Actual State of the British Empire, 155 



happiness of their people is more to be ascribed to these 

 circumstances than to anything in their positive institutions. 



I shall now, in the second place, say a few words on Mr. 

 Malthus's great remedy for the magnitudinous evil which he 

 has so ably displayed — the gradual abolition of the poor-laws^ 

 The authority of this eminent writer, and of some distinguished 

 individuals, in and out of parliament, who have adopted his 

 doctrines, have propagated a general belief that the system of 

 our poor-laws is the great radical evil of the country. After 

 all the other trials which we have suffered and survived, this 

 domestic sore is, it seems, that which is destined at last to con- 

 sume our vitals : our system of parish relief is described as a 

 sort of hydra, with a power of self-propagation so prodigious, 

 that it must soon lay waste the whole land, and finally leave 

 nothing to be devoured. All the mighty evils inseparable from 

 the principle of population are, according to Mr. Malthus, in- 

 creased by this system to a degree of tenfold aggravation. 

 By it all the benefits of the preventive check of moral restraint 

 in respect to marriage are stifled at their source. Yet by this 

 alone can the multiplied horrors of the positive checks of vice 

 and misery be prevented or retarded. No man, it is said, will 

 be induced to put any restraint upon his inclination when he 

 knows that the parish is bound to maintain all the children 

 which his improvident marriage may bring into the world. 

 For the same reason he never thinks of making any provision, 

 in seasons of youth and prosperity, for those of adversity and 

 old age. The increase of parish paupers diminishes their 

 sense of shame, and degrades their habits of independence ; 

 and the disease in this way, like a conflagration, extends 

 itself on all sides, and gathers strength by every extension. 



The Report of the House of Commons labours to show that 

 the theory of Mr. Malthus is more than borne out by fact and 

 experience. They infer, from the rapid increase of the poor's- 

 rates, which they describe to be in an accelerated ratio, that 

 they must gradually absorb the whole property of the country, 

 convert us into a nation of paupers, and finally reduce the 

 functions of government itself to those of overseers and church- 

 wardens. In confirmation of this alarming doctrine, they 

 produce instances of some parishes where the rent of all the 



