REMARKS OF STANISLAUS ON THE POLISH PEASANTRY. 69 



it for the future labourers ? The education of children is pro- 

 posed as a remedy; but such a remedy, if our present cir- 

 cumstances are to continue, would only increase the national 

 difficulties ; because it is impossible to suppose that educated 

 minds can be made to submit to the degrading operation of 

 the Poor Laws. Strange anomaly! that the efforts recently 

 made to improve the condition of the parents should have 

 failed. Had those efforts been successful, the children could 

 be educated at the cost of the parents, upon whom alone 

 the real responsibility rests. It is surely the office of Govern- 

 ment to protect the poor from oppression and imposition, and 

 to see that they can obtain the means of rearing their families 

 by their own exertions. 



How far the following pathetic remarks of the philosophical 

 Stanislaus, King of Poland, are applicable to the present state 

 of our poor, I must leave the reader to judge. Should they 

 tend in any degree to ward off the calamities to which they 

 refer, their insertion will not be in vain : — 



^' We may say with truth that the people are in a state of 

 extreme humiliation. We must nevertheless consider them 

 as the principal support of the nation. And I am persuaded 

 that the little value we set on them will have very dangerous 

 consequences. Who are they, in fact, who procure abundance 

 in the kingdom ? Who are they that bear the burdens and 

 pay the taxes ? Who are they that furnish men to our armies 

 — 'who labour in our fields — who gather in our crops — who 

 sustain and nourish us—who are the cause of our inactivity — 

 the refuge of our laziness — the resource of our wants — the 

 support of our luxury — and, indeed the source of all our 

 pleasure ? Is it not that very populace that we treat with so 

 much rigour ?" 



The fate of Poland is too well known to need any comments. 

 To the superficial reader it may, perhaps, appear that I lean 

 too much on the side of the poor; but the discerning mind 

 will perceive, throughout every page, that, in advocating the 

 cause of the poor, I have at the same time advocated the 

 cause of the rich. And though I have called my pamphlet 

 A Voice for the Poor," I might with equal propriety have 

 called it "A Voice for the Rich." 



