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inhabitants. From the highest quarters we are informed, and, indeed, the fact cannot fail to be perceived, even at a distance, that the great majority of the British people have not the least confidence in the patriotism and disinterestedness of any of the parties in Parliament, or of the men in place; all are believed to aim only at the possession of power and patronage. Among the lower orders, sedition is declared to have a permanent abode, and to prowl without intermission. "There prevails," said Mr. Lamb, in the House of Commons (March 11, 1818,) "though to what extent I will not pretend accurately to define, in all the manufacturing districts, a spirit always active, inveterate, and implacable; not exasperated by suffering; not soothed by prosperity; not allayed by time; a spirit ever laying in wait, and in ambush, to take advantage of the disasters of the country."

We see fully verified at this moment, the creed of this member of Parliament, a whig leader: the habitual leven of insurrection only becomes the more active and expansive, as the rate of wages or the supply of food declines. It places the British government, in the season of ferment, as at present, under the horrible necessity of shedding, with the apparatus of war, the blood of the guiltless, perhaps loyal peasant, whom the want of occupation draws to the convention of starving manufacturers, and hairbrained, or counterfeit demagogues.* It leads-I cannot say obliges that government, to resort to one of the most hateful of the devices of timorous despotism-the employment of spies and informers, who cannot execute their office, without, to a certain degree, studiously exasperating the discontents, and encouraging the delusions, against which it is the alleged object of their mission to guard. It does more: it throws the constitution off its poise; it creates a potential dictatorship in the ministry, who either do feel, or profess to feel themselves bound to consult the

* See the history of the Manchester meeting, of August, 1816, at which women and girls were cut and trampled down by corps of dragoons, and left mangled and weltering, to be conveyed in carts to the hospitals.

tranquillity of the state, or of particular parts of the kingdom, at the expense of the established forms and rules of law; counting upon what they are always sure to procure, indemnity by vote of Parliament.-What is there in the American republic comparable to this state of things?

This want of unanimity, this propensity to rebellious violence, among the lower orders, has placed the British rulers under another embarrassment, the most awful that can be imagined, and far outweighing any evil in our situation, produced or threatened by our negro slavery.

According to the best authorities, the system of the poor rates in England, is proceeding to take the whole produce of the land from the owner, with very little benefit to the poor. It already "amounts, with the land tax and tythes, in many parishes, to a disherison of the property of the landholder."* It "falls exclusively on lands and houses, the dividends (exceeding twenty-seven millions sterling) upon the unredeemed national debt, of eight hundred millions sterling, being wholly exempt." Its operation is most oppressively partial, independently of this last circumstance, so unjust and invidious. It forms a tax thus characterized, which, according to some, must amount for the year 1818, to ten millions sterling,‡ perhaps to twelve; and this product is chiefly consumed in rearing the offspring of improvidence and vice. It is fast multiplying the already immense number of paupers, and widening the acknowledged degeneracy of the labouring classes. It exhibits, in short, to use the language of Colquhoun, one ninth part of a numerous nation existing as paupers, vagabonds, idlers, and criminal offenders, at the expense of one third of the remaining population."|| In the year 1812, the number of paupers who received parish relief, besides vagrants, was 1,208,125, out of a po

* Report on the Poor Laws, from the Committee of the House of Commons, 1817. Appendix.

† Observations on the Poor Laws. By J. Lord Sheffield. London, 1818. Lord Sheffield.

§ See Note X. at the end of this volume.

Treatise on Indigence. P. 262.

pulation of 10,653,000.* The proportion of really impotent paupers in the number just stated, was but one seventh, according to the ratio officially returned for 1804. "It will be found, on investigation," says Colquhoun, that, of a million and a half of paupers with their families, now living chiefly on the labour of others, considerably more than half a million are in the vigour of life, and whose labour, if well directed, ought to produce at least ten millions sterling beyond their present earnings; which sum is totally lost to the community, in addition to what is expended in affording them a feeble and scanty subsistence." Since the termination of the last war, this wretched and noxious class of persons has been progressively increasing in number, and deteriorating in charac

ter.

The only true remedy for this manifold, portentous evil, is the abolition or great reduction of the poor rates. But the government, though it has before it the alternative of ultimate ruin to the country, dares not go beyond palliatives. Near a million of sturdy beggars could not

* Clarkson's Enquiry on Pauperism. London, 1816.

†Treatise on the Wealth, Power, and Resources of the British Empire. London, 1814.

The late act of Parliament, (59 G. III. 1819,) "to amend the laws for the relief of the poor," aims only at mitigating, not eradicating, the evil. Very little confidence seemed to be entertained by Parliament, in its efficacy for any purpose. Mr. S. Bourne, the member most active on this question, had unsuccessfully proposed a bill, respecting the failure of which I find the following remarkable observations in Bell's Weekly Messenger of 17th May, 1819.

"The two great interests of the country, the agricultural and the manufacturing interests, are here in direct conflict. The complaint of the landed interest is, that they have to pay the poor-rates for the manufacturing labourers: That the manufacturers not only employ and wear out the men, but, as it were, produce and call into existence a mendicant population; and, after they have had the best days of the labourer, and encouraged him to marry and rear a large family, they return him unto the parish from whence they first took him "The object of this bill was, that all who resided three years in any parish, should be settled in such parish, or, in other words, (for such was its purpose as well as its effect,) that the manufacturing towns and districts should support their own old and sick poor. Accordingly, all the manufacturing districts have, to a man, united in opposition against it, and, by a private address to every member of parliament singly, have actually succeeded in throwing it out, and this in a House of Commons, the majority of which is necessarily of the landed interest. We must confess that this issue of the bill has very much surprised us, and, we believe, neither Mr. Bourne himself, nor any of the committee, expected this event. The bill, however, is lost for the present session."

be starved with impunity; they would be provoked by absolute deprivation to persevering violence; such a nucleus for riot and rebellion, is not to be set in motion, to gather actively what no array of the military might be sufficient to crush, without extensive desolation. Colonization is now attempted as a means of relief; and the Cape of Good Hope is chosen as the theatre, in order that a double purpose may be answered: but this expedient, if any number of the vampyres can be drawn off, will be like tapping for a radical dropsy. The poor rates will continue, with the taxes* and the tythes, generating pauper

* "It was acknowledged," said Lord Ebrington, in the House of Commons, (April 28th, 1819,) "that a labourer, whose income did not exceed 187. a year, paid 278. a year duty on the salt he consumed." Dr. Phillimore, in the course of his speech of the same date, respecting the salt duties, made this statement. "The bushel of salt is taxed at forty times its value, and the tax falls upon all the necessaries of the poor. No tax operates more on their morals; and it had been found, that wherever it prevailed, it was the sure forerunner of crime. It was distinctly stated in an address of the grand jury for the county of Chester, that the profit derived from selling untaxed salt was so great, and operated so powerfully, as to taint the morals of that part of the community. The evidence before the committee, derived from various sources, all tended to establish the same conclusion. The temptation to steal, and conceal what was stolen, was such as to cause the practice too generally to prevail."

The following quotations from the debates of Parliament will illustrate the operation of another single tax, upon the lower orders.

"Mr. Grattan said, as to the dangerous prevalence of the fever in Ireland being in part attributable to the confined air of the abodes of the poor, there could be no stronger proof than the relaxation granted by government, enabling the parties deprived of adequate ventillation, to open their windows without being liable to the window tax."

"If a single individual," said the Marquis of Dounshire (House of Lords, March, 1819,) "lived in a house, it became liable to the window tax; and owners therefore, in Ireland, crowded great numbers into one, and shut up others, to avoid paying the taxes."

"Sir John Newport said, (May 13th, 1818,) he wished to inform the house, that in comparing the accounts of 1814 and 1818, it was found that no less than one-tenth of the windows of the kingdom of Ireland, within that period, had been closed up to avoid the tax, and he should appeal to the house whether such a circumstance was not calculated to have a most injurious effect, particularly on the poorer classes, by depriving them of air and light. Taxation in Ireland had, within a short period, increased with a rapidity which was grievously felt." "Mr. Robert Shaw asked, (April 21st, 1818,) are gentlemen aware, that under the present act (for taxing windows,) the collectors can demand an entrance into every room in every house in Ireland, from eight in the morning until sunset, and insist upon admission, under a penalty of 201?

"Mr. Shaw stated, (May 6th, 1819,) that in the part of Dublin called the liberties, the houses were large enough to be subject to the window tax, and were inhabited by the poor and miserable. The government had felt that so deeply, that it had announced, that wherever windows had been opened to faci

ism; and, above all, the exorbitant system of manufactures, which perpetually throws back upon the agricultural districts, as mendicants and desperadoes, those labourers whom it received from them originally, in that happier condition of body and mind, which is the regular effect of agricultural life. It is this operation, resulting from the English law of settlement as to paupers, along with other adventitious causes,* which makes the returns of mendicity and criminality from some of the agricultural counties of England, larger than those from the manufacturing districts, and thus libels, as it were, that state and occupation most favourable to the moral and physical welfare of our species.

To revert to Surgeon Moore. His suggestion about filial gratitude will be found fully answered in the body of this volume, as well as the chiding remark of the Quarterly Review, in the article on Fearon's Travelsthat "the American colonists grew up in prosperity, maintained and fostered by a liberal parent, who saw, with heartfelt satisfaction, her offspring increase in strength and stature, and advance with firm and rapid steps towards maturity." I rely upon the facts and statements which I adduce in my first sections, as sufficient to dispel this hallucination of the reviewers.

The other topic upon which the surgeon has touched, -the animosity of the Americans against Great Britain, which her philosophers are to correct, in lapse of time, by improving our dispositions, is a favourite one with the travellers and reviewers, and is treated by them with the more emphasis, because it serves to promote their main

litate the circulation of air and prevent infection, the tax would be remitted. It would no doubt be urged that but few had availed themselves of this offer; but that was because they had unfortunately too little confidence in the veracity of government. They did not possess besides the means of opening those windows. This was proved by the report of Dr. Parker in 1807 and 1812, and confirmed by the number of windows closed, according to the notices given. Those notices amounted for the last three years to thirty-two thousand, four hundred and twenty-four, of which 3,501 came from Dublin alone, and it might be inferred that the distress was great which would thus drive men to deny themselves the light of Heaven and a free circulation of air."

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*See Colquhoun's Treatise on Indigence, p. 273, 4. and Treatise on the Resources of the British Empire, p. 12.

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