All the effects which I have been describing,have not been fully felt.Let it however be remembered,that a distinction mustbe made between those evils which have already been severely felt,and the greater evils which in the course of nature anddue time may be expected.The tendency of a law may be most destructive;yet,by adventitious circumstances,the badconsequences may be checked and prevented for a season.It is not to be imagined that men,who by close application andwatchful attention to their.business,by rigid frugality and hard labour,have made a decent provision for their families,should freely part with a considerable proportion of their property,or suffer it to be taken from them without strong effortsto retain it.For more than a century the struggles have been obstinate and unremitted,yet for more than a century thepoor's rates have been constantly increasing.From time to time,as men remarked the rapidity of this progress,theirexertions were more than common,and some transient reformation was effected.When at last they found,that they had noother way remaining to protect the fruits of industry from the extravagant demands of indolence,and from theundistinguishing benevolence of power,they adopted,from necessity and not from choice,the miserable expedient ofbuilding workhouses.Till these are completely filled,and even after they are full,they serve a double purpose:they disarmthe magistrate,they intimidate the poor.
As the law now stands,the parish officers,in certain cases,may build houses on the waste for the reception of the impotentand aged;but they have been hitherto so prudent as not to exercise a power,which would be destructive to themselves,without being beneficial to the poor.Happily the justices of peace have no legal authority to augment the number of ourcottages.There can be no compulsion in this case.Some of them indeed have indirectly attempted this,but they have beenresisted by the more provident and wary in most parishes.Hence the number of houses becomes a gage,at once to measureand to regulate the extent of population.In every village will be found plenty of young men and women,who only wait forhabitations to lay the foundation of new families,and who with joy would hasten to the altar,if they could be certain of aroof to shelter them at night.It has been chiefly from the want of houses that the poor have not more rapidly increased.Ifthe most opulent parishes in the kingdom were obliged to find habitations,as they are to provide work,or food and raimentfor the poor,they would be themselves reduced in a course of years to such extreme distress,that all moveable stockwould be carried off,the land would be left uncultivated,the houses would go to ruin,and the poor would starve.As therents have been advancing,new houses have been built;but hitherto the progress has been retarded by the superior valuesof money in the public funds.Should the present law subsist,the value of land will sink,and the rent of cottages will rise;each in proportion to the burthen of the poor,and the demand for houses.It is true,by a statute made in the thirty-firstyear of Queen Elizabeth,there is a penalty on every person who shall build a cottage without assigning four acres of landto be held for ever with it;but this statute,with which her famous poor law is in perfect harmony,and which,if observed,would have prevented the greatest evils felt and to be feared from the unlimited provision for the poor,has been longneglected,or perhaps was never regarded.The penalty is ten pounds for the first erection of the cottage,and forty shillingsper month as long as it shall be occupied.Had this law remained in force,or had it been constantly observed,the poorwould not have multiplied;but then the manufactures would not have flourished in the kingdom as they do at present.
Under this law it is evident,that no poor man could marry till there was a cottage vacant to receive him;for no inmateswere allowed.
The last circumstance which remains to be assigned,as having checked and prevented for a season the evil consequencesresulting from our poor laws,is the shame and reproach of being relieved by a parish:but these have long since ceased tooperate.It is high time,therefore,that more effectual provision should be made for the protection of industry in affluence,and for the relief of industry in the seasons of distress.
