EFFECTS OF POOR LAWS. 



19 



Between twenty-five and thirty millions of money were paid 

 to foreign nations last year for grain and seeds of various kinds^ 

 hemp and flax, oil-cake and manure, and manufactured goods, 

 &c. &c,, whilst the foreign demand for, as well as the home 

 consumption of, our own manufacture, has most materially de- 

 creased. Hence the melancholy state of the operatives in the 

 manufacturing towns. Had a few only of those millions been 

 paid to British, Scotch, and Irish farmers for grain and provi- 

 sions, the money would have circulated at home, and a portion 

 of ihe benefits been conveyed to both town and country labour- 

 ers ; and we should have seen them usefully and happily occu- 

 pied, instead of being idly and miserably immured within the 

 walls of a Union house. 



More fatal than the Tariff have the Poor Laws been to re- 

 munerating v/ages and home commerce. 



The multiplicity of dependent people affords a number of 

 workmen at a cheap rate, who will let themselves at any price, 

 adapt their wants and necessities to their wages, and when no 

 more work is to be obtained, reluctantly seek an asylum in the 

 workhouse. 



Nine shillings per week for a productive labourer, with his 

 wife and five or six children, is only a fraction over or under 

 three farthings a meal for each — while single men wander 

 about seeking v/ork and can find none, who^ rather than be in- 

 carcerated in the workhouse, where life is rendered a burden, 

 will submit to such an abstinence from necessary food as barely 

 admits of preserving vitality. 



To these causes, mainly, are we to attribute the immense 

 decay of home commerce ; for it must be remembered the work- 

 ing classes form the great majority, and upon their well-being 

 depends the prosperity of the state; therefore till some expe- 

 dients are adopted to advance their condition, the prospect of 

 better times to the farmer, the tradesman, and the labourer 

 must remain hopeless. For where is the manufacturer to find 

 a market for his goods, the farmer for his corn, or the poor 

 ftian for his labour? 



The labourer or mechanic who is employed one day, and is 

 the next plunged into that receptacle of human wretchedness, 

 the Union workhouse, sinks into despair; there separated from 



