1807.] Caufes of the Increafe of Paupers. 219 
Zothe Editor of the Monvaly Mag vaziné. Lord about it, but he told me coldly, 
SIR, that he * never  wterfered, and léft 
HAV E, in common with the petite) every thing to his leward, who had let it, 
been oratified and enlightened by 
the report of the Speech of ‘Mr. Warr- 
BREAD, on the interetting fubject of the 
‘poor? and his plans appear to be very 
good, as far as they are the pailatives of 
a grewing evil. 
‘But is not PREvENTtoN better than 
curnE?—Is it wife, wilfully and know- 
ingly to create and continue an evil, for 
the pleafure of ‘attempting to cure it? 
Every mau and woman in the coun- 
try can tell how half the poor in every 
parith became fo ! 
they can even name the poor-makers, 
and can fpecify the exact proportion of 
each coy fuceefs i uy this kind of ma- 
nufactory ! 
I met lately with an intelligent farmer, 
from whom L learned that in his pari th 
the poor's rates had inereafed from 10d. 
to $s..in the pound ; and that the num- 
her of perfons who depended on the 
rates for affiftance or fupport, had been 
mereafed from under a {core to nearly 
two hundred, within the laft twenty 
years! [-atked him the Lal of fo 
great a change, ‘“¢ Lord, Sir,” 
“the reafon’s as plain as day light, and 
is well known to all our gentry: but 
there’s nene fo blind as thofe that don’t 
cheofe to fee. ‘Twenty years ago, our 
parifh contamed a hundred and twenty 
feparate farms, and thefe fupported 
many families.. Now fpeculation’s the 
rage; and all our little farmers mutt 
turn out, to make room for two or three 
great ones ! Our hundred and twenty 
farts are ty this means reduced to lefs 
than fixty! More than fixty families 
have therefore been forced to depend 
wholly or partly on the rates. At latt 
rent-day our lord's fteward gave notice 
to fix old tenants, whofe familics coniitt 
of forty-three perfons, men, women, and 
children ; and we learn that their takes 
are siven away partly to a {peculating 
grazier who lives on the other fide of 
the country, and who manazes five 
hundred acres in our parith by means 
of a fingle fhepherd, and partly to a 
fon-in-law of the fieward’s, whe has al- 
ready nine old farms in his. hands |—~ 
Luckily { have a hundred and ten acres 
of my own, or my family might alfo have 
gone on the parith, for 1 was over- 
reached by a friend of the {teward’s at 
the expiration of my le: fe, and at 
about two years ago a fnug parcel uf ¢ 
* hundred and fixty acves. Lipvke to wy 
> 
And what is more, 
fays he, - 
he fupppofed, to the bet advaniage.’ The 
fame iyitemm is purtued all round our coun- 
‘try; in every patifh the number of farms 
is reduced more than half; the families 
who occupied them for penerations are 
deprived of their independent and ufaal 
nieans of living; the old folks and the 
elildren, of courfe, become burthentome 
to the pariih, the voung men go to the 
towns to feek a livelihood, aid the young 
women to folate er to the manufac- 
tories, and many of them, with their 
incumbrances, fuon return chargeable to 
ws.? 
I have fince, Mr. Fditor, extended my 
enquiries into various counties, and 
have generally met wi the fame expla- 
nation ; 11 a word, I find that, with an 
INCREASING POPULAT 1ON, our definite 
extention of {vil furnifhes employment and 
independence to not more than half the 
number of perions which it did twenty 
years ago, and that this number is annus 
ally diminithing ! 
it has hitherto been held as an axiom 
in policy, that a fubftantial independent 
yeomanry are the fheet-anchor of a ftate; 
and | have uot yet met with any refuta- 
tion of this principle, nor with any proof 
that a population of PAUPERS ought to 
be preferred to one of INDUSTRIOUS 
CULTIVATORS. 
I appeal, therefore, to the known pa- 
triotifin of Mr. Whitbread,—I appeal to 
the prefent enlightened admit ation,— 
I appeal to the 200d fenfe of the coun- 
try, to devife and adopt the means whicla 
fhall diminifh the effects of fo great an 
evil, and which fhall tend to prevent its 
favtire increafé 
T once had occafion to fpeak to the 
late Mr. Pitr on fome fubjetis of agri- 
culture, and he forcibly remarked, cig 
we do not-do rome thing toe prevent the 
monopolies of iand, we fhall foon be uns 
done _ it. I confider it as the principal 
caule of the increafe of the poor’s rates, 
and of the rife in the price of all com 
modities.” Such was the opinion of 
this ‘celebrated minifter, after twenty 
years’ experience in the management of 
our national affairs; and f am convine 
eed, if he had lived, he would have pro 
pofed fuch me afuves for cui ing the ‘evil 
as wele characteriitic of him. 
t eertamly would not-recoremend a 
refiraining a; but I would recommend 
a icale of poor-rytes, of land-tas, and 
property-tax, to. be- enforced, winch 
fhowiea 
