APPKXDIX. 493 



just sufficient, or only a very little more than to furnish them 

 with the mere food necessary for their maintenance. 



To shew that, in looking forward to such an increased 

 operation of prudential restraint as would greatly improve 

 the condition of the poor, it is not necessary to suppose ex- 

 travagant and impossible wages, as Mr. Weyland seems to 

 think, 1 will refer to the proposition of a practical man ou 

 the subject of the price of labour ; and certainly much 

 would be done, if this proposition could be realized, though 

 it must be effected in a very different way from that which 

 he has proposed. 



It has been recommended by Mr. Arthur Young so to 

 adjust the wages of day-labour as to make them at all times 

 equivalent to the purchase of a peck of wheat. This quan- 

 tity, he says, was earned by country labourers during a con- 

 siderable period of the last century, when the poor-rates 

 were low, and not granted to assist in the maintenance of 

 those who were able to work. And he goes on to observe 

 that, " as the labourer would (in this case) receive 70 

 bushels of wheat for 47 weeks' labour, exclusive of five 

 weeks for harvest; and as a family of six persons consumes 

 in a year no more than 48 bushels ; it is clear that such 

 wages of labour would cut off every pretence of parochial 

 assistance; and of necessity the conclusion would follow, 

 that all right to it in men thus paid should be annihilated 

 for ever."* 



An adjustment of this kind, either enforced by law, or 

 used as a guide in the distribution of parish assistance, as 

 suggested by Mr. Young, would be open to insuperable 

 objections. At particular times it might be the means of 

 converting a dearth into a famine. And in its general 

 operation, and supposing no change of habits among the 

 labouring classes, it would be tantamount to saying that, 

 under all circumstances, whether the affairs of the country 

 were prosperous or adverse ; whether its resources in land 

 were still great, or nearly exhausted ; the population ought 

 to increase exactly at the same rate, — a conclusion which 

 involves an impossibility. 



If, however, this adjustment, instead of being enforced by 

 law, were produced by the increasing operation of the pru- 

 dential check to marriage, the effect would be totally different, 



• AnnaU of Agrirultiirr, Xo. 270. p. 91, nolr. 



