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

the greatest hardships, and will sweeten the severest labours. The peasant with a sickle in his hand is happier than the prince upon his throne.

Now a fixed, a certain, and a constant provision for the poor weakens this spring; it increases their improvidence, but does not promote their chearful compliance with those demands, which the community is obliged to make on the most indigent of its members; it tends to destroy the harmony and beauty, the symmetry and order of that system, which God and nature have established in the world. The improvident among the poor have been advancing in their claims: they now begin to understand that they have a legal right to all. When this, which hitherto has been only felt, shall be clearly seen, and universally acknowledged, nothing will remain but to cast lots, who among the active and the virtuous shall perform the vilest offices for the indolent and vicious.


SECT. VIII


Our poor laws are not only unjust, oppressive, and impolitic, nor am they merely by accident inadequate to the purpose for which they were designed; but they proceed upon principles which border on absurdity, as professing to accomplish that which, in the very nature and constitution of the world, is impracticable. They say, that in England no man, even though by his indolence, improvidence, prodigality, and vice, he may have brought himself to poverty, shall ever suffer want. In the progress of society, it will be found, that some must want; and then the only question will be this, Who is most worthy to suffer cold and hunger, the prodigal or the provident, the slothful or the diligent, the virtuous or the vicious? In the South Seas there is an island, which from the first discoverer is called Juan Fernandez. In this sequestered spot, John Fernando placed a colony of goats, consisting of one male, attended by his female. This happy couple finding pasture in abundance, could readily obey the first commandment, to increase and multiply, till in process of time they had replenished their little island.(10) In advancing to this period they were strangers to misery and want, and seemed to glory in their numbers: but from this unhappy moment they began to suffer hunger; yet continuing for a time to increase their numbers, had they been endued with reason, they must have apprehended the extremity of famine. In this situation the weakest first gave way, and plenty was again restored. Thus they fluctuated between happiness and misery, and either suffered want or rejoiced in abundance, according as their numbers were diminished or increased; never at a stay, yet nearly balancing at all times their quantity of food. This degree of aequipoise was from time to time destroyed, either by epidemical diseases or by the arrival of some vessel in distress. On such occasions their numbers were considerably reduced; but to compensate for this alarm, and to comfort them for the loss of their companions, the survivors never failed immediately to meet returning plenty. They were no longer in fear of famine: they ceased to regard each other with an evil eye; all had abundance, all were contented, all were happy. Thus, what might have been considered as misfortunes, proved a source of comfort; and, to them at least, partial evil was universal good.

When the Spaniards found that the English privateers resorted to this island for provisions, they resolved on the total extirpation of the goats, and for this purpose they put on shore a greyhound dog and bitch.(11) These in their turn increased and multiplied, in proportion to the quantity of food they met with; but in consequence, as the Spaniards had foreseen, the breed of goats diminished. Had they been totally destroyed, the dogs likewise must have perished. But as many of the goats retired to the craggy rocks, where the dogs could never follow them, descending only for short intervals to feed with fear and circumspection in the rallies, few of these, besides the careless and the rash, became a prey; and none but the most watchful, strong, and active of the dogs could get a sufficiency of food. Thus a new kind of balance was established. The weakest of both species were among the first to pay the debt of nature; the most active and vigorous preserved their lives. It is the quantity of food which regulates the numbers of the human species. In the woods, and in the savage state, there can be few inhabitants; but of these there will be only a proportionable few to suffer want. As long as food is plenty they will continue to increase and multiply; and every man will have ability to support his family, or to relieve his friends, in proportion to his activity and strength. The weak must depend upon the precarious bounty of the strong; and, sooner or later, the lazy will be left to suffer the ,natural consequence of their indolence. Should they introduce a community of goods, and at the same time leave every man at liberty to marry, they would at first increase their numbers, but not the sum total of their happiness, till by degrees, all being equally reduced to want and misery, the weakly would be the first to perish.

To procure a more ample, certain, and regular supply of food, should they cut down their woods and take to breeding cattle, this plenty would be of long continuance; but in process of time its limits would be found. The most active would acquire property, would have numerous flocks and numerous families; whilst the indolent would either starve or become servants to the rich, and the community would continue to enlarge till it had found its natural bounds, and balanced the quantity of food.

Should they proceed to agriculture, these bounds would be much extended, and require ages before the straitness would be felt again. In process of time a compleat division of labour would take place, and they would have not only husbandmen, but artists, manufacturers, and merchants, monied men and gentlemen of landed property, soldiers and men of letters, with all their servants, to exchange their various commodities and labours for the produce of the soil. A noble author, in the north of Britain, is of opinion, that "a nation can scarce be too populous for husbandry, as agriculture has the singular property of producing food in proportion to the number of consumers."(12) But is it not clear, that when all that is fertile has been cultivated to the highest pitch of industry, the progress must of necessity be stopped, and that when the human species shall have multiplied in proportion to this increase of food, it can proceed no further? Indeed, as we have remarked already of the savage state, should they establish a community of goods, their numbers for a time would certainly increase; but the quantity of food not being augmented in proportion, and that which had been sufficient only for a given number being now distributed to the increasing multitude, all would have too little, and the weakly would perish sooner than if he who tilled the soil had been left to reap the undivided fruits of his industry and labour. Nations may for a time increase their numbers beyond the due proportion of their food, but they will in the same proportion destroy the ease and comfort of the affluent, and, without any possible advantage, give universality to that misery and want, which had been only partial. The course of nature may be easily disturbed, but man will never be able to reverse its laws.

The earth is no where more fertile than it is in China, nor does any country abound so much in people; yet the cries of deserted children prove, that even they have found limits to their population. Few countries have been more productive than the land of Canaan was; a land described as flowing with milk and honey, fertile in corn, and rich in pastures: yet even in the land of Canaan they had many poor; and it was said to them, but not in the way of threatening, "the poor shall never cease from among you."(13) Indeed it was impossible they ever should, because whilst men have appetites and passions, what but distress and poverty can stop the progress of population? The inhabitants of Europe are said to have doubled their numbers every five hundred years: from which we may infer that their quantity of food has been doubled in these periods. Throughout America, for the same reason, they have been doubled every five-and-twenty years; and in some colonies, in the space of fifteen years.

If a new and equal division of property were made in England, we cannot doubt that the same inequality which we now observe would soon take place again: the improvident, the lazy, and the vicious, would dissipate their substance; the prudent, the active, and the virtuous, would again increase their wealth. If the legislature were to make this distribution, the evil would not be equal to the injustice of the measure: things would soon return into their proper channel, order and subordination would be again restored, diligence would be encouraged, and the virtuous would be fed. But by establishing a permanent community of goods, and neither increasing the quantity of food, nor limiting the number of those who are to share it, they divert the occasional surplus of national wealth from the industrious to the lazy, they increase the number of unprofitable citizens, and sow the seeds of misery for the whole community; increasing the general distress, and causing more to die for want, than if poverty had been left to find its proper channel.

It is well known that our commons, without stint, starve all our cattle. Here we clearly see the natural effects of that community of goods, which the poor laws would render universal. In the infancy of the Christian church, this experiment was fairly tried; but even whilst the Apostles, blest with a perfect knowledge of the human heart, were yet alive, it was found to be intolerable. We have adopted it in England; and what has been the consequence? Are poverty and wretchedness unknown? or rather, are not poverty and wretchedness increasing daily, in exact proportion with our efforts to restrain them? One of the nearest writers of the English nation, who understood this subject, has well observed, "the sufferings of the poor are less known than their misdeeds: they starve, and freeze, and rot among themselves; but they beg, and steal, and rob among their betters. There is not a parish in the liberty of Westminster, which doth not raise thousands annually for the poor; and there is not a street in that liberty, which doth not swarm all day with beggars, and all night with thieves." His expression is nervous, his description animated; but even the simple truth, when divested of all its ornaments, must excite astonishment. The effect is striking; but the cause of this phaenomenon will be evident to those only who can examine it with a fixed attention.

There is a parish in the West of England which has never wanted poor, and in which, excepting for one short period, the poor have never wanted work; yet their poverty and misery have uniformly advanced constantly, outstripping all efforts which have been made to provide for their distress. The farmers at this time pay ten shillings in the pound on the improved rents; yet wretchedness seems to have taken up its residence in every cottage, and the most miserable are they whose gains have been the greatest.


SECT. IX


On the subject of population we have had warm disputes, whilst some have lamented that our numbers are decreasing, and others with confidence have boasted that our population has rapidly advanced; all seeming to be agreed, that the wealth of