286 ANNUAL REGISTER, I817. 



supply of labour, therefore, which 

 they alone have the power to re- 

 gulate, is left constantly to in- 

 crease, without any reference to 

 the demand, or to the funds on 

 which it depends. Under these 

 circumstances, if the demand for 

 labour suddenly decreases, the 

 provisions of the poor law alone 

 are looked to, to supply the place 

 of all those circumstances which 

 result only from vigilance and 

 caution. The powers of law, 

 whilst they profess to compel both 

 labour and wages to be provided, 

 under these circumstances, in re- 

 ality effect nothing but a more 

 wasteful application of the dimin- 

 ished capital than would otherwise 

 take place : they tend thereby 

 materially to reduce the real 

 wages of free labour, and ihus 

 essentially to injure the labouring 

 classes. In this situation of things, 

 not only the labourers, who have 

 hitherto maintained themselves, 

 are reduced, by the j)erversion of 

 the funds of their employers, to 

 seek assistance from the rate, but 

 the smaller capitalists themselves 

 are gradually reduced, by tl)e bur- 

 then of the assessments, to take 

 refuge in the same resource. The 

 effect of these compulsory distri- 

 butions is to pull down what is 

 above, not to raise what is low ; 

 and they depress high and low to- 

 getlier, beneath the level of what 

 was originally lowest. 



If these views of the effect of 

 undertaking to provide eniploy- 

 inent for all who want it are 

 founded in trntn, there results 

 from them an obvious necessity of 

 abandoning gradually the impos- 

 sible condition, that all who re- 

 quire it shall be provided with 

 work, which, whether oi- not it 



be the real object of the statute, 

 has by many been held to be so. 

 On this head, your committee 

 submit, that if the provision which 

 they have pointed out be made 

 for children whose parents cannot 

 maintai'i them, and the provision 

 also for such as are of the class of 

 poor and impotent be continued, 

 the labouring classes will continue 

 to be relieved from the heaviest 

 part of their necessities. But if 

 any portion of the general and in- 

 discriminate relief which is now 

 given must of necessity be with- 

 held, your committee think it can 

 be withheld from none by whom 

 the privation could so well be 

 borne, as by those who aie in the 

 full vigour of health and strength j 

 it may therefore be worthy of con- 

 sideration, whether, if under fa- 

 vourable circumstances of the 

 country, the demand for labour 

 should again be niaterially enlarg- 

 ed, it might not be enacted, that 

 no person should be provided with 

 work by the parish, other than 

 those who are already so provided, 

 and who might be permitted to 

 continue until they could provide 

 for themselves ; but if the change 

 by this provision might be thought 

 too rapid, limitation might still be 

 provided, the eff^^ct of which 

 would render it more gradual, as 

 by enacting, that none shall be 

 provided with employment who 

 are between the ages of 18 and 

 30 ; and then after a certain lapse 

 of time, that none between 16 

 and 35, 40 and so on, until the 

 object shall be gradually effected. 



As whatever money would have 

 been applied to the maintenance 

 of these persons by the means of 

 the poor rate, cannot fail to be 

 employed in some such way as to 



put 



