The second, or positive check to population examined, in England
- The true cause why the immense sum collected in England for the
poor does not better their condition - The powerful tendency of
the poor laws to defeat their own purpose - Palliative of the
distresses of the poor proposed - The absolute impossibility,
from the fixed laws of our nature, that the pressure of want can
ever be completely removed from the lower classes of society -
All the checks to population may be resolved into misery or vice.
THE positive check to population, by which I mean the check that
represses an increase which is already begun, is confined
chiefly, though not perhaps solely, to the lowest orders of
society.
This check is not so obvious to common view as the other I have
mentioned, and, to prove distinctly the force and extent of its
operation would require, perhaps, more data than we are in
possession of. But I believe it has been very generally remarked
by those who have attended to bills of mortality that of the
number of children who die annually, much too great a proportion
belongs to those who may be supposed unable to give their
offspring proper food and attention, exposed as they are
occasionally to severe distress and confined, perhaps, to
unwholesome habitations and hard labour. This mortality among the
children of the poor has been constantly taken notice of in all
towns. It certainly does not prevail in an equal degree in the
country, but the subject has not hitherto received sufficient
attention to enable anyone to say that there are not more deaths
in proportion among the children of the poor, even in the
country, than among those of the middling and higher classes.
Indeed, it seems difficult to suppose that a labourer's wife who
has six children, and who is sometimes in absolute want of bread,
should be able always to give them the food and attention
necessary to support life. The sons and daughters of peasants
will not be found such rosy cherubs in real life as they are
described to be in romances. It cannot fail to be remarked by
those who live much in the country that the sons of labourers are
very apt to be stunted in their growth, and are a long while
arriving at maturity. Boys that you would guess to be fourteen or
fifteen are, upon inquiry, frequently found to be eighteen or
nineteen. And the lads who drive plough, which must certainly be
a healthy exercise, are very rarely seen with any appearance of
calves to their legs: a circumstance which can only be attributed
to a want either of proper or of sufficient nourishment.
To remedy the frequent distresses of the common people, the
poor laws of England have been instituted; but it is to be
feared, that though they may have alleviated a little the
intensity of individual misfortune, they have spread the general
evil over a much larger surface. It is a subject often started in
conversation and mentioned always as a matter of great surprise
that, notwithstanding the immense sum that is annually collected
for the poor in England, there is still so much distress among
them. Some think that the money must be embezzled, others that
the church-wardens and overseers consume the greater part of it
in dinners. All agree that somehow or other it must be very
ill-managed. In short the fact that nearly three millions are
collected annually for the poor and yet that their distresses are
not removed is the subject of continual astonishment. But a man
who sees a little below the surface of things would be very much
more astonished if the fact were otherwise than it is observed to
be, or even if a collection universally of eighteen shillings in
the pound, instead of four, were materially to alter it. I will
state a case which I hope will elucidate my meaning.
Suppose that by a subscription of the rich the eighteen pence
a day which men earn now was made up five shillings, it might be
imagined, perhaps, that they would then be able to live
comfortably and have a piece of meat every day for their dinners.
But this would be a very false conclusion. The transfer of three
shillings and sixpence a day to every labourer would not increase
the quantity of meat in the country. There is not at present
enough for all to have a decent share. What would then be the
consequence? The competition among the buyers in the market of
meat would rapidly raise the price from sixpence or sevenpence,
to two or three shillings in the pound, and the commodity would
not be divided among many more than it is at present. When an
article is scarce, and cannot be distributed to all, he that can
shew the most valid patent, that is, he that offers most money,
becomes the possessor. If we can suppose the competition among
the buyers of meat to continue long enough for a greater number
of cattle to be reared annually, this could only be done at the
expense of the corn, which would be a very disadvantagous
exchange, for it is well known that the country could not then
support the same population, and when subsistence is scarce in
proportion to the number of people, it is of little consequence
whether the lowest members of the society possess eighteen pence
or five shillings. They must at all events be reduced to live
upon the hardest fare and in the smallest quantity.
It will be said, perhaps, that the increased number of
purchasers in every article would give a spur to productive
industry and that the whole produce of the island would be
increased. This might in some degree be the case. But the spur
that these fancied riches would give to population would more
than counterbalance it, and the increased produce would be to be
divided among a more than proportionably increased number of
people. All this time I am supposing that the same quantity of
work would be done as before. But this would not really take
place. The receipt of five shillings a day, instead of eighteen
pence, would make every man fancy himself comparatively rich and
able to indulge himself in many hours or days of leisure. This
would give a strong and immediate check to productive industry,
and, in a short time, not only the nation would be poorer, but
the lower classes themselves would be much more distressed than
when they received only eighteen pence a day.
A collection from the rich of eighteen shillings in the
pound, even if distributed in the most judicious manner, would
have a little the same effect as that resulting from the
supposition I have just made, and no possible contributions or
sacrifices of the rich, particularly in money, could for any time
prevent the recurrence of distress among the lower members of
society, whoever they were. Great changes might, indeed, be made.
The rich might become poor, and some of the poor rich, but a part
of the society must necessarily feel a difficulty of living, and
this difficulty will naturally fall on the least fortunate
members.
It may at first appear strange, but I believe it is true,
that I cannot by means of money raise a poor man and enable him
to live much better than he did before, without proportionably
depressing others in the same class. If I retrench the quantity
of food consumed in my house, and give him what I have cut off, I
then benefit him, without depressing any.but myself and family,
who, perhaps, may be well able to bear it. If I turn up a piece
of uncultivated land, and give him the produce, I then benefit
both him and all the members of the society, because what he
before consumed is thrown into the common stock, and probably
some of the new produce with it. But if I only give him money,
supposing the produce of the country to remain the same, I give
him a title to a larger share of that produce than formerly,
which share he cannot receive without diminishing the shares of
others. It is evident that this effect, in individual instances,
must be so small as to be totally imperceptible; but still it
must exist, as many other effects do, which, like some of the
insects that people the air, elude our grosser perceptions.
Supposing the quantity of food in any country to remain the
same for many years together, it is evident that this food must
be divided according to the value of each man's patent, or the
sum of money that he can afford to spend on this commodity so
universally in request. (Mr Godwin calls the wealth that a man
receives from his ancestors a mouldy patent. It may, I think,
very properly be termed a patent, but I hardly see the propriety
of calling it a mouldy one, as it is an article in such constant
use.) It is a demonstrative truth, therefore, that the patents of
one set of men could not be increased in value without
diminishing the value of the patents of some other set of men. If
the rich were to subscribe and give five shillings a day to five
hundred thousand men without retrenching their own tables, no
doubt can exist, that as these men would naturally live more at
their ease and consume a greater quantity of provisions, there
would be less food remaining to divide among the rest, and
consequently each man's patent would be diminished in value or
the same number of pieces of silver would purchase a smaller
quantity of subsistence.
An increase of population without a proportional increase of
food will evidently have the same effect in lowering the value of
each man's patent. The food must necessarily be distributed in
smaller quantities, and consequently a day's labour will purchase
a smaller quantity of provisions. An increase in the price of
provisions would arise either from an increase of population
faster than the means of subsistence, or from a different
distribution of the money of the society. The food of a country
that has been long occupied, if it be increasing, increases
slowly and regularly and cannot be made to answer any sudden
demands, but variations in the distribution of the money of a
society are not infrequently occurring, and are undoubtedly among
the causes that occasion the continual variations which we
observe in the price of provisions.
The poor laws of England tend to depress the general
condition of the poor in these two ways. Their first obvious
tendency is to increase population without increasing the food
for its support. A poor man may marry with little or no prospect
of being able to support a family in independence. They may be
said therefore in some measure to create the poor which they
maintain, and as the provisions of the country must, in
consequence of the increased population, be distributed to every
man in smaller proportions, it is evident that the labour of
those who are not supported by parish assistance will purchase a
smaller quantity of provisions than before and consequently more
of them must be driven to ask for support.
Secondly, the quantity of provisions consumed in workhouses
upon a part of the society that cannot in general be considered
as the most valuable part diminishes the shares that would
otherwise belong to more industrious and more worthy members, and
thus in the same manner forces more to become dependent. If the
poor in the workhouses were to live better than they now do, this
new distribution of the money of the society would tend more
conspicuously to depress the condition of those out of the
workhouses by occasioning a rise in the price of provisions.
Fortunately for England, a spirit of independence still
remains among the peasantry. The poor laws are strongly
calculated to eradicate this spirit. They have succeeded in part,
but had they succeeded as completely as might have been expected
their pernicious tendency would not have been so long concealed.
Hard as it may appear in individual instances, dependent
poverty ought to be held disgraceful. Such a stimulus seems to be
absolutely necessary to promote the happiness of the great mass
of mankind, and every general attempt to weaken this stimulus,
however benevolent its apparent intention, will always defeat its
own purpose. If men are induced to marry from a prospect of
parish provision, with little or no chance of maintaining their
families in independence, they are not only unjustly tempted to
bring unhappiness and dependence upon themselves and children,
but they are tempted, without knowing it, to injure all in the
same class with themselves. A labourer who marries without being
able to support a family may in some respects be considered as an
enemy to all his fellow-labourers.
I feel no doubt whatever that the parish laws of England have
contributed to raise the price of provisions and to lower the
real price of labour. They have therefore contributed to
impoverish that class of people whose only possession is their
labour. It is also difficult to suppose that they have not
powerfully contributed to generate that carelessness and want of
frugality observable among the poor, so contrary to the
disposition frequently to be remarked among petty tradesmen and
small farmers. The labouring poor, to use a vulgar expression,
seem always to live from hand to mouth. Their present wants
employ their whole attention, and they seldom think of the
future. Even when they have an opportunity of saving they seldom
exercise it, but all that is beyond their present necessities
goes, generally speaking, to the ale-house. The poor laws of
England may therefore be said to diminish both the power and the
will to save among the common people, and thus to weaken one of
the strongest incentives to sobriety and industry, and
consequently to happiness.
It is a general complaint among master manufacturers that
high wages ruin all their workmen, but it is difficult to
conceive that these men would not save a part of their high wages
for the future support of their families, instead of spending it
in drunkenness and dissipation, if they did not rely on parish
assistance for support in case of accidents. And that the poor
employed in manufactures consider this assistance as a reason why
they may spend all the wages they earn and enjoy themselves while
they can appears to be evident from the number of families that,
upon the failure of any great manufactory, immediately fall upon
the parish, when perhaps the wages earned in this manufactory
while it flourished were sufficiently above the price of common
country labour to have allowed them to save enough for their
support till they could find some other channel for their
industry.
A man who might not be deterred from going to the ale-house
from the consideration that on his death, or sickness, he should
leave his wife and family upon the parish might yet hesitate in
thus dissipating his earnings if he were assured that, in either
of these cases, his family must starve or be left to the support
of casual bounty. In China, where the real as well as nominal
price of labour is very low, sons are yet obliged by law to
support their aged and helpless parents. Whether such a law would
be advisable in this country I will not pretend to determine. But
it seems at any rate highly improper, by positive institutions,
which render dependent poverty so general, to weaken that
disgrace, which for the best and most humane reasons ought to
attach to it.
The mass of happiness among the common people cannot but be
diminished when one of the strongest checks to idleness and
dissipation is thus removed, and when men are thus allured to
marry with little or no prospect of being able to maintain a
family in independence. Every obstacle in the way of marriage
must undoubtedly be considered as a species of unhappiness. But
as from the laws of our nature some check to population must
exist, it is better that it should be checked from a foresight of
the difficulties attending a family and the fear of dependent
poverty than that it should be encouraged, only to be repressed
afterwards by want and sickness.
It should be remembered always that there is an essential
difference between food and those wrought commodities, the raw
materials of which are in great plenty. A demand for these last
will not fail to create them in as great a quantity as they are
wanted. The demand for food has by no means the same creative
power. In a country where all the fertile spots have been seized,
high offers are necessary to encourage the farmer to lay his
dressing on land from which he cannot expect a profitable return
for some years. And before the prospect of advantage is
sufficiently great to encourage this sort of agricultural
enterprise, and while the new produce is rising, great distresses
may be suffered from the want of it. The demand for an increased
quantity of subsistence is, with few exceptions, constant
everywhere, yet we see how slowly it is answered in all those
countries that have been long occupied.
The poor laws of England were undoubtedly instituted for the
most benevolent purpose, but there is great reason to think that
they have not succeeded in their intention. They certainly
mitigate some cases of very severe distress which might otherwise
occur, yet the state of the poor who are supported by parishes,
considered in all its circumstances, is very far from being free
from misery. But one of the principal objections to them is that
for this assistance which some of the poor receive, in itself
almost a doubtful blessing, the whole class of the common people
of England is subjected to a set of grating, inconvenient, and
tyrannical laws, totally inconsistent with the genuine spirit of
the constitution. The whole business of settlements, even in its
present amended state, is utterly contradictory to all ideas of
freedom. The parish persecution of men whose families are likely
to become chargeable, and of poor women who are near lying-in, is
a most disgraceful and disgusting tyranny. And the obstructions
continually occasioned in the market of labour by these laws have
a constant tendency to add to the difficulties of those who are
struggling to support themselves without assistance.
These evils attendant on the poor laws are in some degree
irremediable. If assistance be to be distributed to a certain
class of people, a power must be given somewhere of
discriminating the proper objects and of managing the concerns of
the institutions that are necessary, but any great interference
with the affairs of other people is a species of tyranny, and in
the common course of things the exercise of this power may be
expected to become grating to those who are driven to ask for
support. The tyranny of Justices, Church-wardens, and Overseers,
is a common complaint among the poor, but the fault does not lie
so much in these persons, who probably, before they were in
power, were not worse than other people, but in the nature of all
such institutions.
The evil is perhaps gone too far to be remedied, but I feel
little doubt in my own mind that if the poor laws had never
existed, though there might have been a few more instances of
very severe distress, yet that the aggregate mass of happiness
among the common people would have been much greater than it is
at present.
Mr Pitt's Poor Bill has the appearance of being framed with
benevolent intentions, and the clamour raised against it was in
many respects ill directed, and unreasonable. But it must be
confessed that it possesses in a high degree the great and
radical defect of all systems of the kind, that of tending to
increase population without increasing the means for its support,
and thus to depress the condition of those that are not supported
by parishes, and, consequently, to create more poor.
To remove the wants of the lower classes of society is indeed
an arduous task. The truth is that the pressure of distress on
this part of a community is an evil so deeply seated that no
human ingenuity can reach it. Were I to propose a palliative, and
palliatives are all that the nature of the case will admit, it
should be, in the first place, the total abolition of all the
present parish-laws. This would at any rate give liberty and
freedom of action to the peasantry of England, which they can
hardly be said to possess at present. They would then be able to
settle without interruption, wherever there was a prospect of a
greater plenty of work and a higher price for labour. The market
of labour would then be free, and those obstacles removed which,
as things are now, often for a considerable time prevent the
price from rising according to the demand.
Secondly, premiums might be given for turning up fresh land,
and it possible encouragements held out to agriculture above
manufactures, and to tillage above grazing. Every endeavour
should be used to weaken and destroy all those institutions
relating to corporations, apprenticeships, etc., which cause the
labours of agriculture to be worse paid than the labours of trade
and manufactures. For a country can never produce its proper
quantity of food while these distinctions remain in favour of
artisans. Such encouragements to agriculture would tend to
furnish the market with an increasing quantity of healthy work,
and at the same time, by augmenting the produce of the country,
would raise the comparative price of labour and ameliorate the
condition of the labourer. Being now in better circumstances, and
seeing no prospect of parish assistance, he would be more able,
as well as more inclined, to enter into associations for
providing against the sickness of himself or family.
Lastly, for cases of extreme distress, county workhouses
might be established, supported by rates upon the whole kingdom,
and free for persons of all counties, and indeed of all nations.
The fare should be hard, and those that were able obliged to
work. It would be desirable that they should not be considered as
comfortable asylums in all difficulties, but merely as places
where severe distress might find some alleviation. A part of
these houses might be separated, or others built for a most
beneficial purpose, which has not been infrequently taken notice
of, that of providing a place where any person, whether native or
foreigner, might do a day's work at all times and receive the
market price for it. Many cases would undoubtedly be left for the
exertion of individual benevolence.
A plan of this kind, the preliminary of which should be an
abolition of all the present parish laws, seems to be the best
calculated to increase the mass of happiness among the common
people of England. To prevent the recurrence of misery, is, alas!
beyond the power of man. In the vain endeavour to attain what
in the nature of things is impossible, we now sacrifice not only
possible but certain benefits. We tell the common people that if
they will submit to a code of tyrannical regulations, they shall
never be in want. They do submit to these regulations. They
perform their part of the contract, but we do not, nay cannot,
perform ours, and thus the poor sacrifice the valuable blessing
of liberty and receive nothing that can be called an equivalent
in return.
Notwithstanding, then, the institution of the poor laws in
England, I think it will be allowed that considering the state of
the lower classes altogether, both in the towns and in the
country, the distresses which they suffer from the want of proper
and sufficient food, from hard labour and unwholesome
habitations, must operate as a constant check to incipient
population.
To these two great checks to population, in all long occupied
countries, which I have called the preventive and the positive
checks, may be added vicious customs with respect to women, great
cities, unwholesome manufactures, luxury, pestilence, and war.
All these checks may be fairly resolved into misery and vice.
And that these are the true causes of the slow increase of
population in all the states of modern Europe, will appear
sufficiently evident from the comparatively rapid increase that
has invariably taken place whenever these causes have been in any
considerable degree removed.