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

indeed, the poor are permitted to reside in any parish where work is to be had, but then a certificate is not easily obtained. Now it is evident that by raising the price of labour you must directly check the progress of the manufactures; and by experience it is found, that the same effect arises indirectly to a more considerable extent; for in proportion as you advance the wages of the poor, you diminish the quantity of their work. All manufacturers complain of this, and universally agree, that the poor are seldom diligent, except when labour is cheap, and com is dear. It must be confessed that too many of them have some little resemblance to the animal described by travellets under the name of Nimble Peter; a creature so inactive, that, when he has cleared one tree, he will be reduced to skin and bones before he climbs another, and so slow in all his motions, that even stripes will not make him mend his pace.(9) Drunkenness is the common vice of poverty; not perhaps of poverty as such, but of the uncultivated mind; for it is the characteristic of unpolished nations to be fond of intoxicating liquors. Whatever be the cause, it is notorious, that with the common people the appetite for strong drink is their prevailing appetite. When therefore, by the advance in wages, they obtain more than is sufficient for their bare subsistence, they spend the surplus at the alehouse, and neglect their business. Is a man drunk one day? He will have little inclination to work the next. Thus for every drunken fit two days are lost. By frequent repetition the habit is confirmed, and, by reducing the number of working days, their value is enhanced. In proportion to this loss, the price of labour will be raised. As long as men have nothing to fear, either for themselves or for their families, this practice will prevail. Where the price of labour is advanced, the industrious and the sober will by degrees acquire a taste for luxury. They will not be contented with bare subsistence, with a sufficient quantity of coarse yet wholesome food, with warm but homespun garments, and with healthy but unfurnished cottages: they will contract habits of refinement, which, when suffered to promote their industry, will be useful both to themselves and to the public, but which in all cases, will have a tendency to keep up the price of labour, and to advance the price of all those articles which they consume. Even they who do not work must eat, and, by increasing the demand for corn, will enhance its value, and consequently the price of labour. In this case action and re-action are equal, but not opposite. The high price of labour raises the value of provisions, and the high price of provisions enhances the value of labour. They are both increased by the present system of our poor laws, and have both a tendency to check the progress of manufactures, and to hasten their departure. The most specious argument produced against granting a free trade to the sister kingdom was, that, having labour cheap, and not being burthened with a poor's rate, she would be able to undersell us in the market, and thereby ruin our manufactures. Should England repeal the present laws, and make a better provision for the frugal, the sober, and the industrious, among the poor, Ireland could no longer boast of this advantage.

Manufactures always seek the cheapest countries. As they are leaving the southern countries and travelling to the north, so in time will they leave the north, and, to a considerable degree, quit the kingdom, unless some wise regulations are established for the better relief and government of the labouring poor.

The poor laws to a certain degree discourage improvements in agriculture; for it is certain, that more waste land would be taken into tillage, if gentlemen were not alarmed by the increasing burthen of the poor. Against the claims of the church, provision has been made by an exemption from tythes for seven years; but the demands of the poor admit of no exemption. Monied men have greatly the advantage over the owners and occupiers of land, as being free from those heavy taxes, which the latter pay to the king, to the church, and to the poor. When the poor's rate amounts to ten shillings, or even to four shillings in the pound, who will be at the expence of clearing, fencing, breaking up, manuring, cropping, the waste and barren parts of an estate? Certainly no gentlemen can do it with a view to profit. In Scotland the sums are immense which have been expended for this purpose; but in England a man of property would choose rather to take the public for his debtor, than to be himself a debtor to the poor; more especially as it is not possible for him to conjecture what will be the extent of this unlimited rent-charge upon his estate. Were it not for this incumbrance agriculture would certainly be pushed much farther than it has ever been, and many thousand acres of the poorer commons, heaths, and moors, would be inclosed and cultivated. The best writers have complained, that by a tax, similar in its operation to our poor's tax, agriculture in France has been depressed, the assessment being made in proportion to their stock in trade. The conduct of the French in this respect is not more absurd than ours. How widely different has been the operation of our land-tax. It has been a spur to industry, because from the beginning the proportion has been never changed. To be consistent in principle, the legislature should either limit the sum to be collected for the poor, or if agriculture is to be effectually checked, they should equalize the land-tax. Had this tax followed our improvements with a tight grasp, and with a watchful eye, like the church, and like the poor, England would not at this day discover the smiling aspect which all foreigners admire, when they every where behold our vallies cloathed with flocks, and our hills with corn. A wise politician will study to remove every obstacle which can retard the progress of improvement: but such is the system of our laws, that the greater the distress among the poor, the less will be the inducement to cultivate our more stubborn and unprofitable lands.


SECT. VI


A distinguished writer of the present century has clearly stated some advantages which the community derives from the introduction of luxury, and would from thence conclude, that private vices are public benefits. His conclusion we cannot grant him; nor can we allow the premises, if by luxury be meant any thing inconsistent with morality. If in our idea of luxury we include only the comforts and conveniences of life, then a taste for luxury must be productive of industry and virtue, must increase the happiness of individuals, and promote the welfare of the state. If men were contented to go naked, to lie under hedges, and, according to the fiction of the poets, to feed on acorns, there would be none to labour till the acorns were consumed. In general the industry of man bears proportion to his real or imaginary wants. Could the landlord be contented with the produce of his native soil, he would cultivate only what would be sufficient for the consumption of his family; or could the labourer be contented with what was barely sufficient to satisfy his hunger, when he no longer felt the cravings of his appetite, he would cease to labour. But as their wants are multiplied, the master is willing to employ more workmen, and the workman himself is reconciled to constant labour. There was a time when the inhabitants of Europe had neither rum, brandy, spices, tea, sugar, nor tobacco: they now covet these, and these new desires have produced new efforts to gratify them. There was a time when they had neither linen, shoes, nor stockings; they now feel the want of these, and receive them as the rewards of industry. But supposing that, with these new desires, they could obtain not only linen, shoes, and stockings, but spices, spirits, tea, sugar, and tobacco, without care or labour, what encouragement would they have to industry? By the present system of our poor laws, at least as they are now administered, the benefits which arise from luxury, in promoting industry among the labouring poor, are lost; and the most improvident may rest assured, that he shall, at all events, share these superfluities with the most active and laborious; and that in times of scarcity his wants shall be the first supplied, and his comfort the first consulted. To be consistent, the legislature should make the same provision for farmers, manufacturers, and merchants; that in case, by their profusion or neglect o[ business, they should be insolvent, their debts might all be paid, and themselves, together with their families, might be supported in the stile and manner to which they had been accustomed; all out of the revenues of the state, or by special rates to be collected; not by voluntary donations, but by compulsive payments, and not merely from the opulent, but from those who had themselves been struggling with poverty and want: nay, to be consistent, they should pass a law that no man should reap the fruit of his indiscretion; or, to be perfectly consistent, they should repeal all penal statutes.

Hesiod, in his Georgics, or didactic poem on agriculture, describes with beautiful simplicity the excellent effects of emulation, representing two kinds of strife and contention among men; the one productive of violence, the other of peace, harmony, and plenty. The one is intent only upon plunder, whilst the other seeing wealth as attendant upon industry, is induced to labour, in order to obtain those comforts which the diligent only can command.

This principle has been perverted by our laws; and now the person who excites the envy and emulation of the lazy and improvident, is not the man who by his activity is acquiring affluence, but the indolent poor in every parish, who by his impudence and by his importunity has obtained the most ample and the most unmerited relief. This our poet has described as the natural emulation among beggars.


SECT. VII


It seems to be a law of nature, that the poor should be to a certain degree improvident, that there may always be some to fulfil the most servile, the most sordid, and the most ignoble offices in the community. The stock of human happiness is thereby much increased, whilst the more delicate are not only relieved from drudgery, and freed from those occasional employments which would make them miserable, but are left at liberty, without interruption, to pursue those callings which are suited to their various dispositions, and most useful to the state. As for the lowest of the poor, by custom they are reconciled to the meanest occupations, to the most laborious works, and to the most hazardous pursuits; whilst the hope of their reward makes them chearful in the midst of all their dangers and their toils. The fleets and armies of a state would soon be in want of soldiers and of sailors, if sobriety and diligence universally prevailed: for what is it but distress and poverty which can prevail upon the lower classes of the people to encounter all the horrors which await them on the tempestuous ocean, or in the field of battle? Men who are easy in their circumstances are not among the foremost to engage in a seafaring or military life. There must be a degree of pressure, and that which is attended with the least violence will be the best. When hunger is either felt or feared, the desire of obtaining bread will .quietly dispose the mind to undergo