The second, or positive check to population examined, in England--The
true cause why the immense sum collected in England for the poor does
not better their condition--The powerful tendency of the poor laws to
defeat their own purpose--Palliative of the distresses of the poor
proposed--The absolute impossibility, from the fixed laws of our
nature, that the pressure of want can ever be completely removed from
the lower classes of society--All the checks to population may be
resolved into misery or vice.
The positive check to population, by which I mean the check that
represses an increase which is already begun, is confined chiefly,
though not perhaps solely, to the lowest orders of society.
This check is not so obvious to common view as the other I have
mentioned, and, to prove distinctly the force and extent of its
operation would require, perhaps, more data than we are in possession
of. But I believe it has been very generally remarked by those who have
attended to bills of mortality that of the number of children who die
annually, much too great a proportion belongs to those who may be
supposed unable to give their offspring proper food and attention,
exposed as they are occasionally to severe distress and confined,
perhaps, to unwholesome habitations and hard labour. This mortality
among the children of the poor has been constantly taken notice of in
all towns. It certainly does not prevail in an equal degree in the
country, but the subject has not hitherto received sufficient attention
to enable anyone to say that there are not more deaths in proportion
among the children of the poor, even in the country, than among those
of the middling and higher classes. Indeed, it seems difficult to
suppose that a labourer's wife who has six children, and who is
sometimes in absolute want of bread, should be able always to give them
the food and attention necessary to support life. The sons and
daughters of peasants will not be found such rosy cherubs in real life
as they are described to be in romances. It cannot fail to be remarked
by those who live much in the country that the sons of labourers are
very apt to be stunted in their growth, and are a long while arriving
at maturity. Boys that you would guess to be fourteen or fifteen are,
upon inquiry, frequently found to be eighteen or nineteen. And the lads
who drive plough, which must certainly be a healthy exercise, are very
rarely seen with any appearance of calves to their legs: a circumstance
which can only be attributed to a want either of proper or of
sufficient nourishment.
To remedy the frequent distresses of the common people, the poor laws
of England have been instituted; but it is to be feared, that though
they may have alleviated a little the intensity of individual
misfortune, they have spread the general evil over a much larger
surface. It is a subject often started in conversation and mentioned
always as a matter of great surprise that, notwithstanding the immense
sum that is annually collected for the poor in England, there is still
so much distress among them. Some think that the money must be
embezzled, others that the church-wardens and overseers consume the
greater part of it in dinners. All agree that somehow or other it must
be very ill-managed. In short the fact that nearly three millions are
collected annually for the poor and yet that their distresses are not
removed is the subject of continual astonishment. But a man who sees a
little below the surface of things would be very much more astonished
if the fact were otherwise than it is observed to be, or even if a
collection universally of eighteen shillings in the pound, instead of
four, were materially to alter it. I will state a case which I hope
will elucidate my meaning.
Suppose that by a subscription of the rich the eighteen pence a day
which men earn now was made up five shillings, it might be imagined,
perhaps, that they would then be able to live comfortably and have a
piece of meat every day for their dinners. But this would be a very
false conclusion. The transfer of three shillings and sixpence a day to
every labourer would not increase the quantity of meat in the country.
There is not at present enough for all to have a decent share. What
would then be the consequence? The competition among the buyers in the
market of meat would rapidly raise the price from sixpence or
sevenpence, to two or three shillings in the pound, and the commodity
would not be divided among many more than it is at present. When an
article is scarce, and cannot be distributed to all, he that can shew
the most valid patent, that is, he that offers most money, becomes the
possessor. If we can suppose the competition among the buyers of meat
to continue long enough for a greater number of cattle to be reared
annually, this could only be done at the expense of the corn, which
would be a very disadvantagous exchange, for it is well known that the
country could not then support the same population, and when
subsistence is scarce in proportion to the number of people, it is of
little consequence whether the lowest members of the society possess
eighteen pence or five shillings. They must at all events be reduced to
live upon the hardest fare and in the smallest quantity.
It will be said, perhaps, that the increased number of purchasers in
every article would give a spur to productive industry and that the
whole produce of the island would be increased. This might in some
degree be the case. But the spur that these fancied riches would give
to population would more than counterbalance it, and the increased
produce would be to be divided among a more than proportionably
increased number of people. All this time I am supposing that the same
quantity of work would be done as before. But this would not really
take place. The receipt of five shillings a day, instead of eighteen
pence, would make every man fancy himself comparatively rich and able
to indulge himself in many hours or days of leisure. This would give a
strong and immediate check to productive industry, and, in a short
time, not only the nation would be poorer, but the lower classes
themselves would be much more distressed than when they received only
eighteen pence a day.
A collection from the rich of eighteen shillings in the pound, even if
distributed in the most judicious manner, would have a little the same
effect as that resulting from the supposition I have just made, and no
possible contributions or sacrifices of the rich, particularly in
money, could for any time prevent the recurrence of distress among the
lower members of society, whoever they were. Great changes might,
indeed, be made. The rich might become poor, and some of the poor rich,
but a part of the society must necessarily feel a difficulty of living,
and this difficulty will naturally fall on the least fortunate members.
It may at first appear strange, but I believe it is true, that I cannot
by means of money raise a poor man and enable him to live much better
than he did before, without proportionably depressing others in the
same class. If I retrench the quantity of food consumed in my house,
and give him what I have cut off, I then benefit him, without
depressing any but myself and family, who, perhaps, may be well able to
bear it. If I turn up a piece of uncultivated land, and give him the
produce, I then benefit both him and all the members of the society,
because what he before consumed is thrown into the common stock, and
probably some of the new produce with it. But if I only give him money,
supposing the produce of the country to remain the same, I give him a
title to a larger share of that produce than formerly, which share he
cannot receive without diminishing the shares of others. It is evident
that this effect, in individual instances, must be so small as to be
totally imperceptible; but still it must exist, as many other effects
do, which, like some of the insects that people the air, elude our
grosser perceptions.
Supposing the quantity of food in any country to remain the same for
many years together, it is evident that this food must be divided
according to the value of each man's patent, or the sum of money that
he can afford to spend on this commodity so universally in request. (Mr
Godwin calls the wealth that a man receives from his ancestors a mouldy
patent. It may, I think, very properly be termed a patent, but I hardly
see the propriety of calling it a mouldy one, as it is an article in
such constant use.) It is a demonstrative truth, therefore, that the
patents of one set of men could not be increased in value without
diminishing the value of the patents of some other set of men. If the
rich were to subscribe and give five shillings a day to five hundred
thousand men without retrenching their own tables, no doubt can exist,
that as these men would naturally live more at their ease and consume a
greater quantity of provisions, there would be less food remaining to
divide among the rest, and consequently each man's patent would be
diminished in value or the same number of pieces of silver would
purchase a smaller quantity of subsistence.
An increase of population without a proportional increase of food will
evidently have the same effect in lowering the value of each man's
patent. The food must necessarily be distributed in smaller quantities,
and consequently a day's labour will purchase a smaller quantity of
provisions. An increase in the price of provisions would arise either
from an increase of population faster than the means of subsistence, or
from a different distribution of the money of the society. The food of
a country that has been long occupied, if it be increasing, increases
slowly and regularly and cannot be made to answer any sudden demands,
but variations in the distribution of the money of a society are not
infrequently occurring, and are undoubtedly among the causes that
occasion the continual variations which we observe in the price of
provisions.
The poor laws of England tend to depress the general condition of the
poor in these two ways. Their first obvious tendency is to increase
population without increasing the food for its support. A poor man may
marry with little or no prospect of being able to support a family in
independence. They may be said therefore in some measure to create the
poor which they maintain, and as the provisions of the country must, in
consequence of the increased population, be distributed to every man in
smaller proportions, it is evident that the labour of those who are not
supported by parish assistance will purchase a smaller quantity of
provisions than before and consequently more of them must be driven to
ask for support.
Secondly, the quantity of provisions consumed in workhouses upon a part
of the society that cannot in general be considered as the most
valuable part diminishes the shares that would otherwise belong to more
industrious and more worthy members, and thus in the same manner forces
more to become dependent. If the poor in the workhouses were to live
better than they now do, this new distribution of the money of the
society would tend more conspicuously to depress the condition of those
out of the workhouses by occasioning a rise in the price of provisions.
Fortunately for England, a spirit of independence still remains among
the peasantry. The poor laws are strongly calculated to eradicate this
spirit. They have succeeded in part, but had they succeeded as
completely as might have been expected their pernicious tendency would
not have been so long concealed.
Hard as it may appear in individual instances, dependent poverty ought
to be held disgraceful. Such a stimulus seems to be absolutely
necessary to promote the happiness of the great mass of mankind, and
every general attempt to weaken this stimulus, however benevolent its
apparent intention, will always defeat its own purpose. If men are
induced to marry from a prospect of parish provision, with little or no
chance of maintaining their families in independence, they are not only
unjustly tempted to bring unhappiness and dependence upon themselves
and children, but they are tempted, without knowing it, to injure all
in the same class with themselves. A labourer who marries without being
able to support a family may in some respects be considered as an enemy
to all his fellow-labourers.
I feel no doubt whatever that the parish laws of England have
contributed to raise the price of provisions and to lower the real
price of labour. They have therefore contributed to impoverish that
class of people whose only possession is their labour. It is also
difficult to suppose that they have not powerfully contributed to
generate that carelessness and want of frugality observable among the
poor, so contrary to the disposition frequently to be remarked among
petty tradesmen and small farmers. The labouring poor, to use a vulgar
expression, seem always to live from hand to mouth. Their present wants
employ their whole attention, and they seldom think of the future. Even
when they have an opportunity of saving they seldom exercise it, but
all that is beyond their present necessities goes, generally speaking,
to the ale-house. The poor laws of England may therefore be said to
diminish both the power and the will to save among the common people,
and thus to weaken one of the strongest incentives to sobriety and
industry, and consequently to happiness.
It is a general complaint among master manufacturers that high wages
ruin all their workmen, but it is difficult to conceive that these men
would not save a part of their high wages for the future support of
their families, instead of spending it in drunkenness and dissipation,
if they did not rely on parish assistance for support in case of
accidents. And that the poor employed in manufactures consider this
assistance as a reason why they may spend all the wages they earn and
enjoy themselves while they can appears to be evident from the number
of families that, upon the failure of any great manufactory,
immediately fall upon the parish, when perhaps the wages earned in this
manufactory while it flourished were sufficiently above the price of
common country labour to have allowed them to save enough for their
support till they could find some other channel for their industry.
A man who might not be deterred from going to the ale-house from the
consideration that on his death, or sickness, he should leave his wife
and family upon the parish might yet hesitate in thus dissipating his
earnings if he were assured that, in either of these cases, his family
must starve or be left to the support of casual bounty. In China, where
the real as well as nominal price of labour is very low, sons are yet
obliged by law to support their aged and helpless parents. Whether such
a law would be advisable in this country I will not pretend to
determine. But it seems at any rate highly improper, by positive
institutions, which render dependent poverty so general, to weaken that
disgrace, which for the best and most humane reasons ought to attach to
it.
The mass of happiness among the common people cannot but be diminished
when one of the strongest checks to idleness and dissipation is thus
removed, and when men are thus allured to marry with little or no
prospect of being able to maintain a family in independence. Every
obstacle in the way of marriage must undoubtedly be considered as a
species of unhappiness. But as from the laws of our nature some check
to population must exist, it is better that it should be checked from a
foresight of the difficulties attending a family and the fear of
dependent poverty than that it should be encouraged, only to be
repressed afterwards by want and sickness.
It should be remembered always that there is an essential difference
between food and those wrought commodities, the raw materials of which
are in great plenty. A demand for these last will not fail to create
them in as great a quantity as they are wanted. The demand for food has
by no means the same creative power. In a country where all the fertile
spots have been seized, high offers are necessary to encourage the
farmer to lay his dressing on land from which he cannot expect a
profitable return for some years. And before the prospect of advantage
is sufficiently great to encourage this sort of agricultural
enterprise, and while the new produce is rising, great distresses may
be suffered from the want of it. The demand for an increased quantity
of subsistence is, with few exceptions, constant everywhere, yet we see
how slowly it is answered in all those countries that have been long
occupied.
The poor laws of England were undoubtedly instituted for the most
benevolent purpose, but there is great reason to think that they have
not succeeded in their intention. They certainly mitigate some cases of
very severe distress which might otherwise occur, yet the state of the
poor who are supported by parishes, considered in all its
circumstances, is very far from being free from misery. But one of the
principal objections to them is that for this assistance which some of
the poor receive, in itself almost a doubtful blessing, the whole class
of the common people of England is subjected to a set of grating,
inconvenient, and tyrannical laws, totally inconsistent with the
genuine spirit of the constitution. The whole business of settlements,
even in its present amended state, is utterly contradictory to all
ideas of freedom. The parish persecution of men whose families are
likely to become chargeable, and of poor women who are near lying-in,
is a most disgraceful and disgusting tyranny. And the obstructions
continuity occasioned in the market of labour by these laws have a
constant tendency to add to the difficulties of those who are
struggling to support themselves without assistance.
These evils attendant on the poor laws are in some degree irremediable.
If assistance be to be distributed to a certain class of people, a
power must be given somewhere of discriminating the proper objects and
of managing the concerns of the institutions that are necessary, but
any great interference with the affairs of other people is a species of
tyranny, and in the common course of things the exercise of this power
may be expected to become grating to those who are driven to ask for
support. The tyranny of Justices, Church-wardens, and Overseers, is a
common complaint among the poor, but the fault does not lie so much in
these persons, who probably, before they were in power, were not worse
than other people, but in the nature of all such institutions.
The evil is perhaps gone too far to be remedied, but I feel little
doubt in my own mind that if the poor laws had never existed, though
there might have been a few more instances of very severe distress, yet
that the aggregate mass of happiness among the common people would have
been much greater than it is at present.
Mr Pitt's Poor Bill has the appearance of being framed with benevolent
intentions, and the clamour raised against it was in many respects ill
directed, and unreasonable. But it must be confessed that it possesses
in a high degree the great and radical defect of all systems of the
kind, that of tending to increase population without increasing the
means for its support, and thus to depress the condition of those that
are not supported by parishes, and, consequently, to create more poor.
To remove the wants of the lower classes of society is indeed an
arduous task. The truth is that the pressure of distress on this part
of a community is an evil so deeply seated that no human ingenuity can
reach it. Were I to propose a palliative, and palliatives are all that
the nature of the case will admit, it should be, in the first place,
the total abolition of all the present parish-laws. This would at any
rate give liberty and freedom of action to the peasantry of England,
which they can hardly be said to possess at present. They would then be
able to settle without interruption, wherever there was a prospect of a
greater plenty of work and a higher price for labour. The market of
labour would then be free, and those obstacles removed which, as things
are now, often for a considerable time prevent the price from rising
according to the demand.
Secondly, premiums might be given for turning up fresh land, and it
possible encouragements held out to agriculture above manufactures, and
to tillage above grazing. Every endeavour should be used to weaken and
destroy all those institutions relating to corporations,
apprenticeships, etc., which cause the labours of agriculture to be
worse paid than the labours of trade and manufactures. For a country
can never produce its proper quantity of food while these distinctions
remain in favour of artisans. Such encouragements to agriculture would
tend to furnish the market with an increasing quantity of healthy work,
and at the same time, by augmenting the produce of the country, would
raise the comparative price of labour and ameliorate the condition of
the labourer. Being now in better circumstances, and seeing no prospect
of parish assistance, he would be more able, as well as more inclined,
to enter into associations for providing against the sickness of
himself or family.
Lastly, for cases of extreme distress, county workhouses might be
established, supported by rates upon the whole kingdom, and free for
persons of all counties, and indeed of all nations. The fare should be
hard, and those that were able obliged to work. It would be desirable
that they should not be considered as comfortable asylums in all
difficulties, but merely as places where severe distress might find
some alleviation. A part of these houses might be separated, or others
built for a most beneficial purpose, which has not been infrequently
taken notice of, that of providing a place where any person, whether
native or foreigner, might do a day's work at all times and receive the
market price for it. Many cases would undoubtedly be left for the
exertion of individual benevolence.
A plan of this kind, the preliminary of which should be an abolition of
all the present parish laws, seems to be the best calculated to
increase the mass of happiness among the common people of England. To
prevent the recurrence of misery, is, alas! beyond the power of man. In
the vain endeavour to attain what in the nature of things is
impossible, we now sacrifice not only possible but certain benefits. We
tell the common people that if they will submit to a code of tyrannical
regulations, they shall never be in want. They do submit to these
regulations. They perform their part of the contract, but we do not,
nay cannot, perform ours, and thus the poor sacrifice the valuable
blessing of liberty and receive nothing that can be called an
equivalent in return.
Notwithstanding, then, the institution of the poor laws in England, I
think it will be allowed that considering the state of the lower
classes altogether, both in the towns and in the country, the
distresses which they suffer from the want of proper and sufficient
food, from hard labour and unwholesome habitations, must operate as a
constant check to incipient population.
To these two great checks to population, in all long occupied
countries, which I have called the preventive and the positive checks,
may be added vicious customs with respect to women, great cities,
unwholesome manufactures, luxury, pestilence, and war.
All these checks may be fairly resolved into misery and vice. And that
these are the true causes of the slow increase of population in all the
states of modern Europe, will appear sufficiently evident from the
comparatively rapid increase that has invariably taken place whenever
these causes have been in any considerable degree removed.