162 Actual State of the British Empire, 



amongst the lower classes those habits of mental application 

 and moral restraint, which produce in manhood a character of 

 prudence and self-command ; for the sacrifice of the present to 

 the future is at once the object and the means of all just educa- 

 tion. This admirable institution, which has no parallelin ancient 

 or modern times, could not fail to produce its proper effect, till 

 the period when Scotland became a commercial and manufac- 

 turing nation. This is the true source, " Hinc illae lachrymse'* 

 of parish taxation. A vsystem of poor-laws grows as naturally 

 and necessarily out of the body-politic of a great commercial 

 state, as fungi from a rich soil, or tumours from a diseased 

 animal. This is the price and the compensation of our flou- 

 rishing cities and our enormous trade. It is a price which can- 

 not be evaded, without incurring the punishment which follows 

 every gross violation of justice. In all the operations of nature, 

 as W'cll as in the affairs of man, a system of compensation is 

 generally cognizable, and it is no where more palpable than in 

 this instance. I do not mean to affirm that commerce and 

 manufactures do not produce benefits which overbalance their 

 concomitant evils, but merely to affirm that we cannot expect 

 to receive these advantages pure and defecated. They not 

 only, in their periods of prosperity, force up population beyond 

 its natural level, and plunge it into distress by their perpetual 

 vicissitudes, but they introduce every species of habit which is 

 adverse to sober calculation and moral restraint. The great 

 masses of people which they necessarily congregate, ferment 

 with the leaven of intemperance and licentiousness, till the 

 corruption becomes universal. Thus debihtated in body and 

 mind, when the season of adversity arrives, it finds them for 

 the most part helpless, and without resource. Nothing but 

 the intervention of the poor-laws could save their families 

 from the most wasting destruction. 



This truth has been made evident even in Scotland, where 

 trade and manufactures have already begun to produce their 

 usual effects. In most of the populous districts, municipal 

 regulations, analogous to the English poor-laws, have been 

 generally established, and they are constantly extending them- 

 selves. A late eminent Scottish writer earnestly deprecates 

 'these fearful beginnings, and adviseS; at all hazards, to havQ 



