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

eat any man's bread for nought; but wrought with labour and travel night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you: not because we have not power, but to make ourselves an example unto you to follow us. For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat."(23)

For many centuries the nations of Europe had no other way of providing for their increasing poor, when occasional benefactions became inadequate to their wants, but by driving them out, like swarms, to seek new settlements. It was not then difficult for warlike tribes, issuing forth in countless numbers, with their flocks and with their herds, to make an impression, when at any time they fumed their arms against the peaceable inhabitants of more cultivated countries. But now that all have quilted the shepherd life and taken to agriculture; now that each nation, although more numerous than formerly, is hemmed in by nations equal to itself in numbers, wealth, and military ardour; it is become necessary to provide for their poor at home. This they have attempted by public hospitals and private benefactions. With regard to hospitals, they find that these only remove the evil for a time, and in the issue extend the bounds of extreme poverty and wretchedness. They at first pleased themselves with the idea, that they had put an end to human misery; but they soon found it returning back upon them, and the vacant places, which had been left by those provided for in their public hospitals, filled up again by objects of distress. When at Lions they opened an hospital with forty beds for the reception of the poor, they could fill only half that number, but now eight hundred beds are not sufficient; and when they built the hospital of Saltpetriere, near Paris, it had few inhabitants, but now they lodge twelve thousand; and yet to their astonishment they find, that instead of having banished distress and poverty, they have increased the number of the poor. The effect has filled them with amazement; but they do not seem to have as yet discovered, that they have been attempting to stop a rapid river in its progress, and to push back the waters of the oceans.

In Holland their chief dependance is on voluntary contributions, and a rigid execution of the laws; and in Holland are to be seen more industry and fewer criminals, than are to be found in the best governed countries in Europe of the same extent.


SECT. XIV


I am now come to the most arduous part of my undertaking. Some remedy must be found for the growing evil, and those which have been hitherto proposed have been found inadequate. In laying down a plan, I shall begin with establishing the general principles on which we must proceed.

It is evident then, that no system can be good which does not, in the first place, encourage industry, economy, and subordination; and, in the second place, regulate population by the demand for labour.

To promote industry and economy, it is necessary that the relief which is given to the poor should be limited and precarious. "Languescet industria, intendetur socordia, si nullus ex se metus aut spes; et securi omnes aliena subsidia expectabunt, sibi ignavi, nobis graves." No man will be an economist of water, if he can go to the well or to the brook as often as he please; nor will he watch with solicitous attention to keep the balance even between his income and expenditure, if he is sure to be relieved in the time of need. The labouring poor at present are greatly defective, both in respect to industry and economy. Considering the numbers to be maintained, they work too little, they spend too much, and what they spend is seldom laid out to the best advantage. When they return from threshing or from plough, they might card, they might spin, or they might knit. We are told, that one thousand pair of Shetland stockings are annually imported into Leith, of which the price is from five to seven pence a pair: yet labour at Learwick, the small capital of Shetland islands, is ten pence a day. These stockings are made at leisure hours. In these islands they have no dependance but upon their industry and frugality. They consume neither tea, nor sugar, nor spices, because they cannot afford to purchase these useless articles; neither do they wear stockings or shoes, till by their diligence they have acquired such affluence as to bear this expence. How different is theirs from the dress and diet of our common people, who have lost all ideas of economy.* If by their industry they could procure these articles of luxury, or if their linen, their cotton, and their silk, were spun, and wove, and knit in their own houses, and at leisure hours, their desire to obtain these things would be advantageous to the state: but surely, if in the colder regions of the North these are not essential to their existence, or even to their happiness, they should be considered in the South only as the rewards of industry, and should never, from the common fund, be given promiscuously to all, as they will inevitably be, unless that fund shall have some other limits besides the wants and expectations of the poor. Unless the degree of pressure be increased, the labouring poor will never acquire habits of diligent application, and of severe frugality. To increase this pressure, the poor's tax must be gradually reduced in certain proportions annually, the sum to be raised in each parish being fixed and certain, not boundless, and obliged to answer unlimited demands. This enormous tax might easily in the space of nine years be reduced nine-tenths; and the remainder being reserved as a permanent supply, the poor might safely be left to the free bounty of the rich, without the interposition of any other law. But if the whole system of compulsive charity were abolished, it would be still better for the state. I am not singular in this opinion. Baron Montesquieu has given his opinion, "Que des secours passages vaudroient mieux que des éstabissemens perpetuels;"(24) and our own countryman, who had been long conversant with this business, has told us, "I am persuaded that to provide for the poor, who are unable to work, might be safely left to voluntary charity, unenforced by any compulsive law."(25)

To assist the industrious poor, who have neither tools nor materials, but more especially to train up the children of the dissolute in useful labour, there might be in each parish one or more work-shops, where they might be certain of employment, and of daily pay for the work performed. In these shops they should neither be lodged nor fed, being taught to depend each for himself on his own diligence and patient application to his business. The building, the tools, and the materials, would be all that required assistance from the public fund.

The grand resource however should be from the labouring poor themselves, previous to their being incumbered with families. They have throughout the kingdom a number of friendly societies established, which have been productive of good effects, and in some places have reduced the rates. But these societies have more than one defect. All their members contribute equally to the public fund, without respect to their ability, to the proportion of their gains, or to the number of their children. By this regulation some pay too little, others pay too much. The sum, which they deposit weekly, is insignificant and trifling when compared with what it ought to be. But the greatest misfortune is, that they are altogether left to their own option to join these societies or not; in consequence of which liberty, many of these associations for mutual assistance are going to decay. If this be indeed a good expedient, it should be pushed as far as it will go: it should be firmly established, made universal, and subjected to wholesome regulations. The unmarried man should pay one quarter of his wages weekly, and the father of four young children not more than one thirtieth of his income, which is nearly the sum which all contribute to their present clubs. To drive them into these societies, no man should be intitled to relief from the parochial fund who did not belong to one of these. Thus would sobriety, industry, and economy, take place of drunkenness, idleness, and prodigality, and due subordination would be again restored.

As long as it should be found expedient to retain a given proportion of the present poor tax, the disposal of this should be wholly at the discretion of the minister, churchwardens, and overseers, or the majority of them, subject only to the orders of a vestry. By this provision the subordination of the poor would be more effectually secured, and the civil magistrate would be at liberty to bend his whole attention to the preservation of the peace, and to the good government of the people.

This plan would be aided and assisted much by laying a sufficient tax upon the alehouses to reduce their number, these being the principal nurseries for drunkenness, idleness, and vice.

Should things be left thus to flow in their proper channels, the consequence would be, that, as far as it is possible according to the present constitution of the world, our population would be no longer unnatural and forced, but would regulate itself by the demand for labour.

There remains one thing more for the legislature to do, which is to increase the quantity of food. This may be done with ease, by laying a tax upon all horses used in husbandry, gradually increasing this tax till the farmers have returned to the use of oxen. This change would enable England not only to maintain her present population, but greatly to increase it. The land which now supports one horse, in proper working order, would bear two oxen for draft and for the shambles, if not also one cow for the pail; or any two of these, with a man, his wife, and his three children. If we consider the number of horses at present used for husbandry in this island, should only half that number give place to oxen, it would not be easy to calculate, or even to conceive, all the benefits and advantages which the public would derive from this vast increase of food. In many parishes where they have no manufactures, but the cultivation of the soil, the horses consume the produce of more land than the inhabitants themselves require. Suppose a parish to consist of four thousand acres of arable and pasture land; let this be cultivated by one hundred and fifty horses, and let it feed one thousand souls: now if, for the present, we allow only two acres of oats and two of hay for each of the horses, the amount will be six hundred productive acres, which will be more than sufficient to feed the given number of inhabitants. But the fact is, that a horse, to be fully fed, requires five ton of hay, and from thirteen to three-and-twenty quarters of oats, per annum, according to his work. Some farmers allow the former, and the latter is given by the great carriers on the public roads, which would bring the computation to about eight acres each for horses used in husbandry; but then few farmers suffer their horses to be highly fed. If we allow three acres of pasture for each ox or cow, and consider, that in calculating the quantity of land sufficient to maintain a team of horses, the needful fallows must be carried to account, we shall not be at a loss for food, when we have substituted two oxen, and one