\ 
f 
1807.} On the Cause of the Distresses of the labouring People. 117 
injustice of those institutions, and the ' 
emissions of the administrative powers 
which prevent those blessings from dif-: 
fusing an equal influence on every mem- 
ber of the state. 
I know, according to the cant that has 
been constantly in use, since the over- 
throw of the feudal and monastic systems 
placed many thousands of the people in 
2 state of vagabondage, and which has 
been squibbed about with more than 
‘usual industry, since Mr. Whitbread’s 
benevolence got putfed abroad amongst 
us, that there is a vast affectation of 
kindness towards the “labouring poor,” 
as they are styled. © This charity is the 
most wicked and hypocritical deception 
that a conspiracy between injustice and 
falsehood could possibly have contrived. 
The labouring poor would want no such 
charity, if those who talk about it were 
inclined to do them justice, and every act 
of parliament since the business of act- 
of-parliament-charity-making began is a 
proof of the fact. 
When Mr. Whitbread recommended 
the adoption of his system, he followed 
the example of his predecessors: instead 
of attempting to bring the principle of 
justice into the foreground, he appealed 
to the policy of his audience, and urged 
the necessity of invigorating the system 
of charity, lest the wretched objects of 
it should take courage and say “ We will 
assert the right of nature and occupy part 
of the soil here; it is our right to save 
ourselves from starvation, if we can.” 
This policy of Mr. Whitbread. breathes 
the true spirit in which the pauper-sys- 
tem originated, 
As the commerce, the arts, and the 
manufactures of the country encreased, 
the people naturally enough expected to 
participate in the enjoyment of them; 
und feeling thattheir labour was as much 
their property, as the land was the pro- 
perty of the landholder, or the stock was 
the property of the merchant, they de- 
manded such wages as were sufficient to 
secure to them the comforts of life. 
There was nothing in this that a just 
government would have called either re- 
bellious or unreasonable: but the “ en- 
lightened philosophers,” whom Mr. Whit- 
bread has extolled in the speech which 
has so.much enlightened your correspon- 
dent, “ Common Sense,” framed laws to 
prevent labourers demanding “ unrea- 
sonable wages,” $ and 4 Edw. VI. 
eh. 16, &c. 39 Eliz. chap. iv. 
It may be very amusing, it may give 
t 
occasion to many specimens of fine and 
flowing oratory, for the legislators ef one 
age to compliment the charity of those 
of another age; but it 1s very ditlicult for 
an honest mind to discover any equity in 
bestowing charity on the people with one 
hand, whist the other hand is robbing 
them of the means which would keep 
them free from obligation, ; 
The number of paupers has been en- 
creasing since the days of Elizabeth, it is 
said: but would they have encreased if 
the people had been allowed ‘to ez ivy 
their labour wherever there was.a market 
for it, and to demand whatever it was 
worth? No, the power of unsophisti- 
cated reason would then have operated 
and shewn that each man’s labour was 
worth a certain portion of comfort, equal 
to what it was capable of procuring after 
making the proper deduction for the 
landlord’s rent and tlie barterer’s profit ; 
whilst the power of getting for their la. 
bour the highest price that it might be 
“vorth, and the liberty of carrying it 
wherever they might think proper, would 
have encouraged the people to devote 
theraselves to useful employmeits, and 
would have supplanted distress by enoa- 
ging aimuch greater number in the ma- 
nutacture of comforts. 
The spirit of cupidity, aggravated to a 
vast extent by the progress of the com-= 
mercial system, led to « conspiracy be- 
tween the landholder and the merchant 
to oppress the labourer, tor the purpose 
of entailing upon hin all the miseries of 
the feudal system, after they had them- 
selves escaped from them. ‘The laws of 
settlement, and the laws to prevent the 
people obtaining high wages, were dice 
tated by no better motive; and it is a 
species of folly of the most trrational de- 
scription, to look for any check to the 
miseries of the people.until those Stupid 
and imiquitous laws be eutirely repealed. 
Atter this observation, Sir, I need 
hardly inform your correspondent, that 
the fundamental error in the order of 
society to which I attribute ‘the evils we 
complain of; is that principle which re- 
fuses to allow to labour all the righis of 
property, which should admit of its being 
withheld or disposed of, as mjoht best suit 
the interests of tis possessors, with us little 
restraint as land or stock. ) 
The immediate effect of this error. I 
have said, is to make “every step that 
the country. advances in improvement 
and plenty injurious to the labourer, in 
exact proportion as it is advantageous to 
; the 
= Se 
LEE IE 
SSS 
