curse; and this will draw a proper line of distinction between those who are able to provide for themselves by their labour, and those who, after having ENRICHED their country with a number of children have a claim upon its assistance for their support."-Parl. History, vol. xxxii. p. 710. Mr. Fox did not enter fully into the question, but appeared to acquiesce in the principles laid down; and Mr. Whitbread, in conclusion, complimented Mr. Pitt, and recommended government "to institute a liberal premium for large families!"

These doctrines it is apparent inculcate the most objectionable provisions of the poor-laws, and show how completely the real causes of the depression of the labouring classes were misunderstood by the statesmen of 1796. They seem not to have been aware that the supply of labour, like that of any other commodity, may exceed the demand, and that

to encourage the production of an article already redundant must tend still further to lower its price. Had there been a glut in the sugar-market it is hardly possible that Mr. Pitt or Mr. Whitbread would have proposed as a remedy a premium to the planters on the growth of that product.

The opinions of politicians on this subject were agreeable to the principles which had long passed current among distinguished writers; namely, that the wealth of a state consists in the number of its people. Rousseau, in his Contrat Social, asks, "What is the most certain sign that the people are maintained and prosper? It is their number, or in other words their populousness. Do not seek for this sign in any other quarter. That government, when without naturalizations, without extrinsic means, without colonies, the citizens multiply and increase to the greatest degree, is without doubt the best." Applying this test to the actual condition of different European countries it would follow, that the canton of Geneva, where, exclusive of immigration, the inhabitants increase only s annually, must be one of the most wretched spots in Europe; while the Irish, who have quadrupled their number within a century, must be in a state of enviable blessedness. It is needless to remark that the fact is the reverse in both instances.

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Rousseau, however, was not so singular and mistaken in this opinion as in many of his paradoxes. Mirabeau acquired the title of the "Friend of Mankind," by laying down the principle, that "it is

their number that constitutes the riches and the power of empires;" and Dr. Price treated that proposition as a generally received and incontrovertible axiom: "Every body knows," says he, "that the power of a state consists in the number of its inhabitants, and that in consequence the encouragement of its population ought to be one of the first objects of those who administer its affairs." It was doubtless in conformity with this dogma that the English Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to augment the fiscal means of the country by taxing bachelors, and granting premiums on prolific housewives. So prevalent was the feeling, that it found its way into poetry, and Dr. Goldsmith sings

Ill fares the state to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates and men decay!

After all, the error of these eminent individuals was rather one of degree and of circumstances, than of absolute principle. They were wrong in thinking that the increase of population ever requires encouragement; it is sufficient for the state to provide subsistence, and the increase of the people will follow as an unfailing consequence. They were right in considering men the riches of a country, the end of all legislation and public policy. But they must surely have intended men that could be productively employed; not pensioners of a parish, nor of the state, who consume without yielding services in return. There is truly no commodity-if so disparaging an epithet may be applied to nature's noblest