stream of our present speakers and writers on the subject, including some who seem friendly to our national provision, I feel some hesitation; I will therefore turn to an authority whom I am persuaded none will underrate, one whose labours on this important subject future generations will duly appreciate, and one, above all, whom Mr. Malthus eulogizes because of his supposed hostility to the general system, I mean Sir Frederick Morton Eden. After recording the increase of the poor-rates, from early periods to the close of the last century, he presents us with his deliberate judgment on the whole, in these memorable words:

"Great and burdensome as the poor's rate may appear, from the returns which were made to parliament in the year 1786, and from the more recent communications which the reader will find detailed in the second volume, THE RISE OF THE POOR'S RATES

HAS NOT KEPT PACE WITH OTHER BRANCHES OF NATIONAL EXPENDITURE, OR EVEN WITH OUR INCREASED ABILITY TO PAY THEM1."

And if we have occasion to be grateful in reviewing our present condition, in reference to the past, as it respects this necessary burden; we have no less reason to be abundantly satisfied, in comparing the

'Sir F. M. Eden, State of the Poor, vol. i. p. 407. The same cheering view of the subject is taken by an able writer, in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxxiii. p. 454, from whose views, on particular parts of the question, the author reluctlantly differs. His words are these: "The whole of the funds now actually expended on the poor (even if we include in this large amount the very large proportion which is now paid to able-bodied labourers, and which to all intents and purposes constitutes a part of the wages of labour) bears a much smaller proportion to the present resources of the country, than the total amount of the contributions raised for the sustenance of the poor bore to the whole of its wealth in the time of Elizabeth."

weight it imposes on us with that borne by the surrounding nations, when estimating both on any just principle. I shall give this conclusion likewise in the better words of a judicious and candid modern writer upon the subject. "I am persuaded," says he, "that it will be found a certain truth, that the charities of other countries have never, at any period, been so conducted, as to relieve the poor, of an equal popula tion, so adequately as the poor's law, with less encouragement of idleness, or with better stimulus to industry'."

(22.) Were we to extend the comparison of our present system of national charity with that of which it is plainly the substitute, the relief afforded by means of religious endowments, we shall find our preference still more fully confirmed. It was one of the main objects of the founders of all such to provide a perpetual system of relief for the poor; and the fulfilment of that intention was guaranteed, in all cases, as far as their original institution went2. Hence, from the earliest period of the introduction of Christianity amongst us, and especially since the days of our immortal Alfred, property of that nature kept perpetually accumulating, till we find, at one period, it "absorbed" one-third of the entire kingdom. That this was a pernicious, as well as an expensive system of relieving poverty, we are well aware: it was one, however, nationally recognized and established, those foundations being, as Camden says, for the relief and maintenance of the poor and

1 Collections relative to systematic Relief, &c. p. 177.

2 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, I. i. chap. xxvii.

' Cotton, Abridgment of the Records in the Tower, p. 189.

impotent'. That they did so relieve them, I refer to the testimony of Spelman'; and that they could not legally refuse so to do, to the authority of Coke'. That point of law had been solemnly argued and determined. These, however, Henry VIII. seized, and confiscated; promising, as far as the poor were concerned, to establish a better system upon their ruins, saying to his obsequious parliament, "If I should suffer the poor and miserable to be unrelieved, you might well say, that I being put in so special a trust, as I am in this case, were no trusty friend to you, nor charitable to my enne christen." He fulfilled this trust by seizing all their permanent funds (many of which are in the possession of those who now inveigh against all national charity), and put the poor upon the (illegal) Scotch plan, i. e. upon public beggings upon Sundays and holidays". How well it answered, the universal distress-the whippings and cauterizings that ensued-and, above all, the exe cution of above 70,000 poor wretches, in his reign, principally for thieving, sufficiently attest. Some imagine that, when these were disposed of, poverty ought to have become defunct; and, consequently, that so many years afterwards there could have been no need of a national provision. On some such idea argue, it seems, the framers of the late Emigration Report"; such, however, attend but little to the struc'Camden, Britannia, p. 163; (1637.)

2

4

Spelman, De non Temerandis Ecclesiis, p. 40.

Emigration Report, 3d part, p. 40.

Spelman, De non Temerandis Ecclesiis, p. 10. Caudris Case, Coke, 5th Report, folio 11; See Coke, 2 Institutes, p. 649, 1642. See Burn, Hist. of Poor Laws, p. 6. Stat. at Large, 2 H. 5, chap. i. 27 Henry VIII. Emigration Report, part iii. p. 40.

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ture of society. Lord Hale is a better authority: as a philosopher, he knew that," as the populousness of the kingdom increaseth, the poor will be proportionably increased';" and, as a judge, he saw that unrelieved poverty filled the gaols with malefactors, and fed the gallows and the gibbet. I may digress so far as further to state of this great man, that his endeavours were to amend the poor-laws, which he deemed founded on piety, humanity, and sound policy3; not to destroy them: whatever were the defects of the system, even as then administered, still it was his maxim, "better relieve twenty drones, than let one bee perish." But to return: after sundry abortive attempts to relieve poverty from the unparalleled distress into which this act of spoliation had involved it, the celebrated poor-law of England was passed at the termination of the reign of Elizabeth; it was planned by some of the greatest statesmen the country ever possessed, and was drawn up by one to whom it does greater honour than all his other labours, moral or philosophical, which send him down to posterity without a rival; I mean Bacon. It is touching to hear this great man, in his disgrace and sorrow, thus appealing to his Maker, "O GOD, the state and bread of the poor have been precious in my eyes!"

(23.) And that the framers of this law were not mistaken as to the effects which they contemplated would result from it, succeeding times have fully testified. We have a better right to assert that the labouring

classes of England have been improved in character, conduct, and condition, by its operation, than its impugners have to assert the contrary: their superiority in those respects is manifest. We are authorised also in attributing no inconsiderable share of the prosperity which has since that period distinguished this nation from all others, to this great and constantly operating cause. But these, though great, are incidental advantages, such, indeed, which ever accompany and reward acts of justice and mercy. Its direct and intended consequences, in regard to the mass of evil it removed, and the good it conferred, are more essential to our present inquiry: happy would it have been for Ireland, if, at that early period, the same great remedy had been applied! These effects, which have continued to the present hour, were instantly obvious, and shall be described in the language of one fully competent to judge, and who lived at precisely the period that enabled him to do We read thus in Dalton's Justice, one of our text books: "The benefits of this law" (including another for the suppressing of vagabonds, which, in effect, was a part of the system) "are, 1. Idleness is very much repressed. 2. Infinite swarms of idle vagabonds are rooted out, which before wandered up and down, to the great danger and indignity of our nation. 3. We ourselves are now compelled but to relieve the poore of our own parishes (whose condition and estate we know), and to a certainty of gift, wherewith we are now taxed by our neighbours ; whereas before, we gave we knew not what, nor to whom; and many times to such as were ready to

so.

*