1808.] Reflections on the Management of the Poor. 
| professor Malthus, have said much to 
~ discountenance the interference of the 
lawgiver. But in over-peopled countries 
the mass of indigence always becomes so 
great, that without the positive media- 
tion of the magistrate to relieve the 
needy, anarchy would probably ensue, 
and a general plunder of property would 
avenge a systematic niggardliness. 
This great truth the Romans learnt 
during the conspiracy of Catiline; and 
from that time adopted regular distri- 
butions of succour among the poor of 
Rome. Their assistance was admini- 
stered in kind; they gave away corn, not 
eash; and Cicero was made bishop, or 
overseer, of this public victualling. Be- 
sides the danger to social tranquillity, 
which would grow out of the uncharita- 
bleness of the magistrate; there is this 
further reason for adopting legal provi- 
sions. The burden of relief would fall 
exclusively on the benevolent; and prin- 
‘cipally on the classes contiguous to the 
poor ; if there were no compulsory rates. 
Distance of rank and hardness of heart 
_ alike intercept the access of the needy. 
___ Suppose a public: provision assented 
to, who are to be the payers? who the 
managers? Confidently one may answer: 
All. A poor family, renting a cottage of 
five pounds a year, should be assessed, 
in proportion to their rental, as well as 
_« the farmers who employ them. It is 
_-true this family will require to have its 
-whole contribution to the rates, repaid 
with additions during the winter season, 
But there is no purse-club, and of this 
kind is a general poors rate, where those 
who receive relief are excused from con- 
tribution. By levying rates on the poor 
themselves, they become interested in 
keeping the rates low; and then may 
*, safely be intrusted to apportion relief one 
_,among the other. | They are better 
f judges of the real wants of the indigent, 
than those all-managing justices, who are 
‘insensibly encroaching on the sounder 
authority of elective overseers. They 
As cut closer in measuring the fitness of dis- 
_ tribution. They will enforce provident 
' -habits among each other, when they 
~ have severally an expectation of profiting 
by their neighbour’s economy. In sects » 
that maintain their own poor, frugality is 
‘always a distinguished virtue. 
» A poor’s rate may be considered as a 
commutation for that right of the people 
tothe soil, which a majovity told by the 
_ head, in virtue of their physical strength, 
© can at all times arrogate.,) This commu- 
“ation guswers both to the pauper and 
Ld 
i 
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109 
to’ the proprictor: and is with entire 
justicé levied exclusively on the reat of 
fixed property: because it is an assur- 
ance-premium against agrapiainism ¢ it 18 
a quit-rent paid to the sovereign people 
for a recognition of individual titles of 
possession. © Mr. Colquhoun, in his 
‘Treatise on Indigence, (p. 18.) inequita- 
bly proposes to: distribute the busden of 
rate on capital employed to put labour in 
motion, which by that very office diss 
charges its deht to the poor’s fund. 
‘But although there is no sufficient pres 
text for assessing to the poor’s rate those 
funds that employ labour; neither is 
there a sufficiout pretext for assessing the 
wazes of labour on fixed property. Yet 
this is habitually done in Great Britain. 
In vast parishes, in whole hundreds, the 
farmers combine to keep the wages of 
labour’ below their natural price, and 
issue out of the rates the deficient means 
of maintenance. The cause of this seems 
to be, that the poor’s rate is considered 
in the rent, and falls on the landlord; 
whereas the wages. of labour always fall 
on the tenant. In those districts only, 
where there isa numerous manufactur= 
ing poor, the farmers prefer duly to pay 
labour, and meanly to stint allowances. 
The landlords, though not the tenants, 
of Great Britain, have an interest in di- 
minishing the poor’s rate, and increasing 
the wages of labour. ‘This may be done 
two ways; directly, or indirectly :. by: rai- 
sing the money-price of toil, or by redu- 
cing the cost of necessary articles of sub- 
sistence.. This last is the better method 
of augménting the reward of labour. If 
the tax on leather were whcelly with- 
drawn, a, smaller portion of every man’s 
earnings would buy his shoesand leather- 
breeches, Ifthe tax on soap were with- 
drawn, the cost of cleanliness would be 
lessened. If the corn laws were with- 
drawn, the cost of subsistence would be 
habitually. smaller. Such abolitions of 
.taxes would speedily diminish the rates. 
But by increasing the wages of agricul-_ 
tural labour directly, a similar increase is 
forced upon all manufacturers. and ar- 
tizans, which must be, with those, re- 
assessed in the price of their commuodi- 
ties, to the prejudice both of domestic 
outgoings, and of foreign demand. 
The fundamental poor-law of thissking- 
dom, is the 43d of Elizabeth, of which the 
operation began in the year 1601, and 
which has outlasted, without radical 
changes, two entire centuries) One lead- 
ing principle of this law, is to grant relief 
to infancy and to age; but in no cireum- 
stances 
