Suggestions for its Improvement. 
25 
moreover, be affected by restrictive laws, by exclusive privileges, 
or bv the habits and customs of a people. 
The general tendency of circumstances in this country is to 
reduce the earnings of the agricultural labourer, who is virtually 
confined to his parish by our law of settlement, whilst the number 
of emplovers is limited by the number of farms. There is, 
moreover, for the most part, an indisposition among farmers to 
apply the requisite amount of capital to the cultivation of the land 
— often, perhaps, an inability to do so; and thus the field of 
labour remains stationary, or becomes restricted, whilst our labour- 
ing population goes on increasing from year to year Under 
such circumstances, competition on the part of the labourers must 
be far greater than it is on the part of the employers ; and if it 
were carried to its full extent, without intervention of any kind, it 
would by its continued pressure reduce the labourer to the lowest 
level of subsistence, leaving him the smallest possible amount 
of the comforts and enjoyments of life, if indeed it left him any- 
thing beyond the mere necessaries. 
Against this tendency to depression in the social scale, the 
labourer has to struggle ; but the contest is somewhat unequal, 
for his necessities press him close, his daily living depending upon 
his daily labour ; and the result w ould perhaps be more decidedly- 
adverse to him than it is, were it not for certain correctives inci- 
dent to our social position. One of the most influential of these 
is the impulse arising out of the better feelings of our nature, 
and strengthened alike by reason and religion, to endeavour to 
benefit our brethren of every class, and especially those standing 
most in need of our aid. On the extent to which this impulse is 
called into operation by the habits and institutions of a country, 
will the condition of its people in a great measure depend ; and 
in Enffland our free institutions happily provide the fullest in- 
centives for its development in the most effective form. 
Another corrective to the tendency of competition to depress 
the labouring class, will be found in the generally recognised 
necessity of preventing any considerable section of the community 
from sinking so low as to render them reckless and prone to dis- 
order, thereby endangering the security of property and the ascend- 
ancy of law. If a man have nothing to lose by disorder, he cannot 
be expected to be a strenuous supporter of order. If he has no 
property of his own, we can hardly expect to find him arrayed on 
the side of property. To be interested in the preser^-ation of the 
property of others, a man must have something of his own to be 
preserved ; and hence, whilst competition is operating to depress 
the labourer, it becomes the interest of those above him to step in 
and sustain him in a certain position, below which if he were per- 
mitted to sink, property would become insecure, and the well-being 
of society would be endangered. 
