466 APPENDIX. 



of labour, Independently of any assistance from land, would 

 not, at the average price of corn, maintain three, or, at 

 least, two children. Could the matter be so ordered, that 

 the labourer, in working for others, should still continue to 

 earn the same real command over the necessaries of life that 

 he did before, a very great accession of comfort and happi- 

 ness might accrue to the poor from the possession of land, 

 without any evil that I can foresee at present. But if these 

 points were not attended to, I should certainly fear an ap- 

 proximation to the state of the poor in France, Sweden, 

 and Ireland ; nor do 1 think that any of the partial experi- 

 ments that have yet taken place afford the slightest presump- 

 tion to the contrary. The result of these experiments is, 

 indeed, exactly such as one should have expected. Who 

 could ever have doubted that, if, without lowering the price 

 of labour, or taking the labourer off from his usual occu- 

 pations, you could give him the produce of one or two 

 acres of land and the benefit of a cow, you would decidedly 

 raise his condition ? But it by no means follows that he 

 would retain this advantage, if the system were so extended, 

 as to make the land his principal dependence, to lower the 

 price of labour, and, in the language of Mr. Young, to take 

 iRe poor from the consumption of wheat and feed them on 

 milk and potatoes. It does not appear to me so marvellous 

 as it does to Mr. Young, that the very same system, which 

 in Lincolnshire and Rutlandshire may produce now the 

 most comfortable peasantry in the British dominions, should 

 in the end, if extended without proper precautions, assimi- 

 late the condition of the labourers of this country to that 

 of the lower classes of the Irish. 



It is generally dangerous and impolitic in a government 

 to take upon itself to regulate the supply of any commodity 

 in request; and probably the supply of labourers forms 

 no exception to the general rule, i would on no account, 

 therefore, propose a positive law to regulate their increase ; 

 but as any assistance which the society might give them 

 cannot, in the nature of things, be unlimited, the line may 

 fairly be drawn where we please ; and with regard to the 

 increase from this point, every thing would be left as before 

 to individual exertion and individual speculation. 



If any plan of this kind were adopted by the government, 

 I cannot help thinking that it might be made the means of 

 giving the best kind of encouragement and reward to those 

 who are employed in our defence. If the period of en- 



