384 Diff'erent Plans of improving the Bk. iv. 



pulation is brought into existence, which is not 

 demanded by the quantity of capital and employ- 

 ment in the country; and the consequence of which 

 must therefore necessarily be, as is very justly 

 expressed in the Keport of the Committee of 

 Mendicity before mentioned, to lower in general 

 the price of labour by too great competition; from 

 which must result complete indigence to those 

 who cannot find employment, and an incomplete 

 subsistence even to those who can. 



The obvious tendency of Mr. Young's plan is, 

 by encouraging marriage and furnishing a cheap 

 food, independent of the price of corn, and of 

 course of the demand for labour, to place the 

 lower classes of people exactly in this situation. 



It may perhaps be said, that our poor-laws at 

 present regularly encourage marriage and chil- 

 dren, by distributing relief in proportion to the 

 size of families ; and that this plan, which is pro- 

 posed as a substitute, would merely do the same 

 thing in a less objectionable manner. But surely, 

 in endeavouring to get rid of the evil of the poor- 

 laws, we ought not to retain their most pernicious 

 quality ; and Mr. Young must know as well as I 

 do, that the principal reason why poor-laws have 

 invariably been found ineffectual in the relief of 

 the poor is, that they tend to encourage a popula- 

 tion, which is not regulated by the demand for la- 

 bour. Mi Young himself, indeed, expressly takes 

 notice of this effect in England, and observes that, 

 notwithstanding the unrivalled prosperity of her 

 manufactures, " population is sometimes too ac- 



