1 827.] Third Report of the Emigration Committee. 583 



he does. Let the magistrate fix his rate of wages, and always at that sum 

 which will purchase him two bushels of wheat per week : which is the 

 amount that he received in the last century. If he does work, let him not 

 work for less than a subsistence ; as the matter stands, his low priced labour 

 does hut produce a glut of merchandize, which, acting in its turn, sinks the 

 demand, and renders those low wages perpetual." Now nothing can be 

 more true than a great part of this statement : and we will even admit (for 

 the argument's sake) that it is better that a man, who cannot get two 

 bushels of wheat weekly for his labour, should die of hunger, or be main* 

 tained by the industry of others, than that he should work for a bushel 

 and a half. But, will the capitalist and the labourer consent to this ? 

 And is it possible, in a country where men possess ordinary freedom, to 

 make any law which shall bind them to consent ? The capitalist is desi-r 

 rous to employ the labourer upon low terms: the labourer, rather than 

 starve, or be ill maintained by the parish, is anxious to work upon low 

 terms; how shall we keep these parties asunder? The "shop system,"* 

 Mr. Wells and his friends must know, negatives every provision to such 

 an effect in an instant : and that system no law can reach. If it be contrary 

 to law for a master to pay his workmen with " orders" say even upon any 

 shop ; what is to prevent his employing no workmen but those who happen 

 to deal at a particular shop? with the owner of which he has an under* 

 standing, which every body knows may exist, without the possibility that 

 proof 'of it could be obtained. Or to conclude the question in a shorter way 

 what even could stop the "Cottage system" in action, according to the 

 evidence of witnesses before the Committee already ? a scheme by which 

 masters, investing part of their capital in building or purchasing cottages, 

 let them to workmen weekly : and for the rate and question of r^n/ 

 employ no hands but such as will occupy them ? 



Perhaps the nearest approach to advantage would be in a partial and 

 combined application of all the cures devised ; excepting always the last, 

 that of fixing a minimum of wages : to which objections enough exist (if 

 it were necessary to name them) besides the fact of its being impracticable* 

 To adapt the supply of labour in any country with even a remote 

 approach to constancy or proportion to the demand, is utterly impossible ; 

 to population there can be but one effective check, under whatever 

 name that check may be attempted to be disguised the impossibility 

 of obtaining sustenance. We may maintain a greater number of people^ 

 or a lesser ; but we shall always have more than our wants can well 

 dispose of: we shall no more get rid of misery by any course of 

 human caution or arrangements than by any code of law w r e can get 

 rid of crime. .Something, however, may be done we may palliate 

 where we cannot cure towards preventing an excess of one as of the 

 other. To provide employ and subsistence for the greatest possible 

 number of persons that circumstances can maintain, is our duty, less with 

 a view to the advantage of individuals, than to the benefit of the state. 

 The diminution, by all available means (this is an ungrateful subject, 

 and an old one, but we are compelled to return to it) of those public* 



* A scheme of paying labourers by orders for provisions upon a particular shop, 

 &c. kept by the master, or in which he is interested ; where the prices charged being- 

 high, or the commodities inferior, the large profit obtained lowers the real amount of 

 the labourers' wages. 



