love of our neighbour, and a readiness to do him good offices, is the
second great commandment both of the Law and of the Gospel. But I hope
that I shall ever be on my guard against that love of low popularity,
that weak fear of giving offence, that sacrifice of _public_ principle
to _private_ considerations, which, under the engaging name of
_good-nature_, often lead to forgetfulness of duty both towards God and
man, and do as much harm in the world as positive dishonesty."
NOTES.
Dr. Benjamin Franklin is well known as the friend of the poor and of
liberty, and as one of the founders of American independence. The
following observations will, with many persons, have additional weight,
as coming from _his_ pen.
_Extract from Observations written in Pennsylvania in 1751._
2.--When families can be easily supported, more persons marry, and
earlier in life.
3. In cities, where all trades, occupations, and offices are full, many
delay marrying till they can see how to bear the charges of a family;
which charges are greater in cities, as luxury is more common: many live
single during life, and continue servants to families, journeymen to
trades, &c. Hence cities do not, by natural generation, supply
themselves with inhabitants; the deaths are more than the births.
4. In countries full settled, the case must be nearly the same, all
lands being occupied and improved to the height; those who cannot get
land, must labour for others that have it; when labourers are plenty,
their wages will be low; by low wages a family is supported with
difficulty; this difficulty deters many from marriage, who therefore
long continue servants and single. Only, as the cities take supplies of
people from the country, and thereby make a little more room in the
country, marriage is a little more encouraged there, and the births
exceed the deaths.
_Dr. Franklin's Letter on the Labouring Poor. Dated April, 1768._
_Sir,_
I have met with much invective in the papers, for these two
years past, against the hard-heartedness of the rich, and much
complaint of the great oppressions suffered in this country by
the labouring poor. Will you admit a word or two on the other
side of the question? I do not propose to be an advocate for
oppression or oppressors; but when I see that the poor are, by
such writings, exasperated against the rich, and excited to
insurrections, by which much mischief is done, and some lose
their lives, I could wish the true state of things were better
understood; the poor not made by these busy writers more uneasy
and unhappy than their situation subjects them to be, and the
nation not brought into disrepute among foreigners, by public
groundless accusations of ourselves, as if the rich in England
had no compassion for the poor, and Englishmen wanted common
humanity.
In justice, then, to this country, give me leave to remark,
that the condition of the poor here is by far the best in
Europe; for that, except in England and her American colonies,
there is not in any country in the known world (not even in
Scotland[q] or Ireland) a provision by law to enforce a support
of the poor. Every where else necessity reduces to beggary.
This law was not made by the poor. The legislators were men of
fortune. By that act they voluntarily subjected their own
estates, and the estates of all others, to the payment of a tax
for the support of the poor, encumbering those estates with a
kind of rent charge for that purpose, whereby the poor are
vested with an inheritance, as it were, in all the estates of
the rich. I wish they were benefitted by this generous
provision, in any degree equal to the good intention with which
it was made, and is continued; but I fear the giving mankind a
dependence on any thing for support, in age or sickness,
besides industry and frugality during health, tends to flatter
our natural indolence, to encourage idleness and prodigality,
and thereby to promote and increase poverty, the very evil it
was intended to cure; thus multiplying beggars, instead of
diminishing them.
[Footnote q: This, I believe, is inaccurate.]
Besides this tax, which the rich in England have subjected
themselves to in behalf of the poor, amounting in some places
to five or six shillings in the pound of their annual income,
they have, by donations and subscriptions, erected numerous
schools in various parts of the kingdom, for educating, gratis,
the children of the poor in reading and writing; and in many of
these schools the children are also fed and clothed; they have
erected hospitals at an immense expence, for the reception and
cure of the sick, the lame, the wounded, and the insane poor,
for lying-in women, and deserted children. They are also
continually contributing towards making up losses occasioned by
fire, by storms, or by floods; and to relieve the poor in
severe seasons of frost, in time of scarcity, &c. in which
benevolent and charitable contributions no nation exceeds us.
Surely there is some gratitude due for so many instances of
goodness.
Add to this all the laws made to discourage foreign
manufactures, by laying heavy duties on them, or totally
prohibiting them; whereby the rich are obliged to pay much
higher prices for what they wear and consume than if the trade
was open. There are so many laws for the support of our
labouring poor made by the rich, and continued at their
expence: all the difference of price between our own and
foreign commodities, being so much given by our rich to our
poor; who would indeed be enabled by it to get by degrees above
poverty, if they did not, as too generally they do, consider
every increase of wages only as something that enables them to
drink more and work less; so that their distress in sickness,
age, or times of scarcity, continues to be the same as if such
laws had never been made in their favour.
Much malignant censure have some writers bestowed upon the rich
for their luxury and expensive living, while the poor are
starving, not considering that what the rich expend, the
labouring poor receive in payment for their labour. It may seem
a paradox if I should assert, that our labouring poor do, in
every year, receive the _whole revenue of the nation_; I mean
not only the public revenue, but also the revenue or clear
income of all private estates, or a sum equivalent to the
whole. In support of this position, I reason thus: The rich do
not work for one another; their habitations, furniture,
clothing, carriages, food, ornaments, and every thing, in
short, that they or their families use and consume, is the work
or produce of the labouring poor, who are, and must be,
continually paid for their labour in producing the same. In
these payments the revenues of private estates are expended;
for most people live up to their incomes. In clothing, or
provision for troops, in arms, ammunition, ships, tents,
carriages, &c. &c. (every particular the produce of labour,)
much of the public revenue is expended. The pay of officers,
civil and military, and of the private soldiers and sailors,
requires the rest; and they spend that also in paying for what
is produced by the labouring poor. I allow that some estates
may increase by the owners spending less than their income; but
then I conceive, that other estates do at the same time
diminish, by the owners spending more than their incomes; so
that when the enriched want to buy more land, they easily find
lands in the hands of the impoverished, whose necessities
oblige them to sell; and thus this difference is equalled. I
allow also, that part of the expense of the rich is in foreign
produce, or manufactures, for producing which the labouring
poor of other nations must be paid: but then, I say, we must
first pay our own labouring poor for an equal quantity of our
manufactures or produce, to exchange for those foreign
productions, or we must pay for them in money, which money not
being a natural produce to our country, must first be purchased
from abroad, by sending out its value in the produce or
manufactures of this country, for which manufactures our
labouring poor are to be paid. And, indeed, if we did not
export more than we import, we could have no money at all. I
allow farther, that there are middle men, who make a profit,
and even get estates, by purchasing the labour of the poor, and
selling it at advanced prices to the rich; but then they cannot
enjoy that profit, or the increase of estates, but by spending
them in employing and paying our labouring poor, in some shape
or other, for the products of industry. Even beggars,
pensioners, hospitals, &c. all that are supported by charity,
spend their incomes in the same manner. So that finally, as I
said at first, our labouring poor receive annually the whole of
the clear revenues of the nation, and from us they can have no
more.
If it be said that their wages are too low, and that they ought
to be better paid for their labour, I heartily wish that any
means could be fallen upon to do it consistent with their
interest and happiness; but as the cheapness of other things is
owing to the plenty of those things, so the cheapness of labour
is in most cases owing to the multitude of labourers, and to
their underworking one another in order to obtain employment.
How is this to be remedied? A law might be made to raise their
wages; but if our manufactures are too dear, they will not vend
abroad, and all that part of employment will fail, unless, by
fighting and conquering, we compel other nations to buy our
goods, whether they will or no, which some have been mad enough
at times to propose. Among ourselves, unless we give our
working people less employment, how can we, for what they do,
pay them higher than we do? Out of what fund is the additional
price of labour to be paid, when all our present incomes are,
as it were, mortgaged to them? Should they get higher wages,
would that make them less poor, if in consequence they worked
fewer days of the week proportionably? I have said, a law might
be made to raise their wages; but I doubt much, whether it
could be executed to any purpose, unless another law, now
indeed almost obsolete, could at the same time be revived and
enforced; a law, I mean, that I have often heard and repeated,
but few have ever duly considered, _Six days shalt thou
labour_. This is as positive a part of the Commandment, as that
which says, _The seventh day thou shalt rest_: but we remember
well to observe the indulgent part, and never think of the
other. _Saint Monday_[r] is generally as duly kept by our
working people as Sunday: the only difference is, that instead
of employing it cheaply at church, they are wasting it
expensively at the alehouse.
I am, Sir, your's, &c.
[Footnote r: This applies not so much to farmers' workmen as to
_manufacturers'_ labourers.]
_Extract from Dr. Franklin's remarks on Luxury, Idleness, and Industry._
Some of those who grow rich will be prudent, live within bounds, and
preserve what they have gained for their posterity: others, fond of
shewing their wealth, will be extravagant, and ruin themselves. Laws
cannot prevent this; and perhaps it is not always an evil to the public.
A shilling spent idly by a fool, may be picked up by a wiser person, who
knows better what to do with it. It is therefore not lost. A vain silly
fellow builds a fine house, furnishes it richly, lives in it
expensively, and in a few years ruins himself: but the masons,
carpenters, smiths, and other honest tradesmen, have been by his employ
assisted in maintaining and raising their families: the farmer has been
paid for his labour, and encouraged, and the estate is now in better
hands. In some cases, indeed, certain modes of luxury may be a public
evil, in the same manner as it is a private one.
THE END.
* * * * *
[Transcriber's Note:
Older form of contractions retained.
Spelling "aground" and "a-ground" used in the text.
Spelling "ale-house" and "alehouse" used in the text.
Spelling "bed-side" and "bedside" used in the text.
Spelling "gate-way" and "gateway" used in the text.
Spelling "benefited" and "benefitted" used in the text.
Spelling "licence" and "license" used in the text.
Spelling "parish officer" and "parish-officer" used in text.
Page 31. Letter 'f' added to text (as a matter of).
Page 47. Comma, blank space and double quote removed after 'answered'.
(Wildgoose answered that as for the penalty,)
Page 89. Quotation marks around 'Mrs. Hawker' removed. (No, indeed now,
Mrs. Hawker, you must)
Page 109. The notation '[oe]' is used for the oe-ligature.
Page 118. Word 'carrried' changed to 'carried' (accordingly carried
him).
Page 120. Word 'matress' spelling retained. May be period correct.
Page 137. Word 'unfrequently' spelling retained. May be period correct.
Page 138. Closing double-quote added. (as a fit man to keep it.)
Page 145. Word 'intrusted' spelling retained. May be period correct.]