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The British Patriot;

NO. IX.

ON THE POOR LAWS.

ENGLAND is perhaps the only nation in the world which directly undertakes for the maintenance of its Poor at the public expense. It is an honourable distinction, which once obtained for this country the general admiration of the rest of Europe. The plan devised by the wisdom of our ancestors doubtless appeared to them to promise the most complete success. By giving the poor a legal claim to the aid of the rich, it was designed they should no longer be dependent on precarious charity. But experience has proved that the measure is in itself productive of the most serious evils. It not only operates to diminish the activity of private benevolence, but it has increased the numbers of the poor to an alarming amount.

In the early history of this country, such was the wretched state of servitude in which the labouring portion of the, people was involved, that, as slaves of the soil, the aged and helpless depended on the Church, or on the capricious bounty of their lords, for support. Poverty and disease had little hope of assistance from individual charity; and but for the ministers of religion, they must often have perished under those calamities which are incident to their degraded condition. The ample revenues of the Church afforded extensive means of assisting the destitute; and, to the honour of Christianity, great numbers were relieved and supported, as they still are in Catholic countries, by the wealthy monasteries and other pious institutions which existed throughout the kingdom previous to the Reformation. Although we cannot be sufficiently grateful for that most important event, which brought to light the pure spirit of the Gospel, obscured for ages by the dark errors of the Church of Rome, the sudden dissolution of the monastic orders throughout England withdrew the principal source of supply by which the most miserable part of the community had been so long maintained, and left the unhappy sufferers to the uncertain relief of individual charity. In this emergency, multitudes of necessitous persons perished for want of common sustenance. Contagious diseases, which never fail to follow close in the train of famine, swept away vast numbers more, and thus ensued an alarming diminution of the population of the whole kingdom, which called upon the State for some immediate interposition.

The early laws enacted for the benefit of the poor are, for this cause, principally directed to the encouragement of population, and the increase of agricultural labourers; the great want of hands at that period

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being such as to leave the proprietors without adequate means of cultivating their farms.

These enactments provided for the maintenance only of such persons as were incapable of maintaining themselves; and contained the severest penalties against vagrancy, which was punished by slavery, mutilation, and even by death,-though these terrible statutes were afterwards repealed by King Edward VI. The Act of the 3d of Queen Elizabeth appoints receivers in the several parishes to collect alms for the poor, imposes a tax, to be levied at the quarter sessions, on such persons who refuse a reasonable contribution for their relief, and, in cases where the funds so collected were unequal to provide for all the helpless, a portion of them received a license to beg alms elsewhere. Another Act of the 43d year of her reign embodied all the existing laws for the maintenance of the poor, and forms the foundation of the statutes now in force.

No exact returns of the produce of the fund raised for the support of the poor throughout England were made previous to the year 1776, when the attention of Parliament was earnestly directed to the consideration of this highly important subject. The sum expended in that year, for the relief of the poor of England and Wales, amounted to £1,556,804. Such has been the rapid increase of paupers since that period, notwithstanding all the efforts made for the improvement of their condition, that, in the year 1815, the expenditure under this head amounted to no less a sum than £5,072,028, as appears by the official returns from the respective parishes.

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Although the population of England and Wales increased during these 35 years, from 7,500,000 to nearly 11,000,000, this advance bears no proportion to the enormous demands upon parish relief; for while the inhabitants have thus increased little more than a third, number of paupers, as above stated, amounts to nearly four times the proportion relieved in 1776. This alarming fact, being of the most serious importance, engaged the minute investigation of both Houses of Parliament during the session of 1817. Their Reports contain a most valuable body of information, obtained from the evidence of the most experienced persons in different parts of the kingdom; and their opi nion as to the danger to be apprehended from this fatal increase of pauperism may be collected from the following extract from the Re port of the House of Commons :—

"Unless some effectual check be interposed, there is every reason to think that the amount of the assessment will continue, as it has done, to increase, till, at a period more or less remote, according to the progress the evil has already made in different places, it shall have absorbed the profits of the property on which the rate may have been assessed, producing thereby the neglect and ruin of the land, and the waste and removal of other property, to the utter subversion of that happy order of society so long upheld in these kingdoms."

While the nation has been advancing from year to year in wealth and power, while the increase of commerce, the improvements in agriculture, and the extension of our manufactures, afford the most

convincing proofs of the national prosperity, it may naturally excite the wonder of many of our readers, why, with all these advantages, pauperism should have increased among us in a still more rapid progression?

The explanation may be given in a single sentence.-" The Poor Laws have created the very evil they were designed to lessen." Greatly is it to be lamented that the mode of administering relief to the helpless poor should ever have been taken out of the hands of individuals. But our ancestors acted from principles of the purest benevolence. In making the contribution general, they provided against the injustice of allowing the whole burthen of charity to fall upon the willing giver, while the penurious and the unfeeling withheld their support. Nor was it foreseen, that, in the gradual operation of the Poor Laws, numbers of the idle and the profligate would be permitted to partake of that fund which was designed only for the aged and impotent. The establishment of work-houses, while it afforded an asylum to the feeble, was designed to give employment to children and other persons who were without support. So long as the relief was bestowed only on those in the work-house, there was a limit to such expenditure, strengthened by the popular disgust to such establishments; but when relief was, with the most benevolent purpose, extended to paupers at their own homes, it opened a door to imposition, and invited numbers to solicit parochial aid, who had hitherto maintained themselves. The industrious man began to perceive that some of the idlest of his neighbours thus contrived to obtain, at the parish expense, most of the comforts which he earned with difficulty by the sweat of his brow. Thus discouraged in his exertions to preserve his independence,-the shame of soliciting support being also much diminished by the number of his neighbours receiving it, he fell into the same practice, and thus added himself to the list of those who already burthened the public. The labouring man began to look forward without anxiety for a provision for his family. He was tempted to contract an early or imprudent marriage, trusting to the support of the parish, in the time of need. He no longer strove to "lay by for a wet day;" he provided nothing against age and sickness; and knowing that the poor-house could not now contain them all, he had little apprehension of spending his last days within the cold and dreary walls of that hateful building.

A practice of relieving persons according to the number of their families has prevailed in some parts of England, which has very materially tended to the increase of pauperism, by including many individuals perfectly competent to their own maintenance. In such places, it frequently happens that an idle fellow purposely quarrels with his employer, and then repairs to the parish officers, stating that he is out of work, that he has so many children, and accordingly receives such an allowance as, in many cases, puts him on a level with a more industrious labourer, who, by his utmost exertions, is striving to gain an honest livelihood for himself and his children. It cannot be expected that this should prevail without manifest injury to morals as well as to the public purse. It operates as a bounty upon idleness and profligacy,

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and powerfully excites the well-disposed to relax their exertions, when no longer distinguished either by profit or by reputation. A large family, which to a good man is a source of anxious affection, becomes, under these circumstances, a fund of profit to the idle and indifferent, who carry the parish allowance to the public-house, while the wife and children, in whose names it was solicited, are abandoned to want and misery.

The effect of all this is to lead to universal pauperism. It was stated in evidence before the House of Commons, that in more than one district the poor rates had increased to such an amount as to swallow up the whole rental of the property, the owners of which had been compelled to relinquish their farms or shut up their houses; thus rendering wholly unproductive that property on which the rates were levied.

In the township of Manchester, the annual poor rate, so long ago as 1816, amounted to no less a sum than 130,000l.; but so heavy was the pressure upon the smaller proprietors, that had the payment of their portion of the above sum been enforced, they must have been driven to absolute distress. This class of contributors was therefore excused to the amount of 50,000l.; which, of necessity, fell upon those of the inferior class the following year. The consequence of this proceeding is obvious. In every succeeding year, the number of persons incapable of bearing the rate will increase, or be added to the list of paupers : and thus, while the poor rates progressively advance, the ability to meet the demand is lessened.

From this view of the failure of that property (houses and lands), from which the fund is derived for maintaining the poor, some shortsighted persons have turned their attention to the means of opening further sources of supply, by rating other property, especially income derived from the public funds. But, independent of the breach of faith to the public creditor, who, by Act of Parliament, is exempt from all taxes upon the money which he thus lends the nation, it should not be forgotten that such property is, in fact, no more than an annuity, the Acts for raising money by loan for the service of the State not binding the nation to repayment of the principal, but only to the payment of interest.

All propositions, however, for rendering this or any other description of property liable to the poor's rate, proceed upon a great error. Such expedients could only be of temporary avail, and would but tend to postpone, not avert, the ruin of all property which is now threatened by the fatal increase of pauperism. The main object is to stop the progress of the disease, and bring back the labouring classes to a sense of their true condition.

In Scotland, where a legal provision for the poor was given by the Statute of 1663, few parishes have as yet availed themselves of the privilege; and some which have made the experiment have, after trial, laid it aside. In the parish of Dumblane, where a great number of Dissenters inhabited, who contributed nothing to the weekly collections at the kirk door, an assessment was made for the poor between

1775 and 1800. But the effect of this only served to increase, in a great degree, the numbers to be relieved. It was accordingly laid aside, and the old practice of voluntary contributions resumed: since which the poor have rapidly diminished, while the fund has increased to an amount fully adequate to all their wants.

The spirit of the natives of Scotland is decidedly averse from receiving parochial aid. Most of them enjoy the blessing of a Bible education, which teaches the advantages of prudence and frugality. In that quarter of our island the duty towards parents is held in the highest respect. When old and infirm, it is considered so little meritorious in the children to support them in their declining years, that the neglect of it is visited with public infamy. The apostolical practice of collecting the free offerings of the people every Sabbath morning, for the maintenance of the poor, is steadily observed; and, under the conscientious management of the minister and elders, this money, privately bestowed, effectually provides for the necessities of those who would blush at the discredit of a vestry allowance.

When considering the great question before us, it is highly necessary to bear in mind that it is the will of God that the great bulk of mankind should labour for their own support. Whatever changes or improvements may be practicable in the affairs of nations, poverty and labour must be the portion of the great body of the people. Do what we may, the " poor shall never cease out of the land."

Upon this subject we would quote the words of one of the most enlightened philosophers and statesmen whom this country has produced. Mr. Burke, in speaking of the scarcity in 1795, observed, "that the labouring people are only poor because they are numerous: numbers, in their nature, imply poverty. In a fair distribution among a vast multitude, none can have much. That class which comprise the rich is so small, that if their throats were cut, and a distribution made of all they consume in a year, it would not give a bit of bread and cheese for one night's supper to those who labour, and who in reality feed both these, their pensioners, and themselves. But the throats of the rich ought not to be cut, nor their magazines plundered; because in their persons they are trustees for those who labour, and their hoards are the banking-houses of the latter. Whether they mean it or not, they do, in effect, execute their trust; some with more, some with less fidelity and judgment. But on the whole, the duty is performed; and every thing returns, deducting some very trifling commission and discount, to the place from whence it arose. When the poor rise to destroy the rich, they act as wisely for their own purposes as when they burn mills and throw corn into the river to make bread cheap."

Dreadful as would be the state of the country should the obvious consequences of the present system of the Poor Laws be realized, we know there are many weak people who anticipate such an event as the commencement of a happy era to the nation. Deluded by the preachers of rebellion and infidelity, they believe, that if the land of the whole kingdom were divided equally among all the people, there

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