A Dissertation on the Poor Laws by Joseph Townsend (best way to read ebooks txt) 📕

To a man of common sensibility nothing can be more distressing, than to hear the complaints of wretchedness, which he hath no power to redress, and to be daily conversant with misery, which he can neither fly from, nor relieve. This at present is the situation of the clergy, who, in virtue of their office, are obliged to visit the habitations of the poor. Here they see helpless infancy and decrepit age, the widow and the orphan, some requiring food, and others physic; all in such numbers, that no private fortune can supply their wants. Such scenes are more distressing, when, as it sometimes happens, the suffering objects have been distinguished for industry, honesty, and sobriety. The laws indeed have made provision for their relief, and the contributions are more than liberal. which are collected for their support; but then, the laws being inadequate to the purposes for which they were designed, and the money collected being universally misapplied, the provision, which was originally made for industry in distress, does little more than give encouragement to idleness and vice. The laws themselves appear beautiful on paper, and will be the admiration of succeeding ages, when, in the revolution of empires, the whole fabric of our government shall be dissolved, and our nation, as a separate kingdom, shall exist no more. These laws, so beautiful in theory, promote the evils they mean to remedy, and aggravate the distress they were intended to relieve. Till the reign of Q. Elizabeth they were unknown in England; and to the present moment, they have never been adopted by any other kingdom upon earth. It has been most unfortunate for us, that two of the greatest blessings have been productive of the greatest evils. The Revolution gave birth to that enormous load of debt, under which this nation groans; and to the Reformation we are indebted for the laws which multiply the poor.

At the dissolution of the monasteries, the lazy and the indigent, who were deprived of their accustomed food, became clamorous, and, having long since forgot to work, were not only ready to join in every scheme for the disturbance of the state, but, as vagrants, by their numbers, by their impostures, and by their thefts, they rendered themselves a public and most intolerable nuisance. To stop their mouths, and to make them employ their hands in honest labour, was the intention of that day. But at the same time the laws took under their protection some objects of distress, who for near two hundred years, from a noble kind of pride, refused the proffered aid, or received it with reluctance; and who at the present moment would be more effectually relieved, if no other laws existed but the first great laws of human nature, filial affection, and the general benevolence of mankind. The world, it must be confessed, is wicked enough: Yet amidst all their wickedness men seldom want compassion, unless the circumstances in which they find themselves are peculiarly distressing. Should we "in the straitness of a siege behold men eating the flesh of their sons and of their daughters; should we see among them a man tender and delicate, whose eye should be evil towards his brother and towards the wife of his bosom, and towards the remnant of his children, so that he should not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he should eat;"(1) we must not from such instances conclude that all men, or even most men, are destitute of mercy and compassion, or that man in general can be kind and beneficent only by compulsion. No doubt in every district will be found some, who are strangers to the finer feelings of the human heart; but at the same time in every district will be found some, who are endued with generosity of soul; and others, who under the influence of piety will rejoice to relieve the wants and distresses of their fellow creatures. In every place some will be distinguished for benevolence, others for brutality; but in general man is what his situation makes him. Is he happy himself in the enjoyment of ease and affluence? In such circumstances "he will be eyes to the blind and feet to the lame; he will be a father to the poor; the blessing of those that are ready to perish will come upon this man: he will cause the widow's heart to leap for joy*."(2) Let the same man be straitened in his circumstances, let him be burthened with taxes, let him be harassed by the clamours and distracted by the incessant demands of the most improvident and lazy of the surrounding poor; and he will have little inclination to seek for objects of distress, or to visit the sequestered cottage of the silent sufferer. It is generally found, that modest worth stands at a distance, or draws nigh with faltering tongue and broken accents to tell an artless tale; whilst the most worthless are the most unreasonable in their expectations, and the most importunate in their solicitation for relief. If the latter, from any imperfection of our laws, get abundantly too much, the former must of necessity obtain too little. If, agreeable to the general practice of the labouring poor, a man, previous to his marriage, or whilst his family is small, has made no provision for his future wants; if all, to whom he might naturally look for aid, are in the same circumstances with himself; and if the charity of those among his neighbours, who are distinguished for benevolence, nay of all who have the common feelings of humanity, is exhausted; if they who are most willing are least able to relieve him; we must expect to see distress and poverty even among those who are worthy of compassion. -- This at present is the case in England. There never was greater distress among the poor: there never was more money collected for their relief. But what is most perplexing is, that poverty and wretchedness have increased in exact proportion to the efforts which have been made for the comfortable subsistence of the poor; and that wherever most is expended for their support, there objects of distress are most abundant; whilst in those countries or provincial districts where the least provision has been made for their supply, we hear the fewest groans. Among the former we see drunkenness and idleness cloathed in rags; among the latter we hear the chearful songs of industry and virtue.

If laws alone could make a nation happy, ours would be the happiest nation upon earth: idleness and vice could not exist; poverty would be unknown; we should be like a prosperous hive of bees; all would have enough and none too much. The reverse of this we find to be the case: poverty and vice prevail, and the most vicious have access to the common stock. If a man has squandered the inheritance of his fathers; if by his improvidence, by his prodigality, by his drunkenness and vices, he has dissipated all his substance; if by his debaucheries he has ruined his constitution, and reduced himself to such a deplorable condition that he hath neither inclination nor ability to work; yet must he be maintained by the sweat and labour of the sober and of the industrious farmer, and eat the bread which should be given only to virtue in distress. -- If in all cases, this bread, so ill bestowed, were superabundant; if the industrious firmer were himself in ease and affluence; the grievance would yet be tolerable. But in this day it often happens that the industrious firmer is oprest with poverty. He rises early, and it is late before he can retire to his rest; he works hard and fares hard; yet with all his labour and his care he can scarce provide subsistence for his numerous family. He would feed them better, but the prodigal must first be fed. He would purchase warmer cloathing for them, but the children of the prostitute must first be cloathed. The little which remains after the profligate have been cloathed and fed, is all that he can give to those, who in nature have the first claims upon a father. If this evil could be stemmed, whilst the present laws subsist, he might yet have hope: but when he considers, that all the efforts, which have been made in his own parish or in others, have been vain, and that the evil is constantly increasing, he is driven to despair of help, and fears that he shall be himself reduced to work for daily hire. It will be evident that his fears are not altogether groundless, if we consider, that even in parishes, where no manufactures have been established, the poor rates have been doubling, some every fourteen years, and others heady every seven years; whilst in some districts, where the manufactures are carried on to a considerable extent, the poor rates are more than ten shillings in the pound upon the improved rents. That the distress does not arise from the high price of com, will be clear, if we consider, what may perhaps hereafter be more fully stated, that although for these two hundred years the price of wheat has fluctuated between wide extremes, yet upon comparing the average prices within that period, the ancients did not find a cheaper market than the moderns. If we take the average of the sixty years which terminated at the commencement of the present century, we shall find the price of wheat to have been six shillings and four pence halfpenny per bushel, whereas in the subsequent sixty years it was only five shillings; and for the last twenty years, ending with the year 1782, not more than six shillings and six pence: yet during that long period in which provisions were the cheapest, the poor rates were continually advancing. That the distress does not arise from the high price of soap, leather, candles, salt, and other small articles needful in a family, will appear not only from the superior advance in the price of labour (in the proportion of six to four within a century),(3) but from hence, that where the price of labour is the highest and provisions are the cheapest, there the poor rates have been most exorbitant. In Scotland they have no legal provision for the poor, yet labour is cheaper and corn is dearer than they are in England.


SECT. II


Under the best administration, the laws relating to the poor give occasion to much injustice; under the worst, they are too often the instruments of oppression and revenge. If the intentions of the magistrate are good, his compassion may be ill directed; but if at any time his judgment is blinded by his passions, in the keeness of his resentment for some real or imaginary affront, he is apt to forget the purpose for which the administration of the poor laws was committed to his care, and to abuse his power, by granting, when the property of his own tenants is not to be affected by it, the most ample relief to the most unworthy objects. This indeed would seldom happen, if none but gentlemen of a liberal education were put into the commission of the peace; or if, aggreeable to the original constitution of our government, this office were elective. But should the wisest and the best of men be chosen, yet we could not expect that such would every where be found willing to devote their time and whole attention to the administration of those laws, whose natural tendency is to increase the number of the poor, and greatly to extend the bounds of human misery.