3i6 Mr. William Pitt on the Frodiiction and 



out a stimulus to industry and good conduct, and ameliorate the condition of the 

 industrious labourer, without any loss or expence to himself or the community. 



Mr. Malthus, who has raised some strong objections to the compulsory plan, or 

 right of demanding land and cows; as well as to that of lessening the general con- 

 sumption of wheat, by substituting milk and potatoes as tiie regular food, admits, 

 *' that were it so ordered as to provide a comfortable situation, for the better and 

 more industrious class of labourers; and to supply at the same time a very im- 

 portant want amongst the poor in general, that of milk for their children, I think 

 that would be extremely beneficial, and miglit be made a powerful incitement to 

 habits of industry, economy, and prudence ; with this view however it is evident 

 that only a certain portion of the labourers in each parish could be embraced in 

 the plan, that good conduct, and not mere distress, should have the most valid claim 

 to prei'"erence, that too much attention should not be paid to number of children 

 and that universally those who had saved money enough for the purchase of a cow 

 should be preferred to those who required to be furnished with one by the parish.' 

 And further, " most of those labourers who keep cows at present, have purchased 

 them with the fruits of their own industry ; it is more likely that industry should 

 give them a cow, than that a cow should give them industry." 



Agreeable to these ideas, as well as to my own, I would propose a plan for the 

 encouragement and amelioration of the condition of labourers, which, could it 

 be executed, would, I believe, increase their comforts and resources, and in some 

 degree those of the community, and have some weight in counteracting the effects 

 of a season of scarcity. 



The number of labourers' families in the kingdom employed and supported by 

 agriculture, may be difficult to ascertain with any certainty; in the Annals of 

 Agriculture, the Editor has estimated that England and Wales may contain 

 500,000 such families, which I think a good deal above the real number. If we 

 suppose one such family to every 50 acres in tillage, and another to every 100 

 acres at grass; this would give 340,000 families for England only: to preserve 

 numbers of easy calculation, I will suppose 360,000 such families; for the accomo- 

 dation of these, I would have 3 classes of occupations, class 1, and lowest, a 

 cottage and garden of a quarter of an acre for potatoes and other vegetables, 

 120,000 families; this compass of land any labourer of the least industry might. 



