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Timoleon at the head of the home department; and we may be pretty well assured that this, like every similar project attempted to be carried into effect by salaried agents, in the teeth of public opinion, will terminate by being made a screen for all sorts of jobbing and mal-practices.

The smaller, speaking generally, the divisions into which a country is parcelled, and the more directly the burden of providing for the poor is brought home to the door of those upon whom it must fall, the greater will be the security against the mismanagement of the rates, and the less room will there be for imposture, menace, and cabal, on the part of the poor. But the authors of the new poor laws treat such considerations with contempt! They say, in effect, it matters not how well the affairs of the poor in one parish may have been administered, or how badly they may have been administered in another; we shall combine these and a dozen more parishes into the same union, and subject them to the same rates and mode of management! This is taking away, in as far as can be done, every motive to the prudent and economical treatment of the poor by parishes and individuals, who are no longer to profit by it, and giving a corresponding encouragement to abuse. Under the old system, parishes might, if they thought it would be for their interest, join together, and erect workhouses, managing their poor in common. But it was reserved for the legislators of the nineteenth century, who pique themselves upon their devotion to free principles, to make such junctions imperative to force ill-omened unions between well-managed and badly managed parishes, between prudence and folly, economy and waste!

It has been said that, without the supervision of a Central Board, it would be impossible to introduce any sort of uniformity into the treatment of the poor; and this, perhaps, is true. But why should there be any uniformity? Any one who reflects for a moment on the subject, must see that the treatment of the poor should vary in different parishes and parts of the country, and that it would be the climax

of folly to treat the poor of a manufacturing and of an agricultural district in the same way. Why should it not be left to those who pay the rates, and are, consequently, most interested in their proper outlay, to decide upon the best means of maintaining the poor? It is, if any thing can be, an insult to common sense to pretend that any three, or any three hundred individuals, resident in London, should be able to instruct private parties resident in the different parishes of England, how the poor in them may be best and most economically provided for!

It is needless to inquire into the abstract merit of the various rules and regulations framed by the Central Board; though it seems rather difficult to discover the wisdom or possible utility of the greater number. But the treatment of the poor is, obviously, a matter in which the most carefully drawn up general rules can, speaking generally, be of little or no service: it is one in which we have to deal with conflicting interests and opinions, conflicting and perpetually varying circumstances, in which expediency must be allowed quite as much weight as right or principle, and in which most cases have something peculiar. And, such being the fact, can there be a doubt that all attempts to apply the same rules to so many different and opposite interests and cases are fraught with gross injustice and extreme danger?

It is sometimes said, by way of apology for the new system, that, under its influence, the rates have been materially reduced, and that, therefore, it must at least be in so far advantageous. While, however, we admit the fact, we deny the inference. All changes in the public economy of a great nation, and especially those which deeply affect the interests of the poorer classes, should be brought about gradually and slowly. Had the charge of providing for the poor been committed, as it should have been, to the people of property in the different parishes, without any interference on the part of the justices, under the regulations established previously to 1782, it is probable that the reduction of the rates, though more effectual in the

end, would have been less rapid at first than under the new system. At the outset of all projects of this description, the officers have an extraordinary anxiety to discover their zeal; and seldom, indeed, hesitate about availing themselves of any means, however questionable, to evince their desire to be useful to their employers, and to prove the value of their services. But this ultra zeal very soon cools down to something like apathy, or, it may be, connivance at abuse; whereas the watchful care individuals take of their own interests, is a principle which no fancied security can ever relax, or time wear out; so that while reforms, effected by the agency of those to whom they are profitable, are usually introduced with caution, they are invariably carried out to the fullest extent, and enforced with untiring vigilance.1

Such are some of the contradictions that appear to be involved in the amended poor law, and of the mischievous consequences of which it has been and will, most likely, continue to be productive. It would be inconsistent with the plan and objects of this work to subject it to a more lengthened examination. We do not presume to cast its horoscope, to conjecture how long it is destined to be the law of the land, or to measure the degree of rigour with which its provisions may be enforced; but we have seen that it is opposed to all sound doctrine; that it makes that a public and national, which is essentially a private and local affair; and that it is an uncalled-for interference with the rights and duties of individuals. Should it be permitted to run its full course, without some material modifications, the presumption is that, in the end, it will be found to be as expensive and disastrous in its practical results, as it is vicious in its principles, and audacious in its pretensions.

The sums paid for the relief and maintenance of the poor of England and Wales, during the years ending the 25th March 1839, 1840, and 1841, were respectively £4,421,714, £4,576,965, and £4,760,928, and during 1844, 1845, and 1846, they were £4,976,003, £5,039,703, and £4,954,204. In 1847, the expenditure amounted to £5,298,787.

CHAPTER IV.

Education of the Poor-Importance of a National System of Education -Difficulties in the way of its Establishment-Influence of Friendly Societies and Savings Banks.

Of the various means for providing for the permanent improvement of the poor, few, if any, promise to be so effectual as the establishment of a really useful system of public education. Poverty is, no doubt, the grand source of misery and crime. Ignorance, however, is admitted, on all hands, to be also a prolific direct source of crime; and its indirect influence is still more powerful, by its contributing, in no ordinary degree, to the increase of poverty. It is now, indeed, pretty generally acknowledged, that the providing of elementary instruction for all classes of its subjects is one of the most pressing duties of government; and, during the last half century, and especially since the termination of the late war, some of the principal Continental states have taken every means in their power to ensure the efficient discharge of this important duty. But, except in Scotland, no plan of national instruction has been. organised in any part of the United Kingdom. And though much has been done to supply this deficiency by benevolent individuals and societies, and more recently by government, a great deal remains to be accomplished, both as respects the diffusion of instruction, and the improvement of its quality. In this country, those who have laboured to promote the education of the poor seem, generally speaking, to be satisfied, provided they succeed in making them able to read and write. But, though this much be a material gain, the education that stops at this point omits those parts that are, perhaps, most important. A knowledge of the arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic, may, and

indeed very often does, exist along with the grossest ignorance of all those principles with respect to which it is most for the interest of the poor, as well as of the other classes, that they should be well informed. To render education productive of all the utility that may be derived from it, the poor should, in addition to the elementary instruction now alluded to, be made acquainted with the duties enjoined by religion and morality, and with the circumstances which occasion that gradation of ranks and inequality of fortunes that usually exist; and they should be impressed, from their earliest years, with a conviction of the important truth, that every man is, to a great extent, the arbiter of his own fortune; and that the most tolerant and economical government, and the best institutions, can shield none from poverty and degradation, who do not exercise a reasonable degree of industry, forethought, and good conduct. That the ultimate effect of such a system of education would be most advantageous, appears abundantly obvious. Neither the errors nor the vices of the poor are incurable: they investigate all those plain practical questions which affect their immediate interests with the greatest sagacity and penetration, and do not fail to trace their remote consequences; and if education were made to embrace objects of real utility-if it were made a means of instructing the poor in the circumstances which elevate and depress the rate of wages, and which, consequently, exert the most powerful influence over their condition, and in those by which individuals are raised to comparative comfort, there can be little doubt they would endeavour to profit by it. It would be unreasonable, indeed, to expect that it should produce any very immediate effect on their habits; and we are not of the number of those who expect that any system of education will ever insure tranquillity in periods of distress, or that it will obviate the vicissitudes and disorders inherent in the manufacturing system. But though the harvest of sound instruction may be late, and not so extensive as many suppose, it would, notwithstand

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