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the pound'; but £1,270,314 of that sum were disbursed in county and other rates, militia allowances, &c.; so that the sum expended on the poor was only 2s. 1 d. precisely. But even this statement conveys a very erroneous idea as to the pressure of the poor'srate it should be kept in mind, that it is not the landlord, but the cultivator that pays this rate; and as the produce of the land is rarely estimated at less in value than three rents, generally four (it then averaged far more), the poor had only 84d. in the pound, at the most, on that produce, or considerably less than four per cent.; inclusive of what was contributed by traders and manufacturers (which was very little), and nothing whatsoever from the great ship-owners, or from the fundholders of the kingdom, as such. Including these amongst the rich, of whom Mr. Malthus speaks as having to support the poor, by a collection of eighteen shillings in the pound; and I defy him to prove that there was a collection of eighteen farthings in the pound on their behalf, and, excluding such altogether, of so many halfpence.

(17.) But, leaving these calculations, let us next inquire whether, since that period, the poor's-rate has manifested that constant tendency to increase, so as to merit the appellation of being so dévorante; threatening to "absorb" the whole rental and property of the country; for that is the argument, appealing as it does to the fears of the selfish, on which these impugners of our poor-laws mainly rely. In 1803, we have seen the sums expended on the poor amounted to £4,077,891; at present (1827), I imagine they Poor-Rate Returns, 1803, p.716.

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may amount to five millions and a half, or rather more. In the former period, the paupers amounted to 725,568; at present, I conceive, they do not reach a million: then the rental of the kingdom was estimated at £38,000,0001; in 1815, it was stated, on the data furnished by the property-tax, at about £52,000,000; and, considering the vast creations of property since that period, notwithstanding the depressions and fluctuations to which it has been subject (with which the poor have had no more to do than the Pindarees of India), can it be estimated at less at present? Where then is the proof, I ask, that the poor, or the expenses of sustaining them, are increasing in an undue proportion, compared with the population and property of the country?

But supposing some of the preceding items should be captiously objected to it, I have a set-off of that weight and magnitude which will at once silence all such cavils. There is included in the amount returned, as expended on the relief of the poor, a vast sum which is, to all intents and purposes, the the wages of necessary labour; and amongst the number returned as paupers many are active labourers, in full and constant employment. At present, I have nothing to do with the cruelty of this conduct, or the motives by which it is inspired; those are sufficiently developed elsewhere: I shall only now state the fact (and that on the highest authority), that it is the result of a conspiracy, against which the poor are utterly powerless, "absorbing" the whole of the labourers of entire parishes, and extending to many counties, especially 'Report, Poor Laws, 1804, folio.

those where the poor-rates are represented as the highest, and paupers as the most numerous. This pernicious system has grown up principally within the last quarter of a century, or during the period we are examining. It is difficult to estimate the extent to which it has been carried; but one thing is certain, if the statistics of poverty were purified of this shocking perversion, pauperism has been a greatly diminishing, rather than an increasing evil, during this century. I mean not that those should be deducted who, having large families, receive assistance: to relieve such, notwithstanding Mr. Malthus warns us on this head, was one of the designs of the national charity, and has ever been attended to; a provision evidently for the public good, because it enables those who demand labour to fix its remuneration, so as to meet the average wants of those who furnish it. Hence, wherever poor-laws have been established, as in Holland', in Switzerland, and in Sweden3, such has been one of the declared legitimate objects of the institution; as to our own, old Dalton says, interpreting them almost immediately after their enactment, that among those legally entitled to relief, is the "poore man overcharged with children." To this it will suffice, I think, if we add the authority of Lord Hale. But Mr. Malthus recommends that, even in apportioning little spots of land for the cultivation of the poor, too much attention should not be paid to the number of

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1 Dr. Armstrong, Works, vol. ii. p. 215.

• Spirit of Legislation, on Switzerland, p. 43.

'James, Tour in Sweden, p. 105.

'Dalton, Country Justice, 1619, folio, ch. xl. p. 100.

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"On the Poor. See Burns, Hist. of the Poor Laws, p. 145.

children," dependent poverty being, according to him, disgraceful...Hear, however, what a different autho rity, in all respects, says on this point:"Let us," says William Pitt, "make relief, where there are a number of children, a matter of right, and an honour, instead of a ground of opprobrium and contempt. This will make a large family a blessing, and not a curse, and draw a proper line of distinction between those who are able to provide for themselves by their labour, and those who, after having enriched their country with a number of children, have a claim upon its assistance for their support2.

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(18.) But to return. Confident that this argumentum ad crumenam, however it may be kept in the back-ground, is the main one on which the adversaries of our national charity rely, and by which they successfully resist the extension of it to Ireland; so that it is in vain you talk of justice, when you are an swered by "so much in the pound," or of mercy, when you are threatened with "the absorption of rents;" let us, in proceeding with the present inquiry, meet such on their own ground.

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As it has been already sufficiently shown that,

' Malthus, Essay, p. 589.

Pitt, Speech on Whitbread's Bill. Eden's Hist. of the Poor, vol. iii. Appendix, p. cccxi. See, also, the benevolent Firman on this subject; Proposals, &c. p. 14, published 1681. As so much is said at present about the policy of deserting children, I quote the following passage: "Queen Elizabeth and her ministers had no conception of barbarity towards infants, nor dreamt of such false parsimony as to save other people's money, to alienate from a child the necessary means of support. The poor's law has fully provided for them, by virtue of one of the most plain, christianlike plans, that ever entered into the heart of prince or subject."-(Jonas Hanway, Importance of the Poor, vol. i. p. 171.).

during the current century at least, these representations, touching the relative increase of pauperism and the expense it occasions, are manifestly erroneous, we shall now extend the inquiry up to the period of the first establishment of the national charity. And in doing this, it will be again necessary to correct the inadvertency of those who have of late years written so much on the subject, and, I am sorry to add, of those who have put forth documents relative to it. Inadvertency, I said; I fear, however, it occasionally merits a harsher term: for I see in it the prevalent disposition of stating those facts, and those only, which subserve a particular purpose, without much regard to their nature, their connexion, or even their

correctness...:

(19.) However this may be, it is much to be regretted that successive committees of the House of Commons have unintentionally fallen into error on this subject. They have assumed, without, as it appears to me, sufficient examination, the correctness of an im→ portant document, on this point, lately put forth, in which the sum of £689,971 is given as the total amount expended in the maintenance of the poor of England and Wales, on the average of the three years 1748, 1749, and 1750. In proceeding to prove the utter incorrectness of that account, I shall make a few previous remarks. Since that period, it is well known that numbers of returns, on the same subject, have been made to parliament, the later ones only having any claim to correctness: even in this century, we are informed, in the obversations appended to the two voluminous reports of 1803, and of 1813, 1814 and

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