98 Of Poor-Laws, contimted. Bk. 



111. 



.It has appeared further as a matter of fact, that 

 very large voluntary contributions, combined with 

 greatly increased parochial assessments, and aided 

 by the most able and incessant exertions of indi- 

 viduals, have failed to give the necessary employ- 

 ment to those who have been thrown out of work 

 by the sudden falling off of demand which has 

 occurred during the last two or three years. 



It might perhaps have been foreseen that, as the 

 great movements of society, the great causes which 

 render a nation progressive, stationary or declin- 

 ing, for longer or shorter periods, cannot be sup- 

 posed to depend much upon parochial assessments 

 or the contributions of charity, it could not be ex- 

 pected that any efforts of this kind should have 

 power to create, in a stationary or declining state 

 of things, that effective demand for labour which 

 only belongs to a progressive state. But to those 

 who did not see this truth before, the melancholy 

 experience of the last two years* must have brought 

 it home with an overpowering conviction. 



It does not however by any means follow that 

 the exertions which have been made to relieve the 

 present distresses have been ill directed. On the 

 contrary, they have not only been prompted by the 

 most praiseworthy motives ; they have not only 

 fulfilled the great moral duty of assisting our fellow- 

 creatures in distress ; but they have in point of 

 fact done great good, or at least prevented great 

 evil. Their partial falure does not necessarily in- 

 dicate either a want of enero^v or a want of skill in 



* The years 1816 and 1817. 



