POOR. 



87 



I'ocir. 



Of 

 I Of 



try. 



are other causes which operate steadily, and to a wide 

 iisrqurnce.s of which arc less regarded ; 

 and even the C-.-UIM-S themselves are often too little con- 

 Milir-.l. ili -it- are want of employment, want of in- 

 dustrious dispositions and habits, and want of principles 

 and habits of economy. 



U'ant of productive employment is the great cause 

 of poverty in Ireland ; and the influx of labourers from 

 thence into Scotland has also rendered employment 

 mo;v deficient and less productive here for the mule 

 population : there is also a want of employment for 

 chi! Iren, and for females in Scotland, especially in win- 

 ter, which is aggravated of late years by the abstrac- 

 tion into England of the manufacture of wool, in con- 

 sequence of the incapacity of the people of Scotland 

 for the most correct assortment of the raw material. In 

 England, in general, there is employment for all class- 

 es, and both sexes ; and, accordingly, there is less real 

 poverty ne.'.rly in the same proportion in which em- 

 ployment is more abundant and productive, notwith- 

 standing the great number of paupers. Yet, in Eng- 

 land, the most productive and steady of all sorts of 

 employment, the improvement of the soil, is allowed 

 to remain under the triple restraint of entails, tithes, 

 and rights of common. Entails in Scotland extend far- 

 ther in time, and are therefore even more pernicious ; 

 but rights of common are easily divided, and all tithes 

 are paid by the landholders, on a valuation made for 

 each estate once for all. The fatal influence of these 

 restraints in Ireland is too well known. It seems, in- 

 deed, not easy to account for the continued existence of 

 such restraints on agricultural industry in these king- 

 doms. 



Want of industry would seldom be seriously felt or 

 complained of, if that industry could find a suitable and 

 unrestrained field of exertion, together with a corre- 

 sponding reward. Commercial industry is indeed ex- 

 posed to many interruptions in the laws at home, 

 (which, however, have been relaxed by a more liberal 

 policy of late, ) and also in the jealous policy and rival 

 interests of foreign states. Manufacturing employment 

 is liable to vary according to the supply of raw mate- 

 rials, and the demand for produce; especially if that 

 supply and demand be chiefly from foreign countries. 

 When these branches of industry prosper, they afford 

 a powerful stimulus and support to agriculture, which 

 is the steadiest and most productive kind of national 

 industry. The accumulated produce of the several 

 branches of national employment exceeds calculation, 

 and even baffles conjecture. Spain, with all its conti- 

 nued imports of gold and silver, and its rich soil, had 

 become a poor country, through want of industry, long 

 before it lost the foreign colonies; while the united 

 provinces had become opulent. Ireland, though one 

 of the finest countries in Europe, is one of the poorest, 

 because the people want employment; and vice, igno- 

 rance, and prejudice are engrafted, on idleness. Let 

 Ireland be opened to unrestrained and productive em- 

 ployment, and let the soil of that kingdom and of Eng- 

 land be relieved of the fetters of entails, tithes, and 

 commons, by equitable laws ; and it may safely be 

 predicted, that by these measures, and by the aboli- 

 tion of entails in Scotland also, these united kingdoms 

 will prosper beyond what they have ever yet done, and 

 poverty will in proportion disappear. 



Want of economy is another cause of poverty, that 

 operates to a wide and unascertained extent. Habits 

 of luxury in their families above the station of com- 

 mon operative tradesmen and labourers, and of low 



debauchery in tavern* and alehouses, have kept many Po*r. 

 of these from acquiring, during favourable time*, what -""V""' 

 it wai then possible for them to lay up, and would have 



rendered them in their station easy and comfortable. 

 The want of proper modes of investment could not be 

 pleaded, since the institution of that most valuable 

 system of investment for the lower classes in savings 

 banks ; and though friendly hocieties were often cal- 

 culated upon erroneous principles, in consequence of 

 which they often disappointed those who had support- 

 ed them, yet they did much good in the mean time, 

 and contributed to form good habits. It will be seen 

 hereafter, that suitable protection and encouragement 

 have been granted by the legislature for both of these 

 modes of investment. The want of economy, however, 

 embracing all sorts of expensive extravagance, has 

 brought many even of the higher classes of tradesmen 

 to poverty. It has reduced many families of a station 

 still superior to these ; in consequence of ruinous and 

 heartless emulation, founded in false taste for splendour 

 and luxury, often in reality mean and selfish, but sus- 

 tained by fashion ; and the common way of expending 

 most part or all of the fortunes of country gentlemen 

 in the cities or the metropolis, has deprived great num- 

 bers of their dependents in country places of their ac- 

 customed means of subsistence. 



This last observation may serve to introduce another, Abtrc- 

 illustrative of the poverty which has of late spread in tion f 

 rural districts of these united kingdoms. Most of the land renu - 

 land rents being yearly abstracted and spent in the 

 cities, and a constant drain of the remaining funds of 

 these districts being kept up under the form of taxes, 

 it cannot appear surprising that poverty should appear 

 with increasing pressure ; nothing but ample and in- 

 creasing returns of land produce and rural industry 

 could be calculated upon to meet and impede this pres- 

 sure ; and these having greatly declined of late, are 

 quite inadequate to accomplish this end. It is indeed 

 hoped that the low rate of interest now allowed may 

 force the great capitals to a land investment, in part at 

 least ; and were men of capital to find it their interest 

 thus to invest it, and could this be done without inter- 

 ruption of entails, they would probably also be liberal in 

 improving. It is not for the general advantage of these 

 kingdoms, either in respect of wealth or morals, to de- 

 sert the country, and leave it in a state of desolation 

 and poverty ; while the funds of the nation go to swell 

 the overgrown capital, and are there dissipated. The 

 conduct of the mobs in Paris and the fate of France 

 ought not to be forgotten. 



In order to obtain a correct and enlarged view of the Legislative 

 state of the poor in England, the two houses of parliament inquiry 

 named their respective committees of inquiry, whose and re - 

 reports were submitted in 1818. It then appeared that P rts in 

 though the principle of the laws of that kingdom is 

 good, founded principally on the consolidating act of 

 the 43d of Elizabeth, and whose two main objects were 

 to provide funds to support the real poor, and the 

 means of employment for others destitute of work and 

 yet able to labour; the administration by church war- 

 dens and overseers, under the eye of the local magis- 

 tracy, had become so little discriminative, and so v; 

 extravagant, as to have raised the average numbers of 

 the paupers for the years ISIS, 1614, and 1S15 to 

 940,626, being above nine in the hundred of the gene- 

 ral population. For these it appeared that no less than 

 L.6,iy2,719 were annually expended in maintenance; 

 besides as much more for connected rates and expences, 

 as to swell the total fund up to above eight millions 



