portion of the supply of labour to the demand. And as upon the potato system a supply more than adequate to the demand would very soon take place, and this supply might be continued at a very cheap rate on account of the cheapness of the food which would furnish it, the common price of labour would soon be regulated principally by the price of potatoes instead of the price of wheat as at present, and the rags and wretched cabins of Ireland would follow of course.

When the demand for labour occasionally exceeds the supply, and wages are regulated by the price of the dearest grain, they will generally be such as to yield something besides mere food, and the common people may be able to obtain decent houses and decent clothing. If the contrast between the state of the French and English labourers which Mr Young has drawn be in any degree near the truth the advantage on the side of England has been occasioned precisely and exclusively by these two circumstances, and if by the adoption of milk and potatoes as the general food of the common people these circumstances were totally altered so as to make the supply of labour constantly in a great excess above the demand for it, and regulate wages by the price of the cheapest food, the advantage would be immediately lost and no efforts of benevolence could prevent the most general and abject poverty.

Upon the same principle it would by no means be eligible that the cheap soups of Count Rumford should be adopted as the general food of the common people. They are excellent inventions for the public institutions and as occasional resources, but if they were once universally adopted by the poor it would be impossible to prevent the price of labour from being regulated by them, and the labourer, though at first he might have more to spare for other expenses besides food, would ultimately have much less to spare than before.

The desirable thing, with a view to the happiness of the common people, seems to be that their habitual food should be dear and their wages regulated by it, but that in a scarcity or other occasional distress the cheaper food should be readily and cheerfully adopted. With a view of rendering this transition easier, and at the same time of making an useful distinction between those who are dependent on parish relief and those who are not, I should think that one plan which Mr Young proposes would be extremely eligible. This is, "To pass an act prohibiting relief so far as subsistence is concerned in any other manner than by potatoes, rice, and soup, not merely as a measure of the moment but permanently."2

1 It is certainly to be wished that every cottage in England should have a garden to it well stocked with vegetables. A little variety of food is in every point of view highly useful. Potatoes are undoubtedly a most valuable assistance, though I should be very sorry ever to see them the principal dependence of our labourers.

"Question of Scarcity," &c., p. 80. This might be done, at least with regard to workhouses. In assisting the poor at their own homes it might be subject to some practical difficulties.

I do not think that this plan would necessarily introduce these articles as the common food of the lower classes; and if it merely made the transition to them in periods of distress easier; and at the same time drew a more marked line than at present between dependence and independence, it would have a very beneficial effect.

As it is acknowledged that the introduction of milk and potatoes or of cheap soups as the general food of the lower classes of people would lower the price of labour, perhaps some cold politician might propose to adopt the system with a view of underselling foreigners in the markets of Europe. I should not envy the feelings which could suggest such a proposal. I really cannot conceive anything much more detestable than the idea of knowingly condemning the labourers of this country to the rags and wretched cabins of Ireland for the purpose of selling a few more broad cloths and calicoes.1 The wealth and power of nations are after all only desirable as they contribute to happiness. In this point of view I should be very far from undervaluing them, considering them in general as absolutely necessary means to attain the end; but if any particular case should occur where they appear to be in direct opposition to each other, we cannot rationally doubt which ought to be preferred.

Fortunately however even on the narrowest political principles, the adoption of such a system would not answer. It has always been observed that those who work chiefly on their own property work very indolently and unwillingly when employed for others; and it must necessarily happen when, from the general adoption of a very cheap food the population of a country increases consider

1 In this observation I have not the least idea of alluding to Mr Young, who I firmly believe ardently wishes to improve the condition of the lower classes of people, though I do not think that his plan would effect the object in view. He either did not see those consequences which I apprehend from it, or he has a better opinion of the happiness of the common people in Ireland than I have. In his Irish tour he seemed much struck with the plenty of potatoes which they possessed and the absence of all apprehension of want. Had he travelled in 1800 and 1801 his impressions would by all accounts have been very different. From the facility which has hitherto prevailed in Ireland of procuring potato-grounds scarcities have certainly been rare, and all the effects of the system have not yet been felt, though certainly enough to make it appear very far from desirable.

Mr Young has since pursued his idea more in detail in a pamphlet entitled, "An Inquiry into the Propriety of applying Wastes to the better Maintenance and Support of the Poor." But the impression on my mind is still the same, and it appears to be calculated to assimilate the condition of the labourers of this country to that of the lower classes of the Irish. Mr Young seems in a most unaccountable manner to have forgotten all his general principles on this subject. He has treated the question of a provision for the poor as if it was merely, How to provide in the cheapest and best manner for a given number of people. If this had been the sole question it would never have taken so many hundred years to resolve. But the real question is, How to provide for those who are in want in such a manner as to prevent a continual accumulation of their numbers? and it will readily occur to the reader that a plan of giving them land and cows cannot promise much success in this respect. If after all the commons had been divided the poor-laws were still to continue in force, no good reason can be assigned why the rates should not in a few years be as high as they are at present, independently of all that had been expended in the purchase of land and stock.

ably beyond the demand for labour that habits of idleness and turbulence will be generated most peculiarly unfavourable to a flourishing state of manufactures. In spite of the cheapness of labour in Ireland there are few manufactures which can be prepared in that country for foreign sale so cheap as in England, and this is in a great measure owing to the want of those industrious habits which can only be produced by regular employment.

CHAPTER XII.1

CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT.

THE increasing portion of the society which has of late years become either wholly or partially dependent upon parish assistance, together with the increasing burden of the poor's rates on the landed property has for some time been working a gradual change in the public opinion respecting the benefits resulting to the labouring classes of society and to society in general from a legal provision for the poor. But the distress which has followed the peace of 1814, and the great and sudden pressure which it has occasioned on the parish rates, have accelerated this change in a very marked manner. More just and enlightened views on the subject are daily gaining ground, the difficulties attending a legal provision for the poor are better understood and more generally acknowledged, and opinions are now seen in print and heard in conversation which twenty years ago would almost have been considered as treason to the interests of the state.

This change of public opinion, stimulated by the severe pressure of the moment, has directed an unusual portion of attention to the subject of the poor-laws; and as it is acknowledged that the present system has essentially failed, various plans have been proposed either as substitutes or improvements. It may be useful to inquire shortly how far the plans which have already been published are calculated to accomplish the ends which they propose. It is generally thought that some measure of importance will be the result of the present state of public opinion. To the permanent success of any such measure it is absolutely necessary that it should apply itself in some degree to the real source of the difficulty; yet there is reason to fear that nowithstanding the present improved knowledge on the subject this point may be too much overlooked.

Among the plans which appear to have excited a considerable degree of the public attention, is one of Mr Owen. I have already adverted to some views of Mr Owen in a chapter on "Systems of

1 Written in 1817.

Equality," and spoken of his experience with the respect which is justly due to it. If the question were merely how to accommodate, support and train in the best manner societies of 1200 people, there are perhaps few persons more entitled to attention than Mr Owen; but in the plan which he has proposed, he seems totally to have overlooked the nature of the problem to be solved. This problem is, How to provide for those who are in want in such a manner as to prevent a continual increase of their numbers, and of the proportion which they bear to the whole society. And it must be allowed that Mr Owen's plan not only does not make the slightest approach towards accomplishing this object, but seems to be peculiarly calculated to effect an object exactly the reverse of it, that is, to increase and multiply the number of paupers.

If the establishments which he recommends could really be conducted according to his apparent intentions, the order of nature and the lessons of providence would indeed be in the most marked manner reversed, and the idle and profligate would be placed in a situation which might justly be the envy of the industrious and virtuous. The labourer or manufacturer who is now ill lodged and ill clothed and obliged to work twelve hours a day to maintain his family, could have no motive to continue his exertions if the reward for slackening them, and seeking parish assistance, was good lodging, good clothing, the maintenance and education of all his children, and the exchange of twelve hours' hard work in an unwholesome manufactory for four or five hours of easy agricultural labour on a pleasant farm. Under these temptations, the numbers yearly falling into the new establishments from the labouring and manufacturing classes, together with the rapid increase by procreation of the societies themselves, would very soon render the first purchases of land utterly incompetent to their support. More land must then be purchased and fresh settlements made; and if the higher classes of society were bound to proceed in the system according to its apparent spirit and intention, there cannot be a doubt that the whole nation would shortly become a nation of paupers with a community of goods.

Such a result might not perhaps be alarming to Mr Owen. It is just possible indeed that he may have had this result in contemplation when he proposed this plan, and have thought that it was the best mode of quietly introducing that community of goods which he believes is necessary to complete the virtue and happiness of society. But to those who totally dissent from him as to the effects to be expected from a community of goods; to those who are convinced that even his favourite doctrine, that a man can be trained to produce more than he consumes, which is no doubt true at present, may easily cease to be true, when cultivation is pushed beyond the bounds prescribed to it by private property; the

1 See vol. ii. c. x. b. iii. p. 154.

approaches towards a system of this kind will be considered as approaches towards a system of universal indolence, poverty, and wretchedness.

Upon the supposition then that Mr Owen's plan could be effectively executed, and that the various pauper societies scattered over the country could at first be made to realise his most sanguine wishes, such might be expected to be their termination in a moderately short time from the natural and necessary action of the principle of population.

But it is probable that the other grand objection to all systems of common propriety would even at the very outset confound the experience of Mr Owen and destroy the happiness to which he looks forward. In the society at the Lanerk Mills, two powerful stimulants to industry and good conduct are in action, which would be totally wanting in the societies proposed. At Lanerk the whole of every man's earnings is his own, and his power of maintaining himself, his wife, and children, in decency and comfort will be in exact proportion to his industry, sobriety, and economy. At Lanerk also if any workman be perseveringly indolent and negligent, if he get drunk and spoil his work, or if in any way he conduct himself essentially ill, he not only naturally suffers by the diminution of his earnings, but he may at any time be turned off, and the society be relieved from the influence and example of a profligate and dangerous member. On the other hand, in the pauper establishments proposed in the present plan, the industry, sobriety, and good conduct of each individual would be very feebly indeed connected with his power of maintaining himself and family comfortably; and in the case of persevering idleness and misconduct, instead of the simple and effective remedy of dismission, recourse must be had to a system of direct punishment of some kind or other, determined and enforced by authority, which is always painful and distressing and generally inefficient.

I confess it appears to me that the most successful experience in such an establishment as that of Lanerk furnishes no ground whatever to say what could be done towards the improvement of society in an establishment where the produce of all the labour employed would go to a common stock, and dismissal, from the very nature and object of the institution, would be impossible. If under such disadvantages the proper management of these establishments were within the limits of possibility, what judgment, what firmness, what patience, would be required for the purpose! But where are such qualities to be found in sufficient abundance to manage one or two millions of people?

On the whole then it may be concluded that Mr Owen's plan would have to encounter obstacles that really appear to be insuperable even at its first outset; and that if these could by any possible means be overcome, and the most complete success attained,