in all its branches, the more interest they | have in maintaining it? The absurdity of such an opinion is too gross to bear the slightest consideration. The champions of the church militant may quiet their fears: the clergy, or the established religion has nothing seriously to apprehend from even the total repeal of all the test laws; laws practically obsolete, with respect to the great civil and military departments of the state, and which are efficient only in limiting the elective franchises and municipal rights of venal corporations and boroughs. The general reason of the question, therefore, is in favour of the policy of removing all those distinctions that have so long survived the occasions which called for them. It is time to abolish them, when the most strenuous advocates for their continuance can urge no. thing in their defence but unqualified invective, misrepresentation, and falsehood. Opinions are imputed to the Catholics, which they deny upon their oath, and they are represented as holding odious tenets, with respect to persons differing from them in religion, and the power of the Pope, which, upon the authority of the most learned of their Universities, they have publicly and solemnly disclaimed as any part of their religion or belief. After such satisfactory attestations of their freedom from the detesttable doctrines, falsely, but incessantly urged against them, it is really extraordinary to hear persons, who make oaths the test of truth and sincerity, still charging them upon these heads. By refusing to take the tests, which they cannot do with a safe conscience, they shew their reverence for the sanctity of an oath, and intitle themselves to credit on the oaths they have taken. But the clamour and opposition which was raised against the late bill, and the fanatic cry of the Church," and "no Popery." were, if possible, more monstrous and extravagant, than the ridiculous absurdities urged against the general question of Emancipation. That bill was to give to the Catholics nothing which they had not possessed before; but it would have given to the state, what it cannot have without such a measure an inexhaustible supply of native troops for the regular army. If it gave to the King the power of advancing Catholic officers to the highest ranks of the army and navy, it was a power, that in the exercise of it, was to be subject to his royal discretion, and to condemn that part of the measure, because the power might be improperly exercised, was to insinuate a direct accusation against his Majesty, that he was not fit to be trusted with such a power. The bill was also to restore the consistency of the laws of the

empire, and to vindicate the character of parliament. It is wholly unworthy of an enlightened legislature to suffer that by connivance, which should never be done but by the authority of law, and there is little magnanimity in the subterfuge, that would take advantage of the clandestine service for the purpose of withholding the public reward, and honourable distinction of professional eminence. Every body knows that there are numberless Roman Catholics in the army and navy, and every person acquainted with the subject must be convinced, that there are no better officers nor soldiers in the service. They have fought, they have bled, they have conquered in the cause of their country; and yet, these are the men, to whom it has been said in parliament, that "the sword" was not to be intrusted. I must confess I do not like these canting politicians, who speak unmeaning jargon for the sake of a sounding and pretty phrase, who embarrass government, till they get into power, and take the first opportunity after to desert the cause they had before advocated. Neither do I admire the sanctimonious sect of public men, who, in the ostentation of universal philanthropy, consult the civilisation and happiness of mankind in every region of the globe; but who, in the true and bigotted spirit of narrow minded sectarists, object to a grant of five thousand pounds for the augmentation of the Catholic seminary in Ireland. I shall not say any thing now of the measure for confiding that sword to foreign Catholics, which, it seems, ought not, and is not to be intrusted to na. tive Catholics, because it is a disgrace to the author, and a recorded libel upon the loyalty of our Catholic fellow subjects. It appears, however, to be only a part of the great evil, of which the nation has to complain. Our public men seem either afraid, unable, or ashamed to look boldly into the circumstances of the internal condition of the empire, though, in the activity of their benevolence or politics, they seek for objects of compassion or recruits for our armies, in distant regions, whilst better might be found in great plenty much nearer home. Yet, I will venture to predict, that things will never go well till much more attention shall be paid to the domestic and local interests of the empire; and, if ever that period, which, I trust is not far distant, shall arrive, that in the defection of foreign mercenaries, and the failure of visionary schemes of distant civilisation, the security and happiness of this empire shall be immoveably supported by its own industrious, enlightened and free population.——— Civis, ———- May 25, 1807.

POOR LAWS. MR. MALTHUS.

Being C. S.'s Third Leiter. SIR, Whatever may be the degree of discredit which Mr. Malthus may have incurred by the broaching of doctrines, which, if brought into practice, because they may be true in theory, would make it morally unjust, and politically wrong, to check the vices and imperfections to which man and his institutions are naturally liable--nay, which would render social order and religion themselves, as the means of human happiness, crimes of the first magnitude; stili every merit must be allowed him for having placed the subject of political economy upon the only principle on which it can be discussed with advantage, namely, that of labour as applied to the cultivation of the earth. Fatally, it is but too generally the opinion, that if we will but follow up our different callings with industry and economy, then we have performed our duty, and every thing is done for our welfare that labour and prudence can do. A moment's reflection, however, must satisfy even the shallowthinking advocates of this sophistical doctrine, that if the labour which should cultivate the ground be otherwise directed, no other description of toil, or exertion of prudence, can supply our wants, or avert the famine, misery, and vice which Mr. M. prognosticates from a deficiency of soil. Mercantile industry, for instance, has crept into the highest esteem with the well-dressed, as well as with the ill-dressed rabble; and as merchants have slily seized upon the wealth of the modern world, boldly usurped its governments, and spread the flames of war from pole to pole, there is nothing which it is thought beyond their reach to do. But, stop, rabbles, even you rabbles of state; what is the industry of merchants, by comparison with that of the agriculturist? Just what the industry of those beasts of burden called mules and asses is to the labour of those who load and feed them, and neither more nor less. Mules and asses, however, are useful animals in their places: like merchants, they fetch and carry the loads which the husbandman and manufacturer prepare for and lay upon their backs; but more of them are not therefore to be bred and fed, than can be maintained without starving and distressing those who feed them. And the principle applies not only to merchants, but to all those who are not employed in the more innocent and per manently lucrative pursuits of agricultural industry;-but it applies particularly to idlers of all descriptions; because, characteristically speaking, they are more daring thieves, and

more unrelenting robbers, than those are whose labour is misapplied. Considering idlers, therefore, as the greatest bane of social happiness; and as it is my duty, as one who complains of their number, to detail, in some measure the means of reducing it with advantage to the state, I will, in substance, quote that part of my letter in the Register of May 30th, 1807, which states the leading evils of which idlers are the natural offspring. These evils are, 1st, the Monopoly of Land; 2d, the Freedom of Trade, including the right of every man to do as he pleases with his own property; 38, Taxes and Tithes and, 4th, the National Debt. If it be true, as stated by Mr. M. that the establishment of the Utopian system of happiness and virtue would be the means of aggravating the misery and vice-which it was intended to eradicate, so it shall appear that these grand schemes of the infulible wisdom of our forefathers, but rticularly the last of them, have termina ad in a similar effect upon our comforts a virtue. I. Out of the Monopoly of Land, as many idlers arise as there are large proprietors, large occupiers, and individuals einployed in furnishing them with the luxury in which they wallow; such as servants in and out of livery, men-miliners, and the long train of trades-people to whom their luxury and ease give employment; who, though they labour as hard as those who cultivate the soil may do, yet give no aid in the cultivation of it, and therefore furnish no part of their own supply of its produce. II. Out of the Freedom of Trade and the right alluded to, as many idlers, arise as gin their subsistence by the means of merchandising, banking, speculation, monopoly, forestalling, and regrating; and as are employed by them in the ways above stated. III. Out of Taxes and Tythes as many idlers arise as form our fat list of doctors, our lean list of curates; our long list of placemen and pensioners; our intolerable swarms of taxgatherers, excise, and custom house officers; our immense naval and military establishments; and the immenser number still to whom these lists, swarms, and establishments give every other but agricultural employment. And, IV., the National Debt. As this is a scheme for creating and supporting idlers, which originated in the sacrilegious-to-doubt wisdom of our fore fathers of the Whig tribe, and which, coupled with the other offsprings of their patriotism, namely, the freedom of trade, and the right of every man to do as he pleases with his own property, it would be worse than sacri. lege to deny as a proof that they are exclu❤

sively the men of the people, that R. B. Sheridan and Peter Moore, as Whigs, are the only men that ought to represent Westminster and Coventry; it is a scheme, the rise and progress, the bearings and operations of which it is not less necessary to know, than it is to be acquainted with its consequent increase of idlers. It rises out of the freedom of trade, and the right of every man to do as he pleases with his own property. Let it be remembered, however, though I do not disapprove of the principle, that the Whigs, any more than the Tories, will not allow this right to extend to any part of our property but that which is not absorbed in tithes, taxes, and poors rates; and which point, I have shewn, does not amount to 1-10th of the whole. But, nevertheless, in consequence of this freedom, every man secures to himself what he can of land and of every thing else; and no matter how, or what will be the result to others, if so be that the cobweb laws, by which the Whigs modify the freedom, are not violated. Then, in virtue of this right, they charge what price they please to the occupier and consumer; and as they are pleased to charge a greater price, or to hold more property than they want for their own immediate use of can otherwise employ with equal advantage, so it pleases them to lend the surplus to the ministers for the time being; who, in gratitude for the ease and facility with which the loan enable them to promote the welfare of the nation, by persecuting its enemies and pensioning their own friends, take, in their turn, from the occupier and consumer interest for the very surplus which was thus freely and rightly extorted from them by the loanmongers. The occupiers however, and that part of the consumers who are dealers in the produce of labour, have on the first view of the case no reason to complain of the extortions either of the loanmongers or of ministers: for, if they are skinned by these parties, they have a right to skin others, because they are free to add the amount of the surplus extorted by the one and the interest by the other to the price of the articles in which they deal, and so skin others and each other. The right of complaining, then, it would appear devolves upon those classes only of the consumers who are limited annuitants, and dealers only in their own labour. Such annuitants cannot increase their incomes, as prices are thus advanced, consequently as prices advance, their allowance, becomes short; and if the idle magistrates were disposed to permit the labourers to demand wages which would secure the necessary comforts, whatever might be the

price of the articles that compose them, their poverty is too pressing to enable them to stand out, till their employers fall in with their terms. Necessarily, therefore, the labourers first, and next the annuitants, are crushed into paupers; and up starts the poors rate; in the exact proportion in which the combined operations of the Monopoly of Land, the Freedom of Trade, the Tithes and Taxes, and the National Debt, create idlers, enhance prices, and stock the workhouses with paupers, with wretches amounting to more than one-eighth of the population!!! Will the Whigs deny these facts, or, that "Hampden in the field and Sidney upon the scaffold" had any hand in them? Or, will Mr. Malthus, and those who would wish to have his theories brought into practice, justify them as necessary to ward off more malignant causes of wretchedness and vice? Let us, Sir, keep their attention to those facts, and their noses to these interrogations until the question is fairly decided who are the Jacobins and Levellers. But, with respect to the National Debt, it creates not only as many idlers as subsist upon its annual interest, and the annual loans which form its capital, but, also, as many as are employed in stock-jobbing and stock-broking, that is, in substance, in buy- < ing and selling as many of their fellow subjects and fellow creatures, as are allotted by ministers to slave into being that portion of the luxuries and necessaries of life which their employers, themselves, and the idle dependants of both, waste and consume. From the return made to parliainent, under Mr. Abbott's act, of the numbers employed in trade, agriculture, and mechanism, I have calculated, that, including infants, ageds, and infirms, the action, and reaction of these Whig establishments, principally, have created idlers to the incredible amount of 7,163,092 out of the 9,843,578 persons that form the population of England and Wales; leaving only 2,180,490 to perform the labour and supply the wants of the nation. And, when we consider,' that all the tradesmen and mechanics to whom luxury gives employment are included in that number, and even if it were not that their labours must be unjustifiably excessive, we must either admit that the productions of agriculture and manufacture, are scarce to the amount of the deficiency of them, which is felt by the lower and middling classes of the people, or; that their produce to the amount of that deficiency is literally wasted. There are instances of waste in many cases, and at different seasons, particularly in these of animal food and malt

liquor in hot weather; but as such instances, cannot, I think, be supposed to affect, perceivably, the consumption of so large a portion of the community; and as the number of consumers appears to be too great by comparison with that of the producers, I hold no doubt but that it is on the right side of the question, we err in setting it down as a matter of fact, that the deficiency is real. And therefore, 1st. as there are above 51,000,000 acres of land in cultivation, in Great Britain, which, if not wasted, to a great extent, in parks and pleasure grounds, and in yielding food for mere animals of pleasure, might, perhaps, be made to maintain as many inhabitants; 2d, as there are above 73,000,000 of acres more uncultivated, which, if properly managed, might, possibly, be made to maintain as many more; and, 3d, as the number of our idlers is unjustifiably great, on the ground of any other right, than the right to plunder and enslave the nation, I do not only declare it as my unalterable persuasion, that none but men of the Moon would look to the time when the surface of the earth will be insufficient to maintain its inhabitants, but, also, that no other earthly scheme can remove the deficiency of which we are compelled by reason and instinct to complain, but that which will convert the necessary number of idlers into useful labourers and furnish the land and materials required to employ them: for, until the cause is removed, it is naturally impossible that the effect can cease. And I shall consider the monopoly of land, the freedom of trade, the tythes and taxes, and the national debt as the leading cause to be removed, until some one of the contrary opinion, prove, by clear and incontrovertible arguments, that they do not operate in the manner. I have stated, and convert useful labourers into useless idlers and wretched paupers. To convert idlers, however, into useful labourers and to furnish them with the subjects required to labour upon is one thing, but to secure a sufficiency of the produce of their own labour to support their healths, and prolong their lives, for I claim. no more for them, is another thing. principle, therefore, which I propose to secure this sufficiency, and to preserve that ascending gradation of wealth on which alone, perhaps, the real interest of all depends, is not a new fangled principle, but that which was in full practice when pauperism formed no part of the public grievances; namely, that of making all payments in kind, or if more convenient, as I think it would, in moncy, regulated by the price of corn, at or for a given time prior to the

The

time of payment. Corn being the first arti cle of necessity, is therefore the most perfect and unchangeable standard of value. But, as labour is generally paid by the week, its wages can be regulated by no better criterion than the weekly price of bread : first ascertaining the number of quartern loaves to which the labourer is entitled, to secure that relaxation from labour and portion of comforts which, on the principle of fellow feeling, or, the great moral rule of doing as we would be done by, may be thought necessary to the preservation of his health, and the prolongation of his life. These, Sir, are the principles of the plan which I have to propose for the relief of the poor, and the well being of the state as it rests upon their exertions and loyalty, in lieu of Mr. Whitbread's funding and literary schemes, and of Mr. Bone's scheme of " withholding labour from "market, as merchants do their goods, and "farmers their stock, until the labourer is sa"tisfied with its price." And if they have the same views with me of the causes of the evils, which I have no doubt they are sincere in their endeavours (to remove, I indulge the hope that their future plans will demonstrate that they are themselves sensible, that their present schemes are no more applicable than a salve would be where the caustic is required. As to Mr. Whitbread's schemes, they are only hurtful as they delay the application of the remedy that belongs to the case; but as to that of Mr. Bone, there is nothing horrid in a combination of labourers to raise wages, or in the progressive depreciation of money, as it would attend a progressive advance of nominal wages, which does not, to me, appear contained in it. Mine, however, strikes at the root of these evils. Men are less prone to combine, when their rights are defined and secured with the clearness and justice which I have attempted; and as to the depreciation of money, arising as it evidently does from the right, inclination, and power of one party to withhold their goods from market till the price comes up to their liking, and of another to issue money to meet the demand, whatever it may be, it is an evil that will be greatly if not completely removed, when all the payments to be made by the party demanding a high price, are regulated by the price they receive, as I propose. Then they shall have no interest in a high price, but the contrary; naturally, therefore, they shall have no desire for it, but the contrary. And as this desire ceases on their part, a multitude of bankers, rag-money coiners, and accountants, would, as natu

rally, leave their strong holds and betake themselves to the field. Yet they cannot complain that their right to do as they please with their rag property is infringed; because they may stay in their banks and eat it, if they do not like to come out and earn what they eat.

But there is another negative mode of putting some stop to the depreciation of money, namely that of leaving no right of action at law, with those who give credit, against those to whom they give credit. This is not taking from them the right of doing as they please with their own property for they may still give credit if they will, but it would make them more cautious in taking promises for cash, in giving currency to the bank-notes, bills of exchange and promissary notes of idle idiots or active swindlers. Sir, having thus, upon the principle that "whatever may be the state of the dexterity, "skill, and judgement with which labour "is applied in any nation, the abundance "or scantiness of its annual supply must "depend, during the continuance of that "state, upon the proportion between the "number of those who are annually em

ployed in useful labour, and that of those "who are not so employed," endeavoured to shew at once the bane and antidote of our system of political economy, I hope it will appear that, a leveller as I may be called, I have no desire to carry the principle farther-no intention of meddling with the freedom of trade and the right of every man to do as he pleases with his own property, farther than just to leave a right with no man, or body of men, to do, or leave undone, any thing that has the effect of half starving one part of the community and imprisoning another. C. S.-Cellar, 29th May 1807.

will be proper, therefore, in the first instance, in order thoroughly to comprehend this important question, to state unreservedly what are the claims of the Catholics; and next to consider the objections which are adduced, in order to justify the refusal to acknowledge and admit them. The Catholic Claim has been differently denominated according to the different views in which the question has presented itself. It was first debated under the head of Catholic Toleration; latterly, the term Emancipation has been more generally adopted; but, as neither of these expressions exactly corresponds with my idea of the subject, I have chosen to denominate it a Liberal Toleration of the Catholics. This diversity of expression is asserted by Anti-Catholicus to imply " an "artful disguise to mislead the Protestants, as it does not convey the smallest idea of "what the Catholics really aim at." It however, appears to me, that, taking the words in their general acceptation, we mean by Toleration, the undisturbed profession and exercise of our religion; by Emancipation, a freedom from the galling penalties and disqualifications which such profession entails; and by Liberal Toleration, so to blend together and modify the sense of both the preceding expressions, as to denote the liberty of exercising our religion without its being pleaded against us to our exclusion from any of our birthright privileges. But to make the matter more intelligible, and to place it in a still clearer and more distinct point of view, the Catholics acknowledge, that their claim comprises a full and free admission, in the same manner as is granted to men of the established church of England, to the participation of all the rights, as they acknowledge themselves bound to observe all the duties of British subjects. Consequently, we think it hut just, that Catholic noblemen should resume in the House of Peers the seats of their ancestors; that Catholic commoners of every class should have free admission into all posts and places of trust, dignity, honour and emolument, on the same terms as men of the predominant and favoured sect. "But," says Anti-Catholicus, let me ask the men who wish to "make Catholics legislators, Catholics the "king's advisers, Catholics commanders of "our army and navy, upon what principle "the Catholics should be excluded from "the throne?" The question is insidious; but, though I perceive its drift, I shall answer it undisguisedly. Liberty of conscience is the privilege of the monarch no less than of the lowest of his subjects. James the Second was not presumed to abdicate the

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