274 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1817. 



order of things, the best trustees 

 and guardians for the public ; 

 when that order of things is de- 

 stroyed, and a compulsory main- 

 tenance established for all who 

 require it, the consequences can- 

 not fail in the end to be equally 

 ruinous to both parties. These 

 impressions, upon subjects of 

 such great impoitance, could not 

 fail to induce your committee to 

 take into their consideration what- 

 ever plans could be referred to or 

 suggested, the object of which 

 might be to check and modify the 

 system itself, a duty to which they 

 were the more strongly lu'ged by 

 the view which had presented 

 itself to their consideration of the 

 state of society, created by an ex- 

 tensive system of pau])erism, and 

 which led tlieni, for the sake of 

 the paupers thcmselve.«, to seek 

 for the means of setting again into 

 action those ujotives which impel 

 persons, by the hope of bettering 

 their condition on the one hand, 

 and tiio fear of want on tlie otlier, 

 80 to exert and conduct them- 

 selves, as by frugality, temper- 

 ance, and industry, and by the 

 practice of those other virtues on 

 which human hypi)ine.'s has been 

 made to depend, to ensure to 

 themselves that condition of ex- 

 istence in which life can alone be 

 otherwise than a misei-able bur- 

 then ; the temptations to idleness, 

 to imjirovidence, and want of 

 forethought, are under any cir- 

 cumstances so numerous and en- 

 ticing, that nothing less than the 

 dread of the evils, which are their 

 natural consequence, appears to 

 be suthciently strong in any de- 

 gree to control them ; which the 

 neglect and absence of those ^ir- 

 tuc6, as long indeed as fresh funds 



can be found for their relief, those 

 evils may in some degree be mi- 

 tigated ; but when such resources 

 can no h)nger be found, then will 

 tliese evils be felt in their full, 

 force ; and as the gradual addition 

 of fresh funds can only create an 

 increased number of paupei-s, it is 

 obvious that the amount of the 

 misery which must be endured, 

 when these funds can no longer 

 be augmented, will be the greater 

 (though ihe longer delayed) the 

 greater the supplies are, whicii 

 may be applied to the relief of 

 pauperism, inasmuch as the suf- 

 fering to be endured must be in- 

 creased with tlie number of suf- 

 ferers. 



Your committee forbear to ex- 

 patiate on these considerations 

 which have pressed themselves on 

 their attention ; they have said 

 en()ut!;h to show the grounds which 

 induce them to think that the la- 

 bouring classes can only be plung- 

 ed deeper and more hopelessly 

 into the evils of pauperism, by 

 the constant application of addi- 

 tional sums of money to be dis- 

 tributed by the poor rate j true 

 benevolence and real charity point 

 to other means, which your com- 

 mittee cannot so well express as 

 in the empliatic language of Mr. 

 liurke ; "patience, labour, fru- 

 gality, sobriety, and religion, 

 should be recommended to them ; 

 ail the rest is downright fraud."* 



With tlie view then of providing 

 such a check as may lay the founda- 

 tion for a better system, it may be 

 worth the most serious considera- 

 tion, whether a provision of various 

 local acts by v\ hich the assessment 



itself 



• Thoughts and Detaib on Scarcity. 

 Burke's fVorlss, vol. rii, p. 337. 



