STATE OF THE POOR.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
14th January 1831.
Stn—The public papers, and their correspondents, seem strangely at a loss to account for the causes of the discontents among the labouring poor, which have lately run into such frightful excesses. To those, how- ever, who (like the writer) have lived in the Northern parts of England, and personally. witnessed and studied the state of the peasantry in the Southern, the causes are self-evident. They are almost wholly to be at- tributed to the gross mal-administration of the Poor-Laws, which has pre- vailed for above-thirty years in the southern counties, and was intro- duced on most erroneous principles. Firstly, on the antiquated folly of thinking a nation's strength lay in its numbers ; which was not so se- verely felt during the drain of a long war, but has recoiled fearfully on them since the peace. Secondly, the degrading, narrow-minded system of paying part of the wages out of the poor-rates ; esta- blished with a view of equalizing the burden of supporting the la- bourers on the pasture and arable farms. It is impossible to con- ceive any system so calculated to demoralize a whole population. Besides the frightful perjury it occasioned weekly (for the labourers had to make oath they had not earned above a stated sum), and the check it gave to industry, it was a direct encouragement to early and improvident marriages, and to keeping their children in idle- ness at home. It deprived the labourer of all feelings of independence, and placed him on the footing of a pauper. The consequence has been, the idleness and demoralization of the lower orders, who were taught to look on their weekly pittance as their right, not as the fruit of honest labour. There existed among them an habitual discontent and warfare - with the overseer, who was regarded as an oppressor ; and every tie was broken between them and their employers. The injudicious regulations of those receptacles of misery and vice, the poor-houses, have contri- buted to instil false opinions in the minds of the poor ; for nothing could be more absurd than to furnish the parish paupers with the finest white bread, when the farmers were often obliged to eat brown. It was a common saying among them (and a true one), that as soon as they married, and had twcrchildren, they should be better off than the farmers; and this they often did at sixteen or seventeen years of age, going from the church-door to the poor-house !
The poor have thus become convinced, that they have the first right to the produce of the laud at the same time they were suffering from actual want ; and we need look no further for the causes of the outrages they have committed. I speak confidently on this point, for I know, by personal experience, that, where the disgraceful system of bread-money has never prevailed, the condition of the employed labourer is generally as good as during the war, and there exist none of those discontented and outrageous feelings ; nor do I hesitate to predict that, unless that system is totally abolished, and the labourers are paid wholly in wages (the parochial relief being strictly confined to the sick and aged), the discontents of the English peasantry will never be appeased, or their character restored.
The employment of able-bodied men, who are unable to procure work, is of immediate necessity, and may be successfully practised by county assessments, or advances from Government on useful public works ; aided likewise by an extensive encouragement of emigration, for the population is certainly too numerous for the prosperity of the country. The principle, that the land is bound to maintain any indefi- nite number of . human beings who may be brought into existence, is in itself a vicious one, and must end, at last, in a sort of agrarian law. The sooner, therefore, it can be done away with, the better ; and every one left, as much as possible, to his own energies to maintain himself— those efforts being adequately paid. The wages should be for the work done, and no difference made between married and single labourers. All interference in their domestic concerns is hateful and pernicious. The same money, if earned as wages, and laid out as th 7 chose, would satisfy them much better than when doled out to them as alms. In the North, where theyare not meddled with, they live infinitely cheaper, and more comfort- ably as well as contentedly. The plan of attaching gardens to cottages is a -good one, provided the allotment of ground is not large enough to in- duce them to depend on that for subsistence ; the effect of which is in- variably to make them neglect labour. potatoes should be grown for diem in the farmers' fields—they supplying the labour and manure. The abundance of fuel in the. North-is also an essential advantage, and .every facility should be given to supply them with that piese necessary of life as cheaply as possible. The custom, in Scotland. and Northotilher- land, of attaching cottagei to the farina for married labourers, whose Wages are partly paid in-corn,-is highly beneficial, and conducive to mos atty. Tim parents are not, in the Northern counties, sent to drag out their miserable old age in the poor-house, but are generally maintained in the houses of their children,. witha small parochial assistance. Above all, they possess the inestimable benefit of learning, which not only affords them useful occupation and superior intelligence, bu,t has a power- ful effect on their moral character—making them honest, industrious, and contented. It is among the ignorant pauper peasantry of the South, not the free, enlightened labourers of the -North, that the insidious arts of the disaffected have so fatally prevailed. There is no surer proof of the good effects of instruction, and the baneful influence of the Poor-Laws, than the improved character of the peasantry the further you go North ; that of Scotland being superior to any part of England. I need scarcely touch upon the other aggravating causes of distress, in the reckless profusion of too many of the aristocracy, who, while their rents were falling, year by year, could not bring themselves to retrench their expenditure, but have plunged deeper into difficulties, and borne harder on their dependants; many country families have likewise been living abroad, and, of course, deprived their poor of much assistance. There are others who, by judicious attention to the wants of their dependants, and extensive employment of the poor, diffuse more blessings around them, and are more useful members of society, than those who are so ready to condemn them. It would be well to restore the value due to the name of an English country gentleman (now be. come a by-word of reproach and ridicule) ; and the honest, independent character of an English peasant, which is now lamentably deteriorated, but which I feel it is yet in the power of the Legislature to redeem. A NORTHUMBRIA if
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