166 
Political Economy, 
mutation for sin ; but mere charity is not what is heeded in this 
emergency. The various plans which have been devised, and the 
local and partial experiments which have been made for bettering 
the condition of the poor, as reported by the society embodied for 
that purpose, are highly honourable to the members of that society, 
and to the land in which they exist. The society which has been 
formed under the auspices of the Duke of York, for the immediate 
purpose of aifording assistance to the distressed counties, is doing 
much ; and there is cause to hope that the benefit which must re- 
sult from its encouragement of the fisheries will continue after the 
emergency is past. The food which is thus brought into the mar- 
ket is so much clear gain ; it is nutricious ; it is the cheapest which 
can possibly be procured ; it is drawn from a source of supply 
which is inexhaustible, and the mode of procmdng it adds to our 
best defence, by keeping up a nursery for our fleets. 
There is another way by which employment might be provided 
for many of those whom want of work renders not only burthen- 
some, but dangerous to society, and from which permanent good 
would ensue to the community. These ends might be attained, if 
our great landholders could be persuaded, instead of adding estate 
to estate, till they count whole districts, and almost whole counties 
v.dthiii their domains, to apply the capital, that is thus directed, to 
the better purpose of doubling the value of the lands which they 
already possess, by bringing them into the highest state of cultiva- 
tion of which they are capable. How many are the marshes which 
might thus be drained, the moors which might be reclaimed, the 
wild and lonely heaths which would be rendered productive, and 
%vhcrc villages would grow round the first rude huts of the labour- 
ers i Great indeed is the present relief which might thus bo afford- 
ed to those who need it, the permanent advantage to the country, . 
and ultimately to the principal landholders themselves : but thai 
they should thus see their true interest, and act upon it, is rather 
to be wished than expected. Of all the maxims of proverbial wis- 
dom which experience has bequeathed to mankind, there is none 
which is so seldom practically applied, and few which are so widely 
applicable, as that which is contained in the old Asci sean’s excla- 
mation, 
Fools do not know, that the half may be more than the whole. 
It may seem, perhaps, paradoxical at first to assert that a season 
of pressure like the present, is a fit season for undertaking national 
works ; yet nothing can be more certain, than that the public must 
in some form or other, support those who are deprived of their usual 
employments ; and that it is better to administer this relief in the 
form of wages, than of poor-rates. The mouths cannot be idle, 
and as the grea,t object is to prevent, the hands from being so, a 
time when there are many hands out of employ is, of all others, the 
time for such labours. One way or other, be it remembered, the 
men must be maintained : it is therefore more v/holesome for the 
community to have the advantage of their labour, and for them- 
selves to feel that they earn their own maintenance, than that they 
should be fed gratuitously, and that we should have a race in Eng- 
land half Luddite, half Lazzaroni. No time, therefore, can be so 
proper for national works, for making new naval stations and im- 
proving tliQ old, for gutting roads, draining fens, and recovering 
