828 ON THE PURCHASING POWER OF WAGES. 



and in Warwickshire (1684), we shall find that the average 



of the allowances is as follows 



1593 ......... 3 J -i<*- ^5i ......... 7* l^ 



1595 ......... 3 s - :V. 1655 ......... 7 



1610 ......... 4s. o\d. 1684 ......... $ 



while the averages from wages actually paid are $s. 

 5j. ai^., 5^. 5i</., 5-r. 9^., 7.?. 5^/., 8s. i\d., and 8j. 3^. The 

 employer of labour was more merciful than the magistrates, 

 notwithstanding the penalties which these * little tyrants' 

 denounced against all who infringed the scale. The payments 

 were pitiful enough, they thoroughly account for Gregory 

 King's discovery that labourers diminished instead of adding 

 to national wealth, but they are better than the justices 

 would have given, and, as we are expressly told under the 

 Rutland assessment, were actually paid in that county for the 

 next quarter of a century. 



It is undoubtedly essential to the well-being of any country 

 that it should accept and obey a central administration, whose 

 first business it is to aggregate all necessary force for the 

 protection of society from external and internal foes. But 

 there is always a danger that the forces of governments, the 

 action of parliaments, the power of laws may be more in- 

 jurious to a community than foreign and domestic foes are. 

 Ancient civilisation was wholly destroyed by the administra- 

 tion of the Roman republic and empire. Bad governments 

 have ruined Spain and nearly ruined Italy in more modern 

 times. And the reason has been that governments have used 

 their powers, which they call the Constitution, not as trustees 

 for the public good, but as agents for their own gain. We 

 in England have had plentiful experiences of this breach of 

 trust. The people of Ireland have had no other experience. 

 And so the historian of social life, who knows from the in- 

 ductions which he is constrained to make, how much of 

 present mischief is due to past malversation and embezzle- 

 ment, and that assuredly the same malpractices would recur 



