to distinguish in any enactment between parishes in large towns and those in the country, your committee would recommend such 'an alteration in the persons rated, to be limited to parishes of the former description. But if that should be found, as they fear, impracticable, they would still recommend such a general provision, exempting cottages below a certain value, from its operation. By which exemption, such cottages as are now rated, would be excluded from the assessment.

With the same view of making all property contribute to the relief of the poor, where it is practicable, the committee think that provision should be made to prevent extra-parochial places being exonerated from this burthen. Whether they should be made contributory to some other district, or compelled themselves to provide for their own poor, it is obviously most unjust, that burthens properly belonging to them should continue to be borne by others.

The committee are well aware, that however important and desirable it undoubtedly is to equalize this heavy burthen, yet if new funds are provided, it should at the same time be remembered, that a facility of expenditure will be also created. But whether the assessment be confined to land and houses, or other denomination of property be made practically liable to the same charge, your committee feel it their imperious duty to state to the House their opinion,

that, unless some efficacious check be interposed, there is every reason to think that the amount of the assessment will continue, as it has done, to increase, till at a period more or less remote, according to the progress the evil has already made in different places, it shall have absorbed the profits of the property on which the rate may have been assessed, producing thereby the neglect and ruin of the land, and the waste or removal of other property, to the utter subversion of that happy order of society so long upheld in these kingdoms.

The gradual increase which has taken place, both in the number of paupers, and in the assessments for their support, can hardly fail to have arisen from causes inherent in the system itself, as it does not appear to have depended entirely upon any temporary or local circumstance. Scarcity of provisions, and a diminished demand for particular manufactures, have occasioned from time to time an increased pressure in particular parishes, and at no former time in so great a degree as during the early part of the present. But by comparing the assessments in the two counties in this kingdom, in which the largest portion is employed in agriculture, namely Bedfordshire and Herefordshire, it will be seen that there has been the same progressive augmentation in the amount of the assessments, as may be observed to have taken place in the manufacturing counties.

County

What number of years, under the existing laws and management, would probably elapse, and to what amount the assessments might possibly be augmented, before the utmost limitation would be reached, cannot be accurately ascertained; but with regard to the first, your committee think it their duty to point out, that many circumstances which, in the early periods of the system, rendered its progress slow, are now unfortunately changed. The independent spirit of mind which induced individuals in the labouring classes to exert themselves to the utmost, before they submitted to become paupers, is much impaired; this order of persons therefore are every day becoming less and less unwilling to add themselves to the list of paupers. The workhouse system, though enacted with other views, yet for a long time acted very powerfully in deterring persons from throwing themselves on their parishes for relief; there were many who would struggle through their difficulties, rather than undergo the discipline of a workhouse; this effect however is no longer produced in the same degree, as by two modern statutes the justices have power under certain conditions to order relief to be given out of the wohouses,

50,370 10 11

and the number of persons to whom relief is actually given, being now far more than any workhouses would contain, the system itself is from necessity, as well as by law, materially relaxed.

In addition to these important considerations, it is also apparent, that in whatever degree the addition to the number of paupers depends upon their increase by birth,that addition will probably be greater than in past times, in the proportion in which the present number of paupers exceeds that which formerly existed; and it is almost needless to point out, that, when the public undertakes to maintain all who may be b without charge to the parents, the number born will probably be greater than in the natural state. On these grounds, therefore, your committee are led to apprehend, that the rate at which the increase would take place under the existing laws, would be greater than it has heretofore been; but at whatever rate the increase might take place, it could not fail materially to depend on the general state of the country, whether it was in an improving, a stationary, or a declining state, and it would also be affected by the recurrence of plentiful or deficient harvests.

With regard to the second point, namely,

namely, the probable amount beyond which the assessments cannot be augmented, your Committee have again to lament, that the returns collected in 1816 are not yet before them in detail, and there are no means of ascertaining with sufficient accuracy, either the amount of the rates now assessed, or the gross rental of the property on which they are levied. What ever indeed that may be, it appears to be certain that the land owners and the farmers would cease to have an adequate interest in continuing the cultivation of the land, long before the gross amount of the present rental could be transferred to the poor rate; for it is obvious, that a number of charges must be provided for out of the gross rental of land, without an adequate provision for which the land cannot be occupied; the general expenses of management, the construction and repairs of buildings, drains, and other expensive works, to which the tenant's capital cannot reach, constitute the prial part of these charges, and the portion of the gross rent which is applied to these purposes, can never be applied to the augmentation of the poor rate.

Even if it can be thought possible that any landlord could suffer his land to be occupied and cultivated, or that he would continue to give to it the general superintendance of an owner, when the whole of the net rental was transferred to the poor, it is perfectly clear that no tenant could hold a farm upon the condition of maintaining all the poor who might under any circumstances want relief; it would be as much imVOL. LIX.

possible for a tenant to do so as to undertake to pay any rent which the wants of his landlord might induce him to desire, which condition could never be complied with. The apprehension, however, of being placed in such a situation as this, could not fail to deter persons from holding land long before they paid to the poor rate as much as they would otherwise pay in rent; and as under these circumstances, the landowner would still remain enitled to the soil, the paupers could not enter and cultivate for themselves; nor could it be occupied for any beneficial purpose, as whatever stock might be found on the land would be liable to distress for poor rate.

The consequences which are likely to result from this state of things are clearly set forth in the petition from the parish of Wombridge, in Salop, which is fast approaching to this state: the petitioners state, "that the annual value of land, mines, and houses in this parish, is not sufficient to maintain the numerous and increasing poor, even if the same were to be set free of rent; and that these circumstances will inevitably compel the occupiers of lands and mines to relinquish them, and the poor will be without relief or any known mode of obtaining it, unless some assistance be speedily afforded them.” And your Committee apprehend, from the petitions before them, that this is one only of many parishes that are fast approaching to a state of dereliction.

By following the dictates of their own interests, land owners and farmers become, in the natural T

order

order of things, the best trustees and guardians for the public; when that order of things is destroyed, and a compulsory maintenance established for all who require it, the consequences cannot fail in the end to be equally ruinous to both parties. These impressions, upon subjects of such great importance, could not fail to induce your committee to take into their consideration whatever plans could be referred to or suggested, the object of which might be to check and modify the system itself, a duty to which they were the more strongly urged by the view which had presented itself to their consideration of the state of society, created by an extensive system of pauperism, and which led them, for the sake of the paupers themselves, to seek for the means of setting again into action those motives which impel persons, by the hope of bettering their condition on the one hand, and the fear of want on the other, so to exert and conduct themselves, as by frugality, temperance, and industry, and by the practice of those other virtues on which human happiness has been made to depend, to ensure to themselves that condition of existence in which life can alone be otherwise than a miserable burthen; the temptations to idleness, to improvidence, and want of forethought, are under any cir cumstances so numerous and enticing, that nothing less than the dread of the evils, which are their natural consequence, appears to be sufficiently strong in any degree to control them; which the neglect and absence of those. virtues, as long indeed as fresh funds

can be found for their relief, those evils may in some degree be mitigated; but when such resources can no longer be found, then will these evils be felt in their full force; and as the gradual addition of fresh funds can only create an increased number of paupers, it is obvious that the amount of the misery which must be endured, when these funds can no longer be augmented, will be the greater (though the longer delayed) the greater the supplies are, which may be applied to the relief of pauperism, inasmuch as the suffering to be endured must be increased with the number of sufferers.

Your committee forbear to expatiate on these considerations which have pressed themselves on their attention; they have said enough to show the grounds which induce them to think that the labouring classes can only be plunged deeper and more hopelessly into the evils of pauperism, by the constant application of additional sums of money to be distributed by the poor rate; true benevolence and real charity point to other means, which your committee cannot so well express as in the emphatic language of Mr. Burke; "patience, labour, frugality, sobriety, and religion, should be recommended to them; all the rest is downright fraud."

With the view then of providing such a check as may lay the foundation for a better system, it may be worth the most serious consideration, whether a provision of various local acts by which the assessment

itself

Thoughts and Details on Scarcity. Burke's Works, vol. vii. p. 337.

itself was limited for the time to come, might not be applied to all other parishes or districts. Your committee are not aware that such a provision would be less practicable, as applied generally, than locally; and it would obviously not only operate in aid of any other check to expenditure which might be devised, but would necessitate a degree of economy, which would probably be more effectual than any detailed regulations which could be prescribed by particular enactments, and render necessary such careful and just discrimination in selecting the properest objects of relief, as would contribute materially to put an end to numberless evils arising from the lax administration of the poor laws; the check, indeed, which is proposed is perfectly consonant with the nature of things, not only individuals, but states themselves are compelled to limit their expenditure according to their means; and the money raised for the poor being strictly a tax, is in no greater degree capable of unlimited extension, when applied to relieve the necessities of the poor than for the purposes of the state. Whether the future assessments should be limited in the first instance to the amount of any one year, or to an average of many, your committee think the amount in each succeeding year, not exceeding seven, ten, or even a greater number, should then afford an average, taken always from the last seven, ten, or greater number; by which means a diminution in the amount might be afforded, without the possibility, on the other hand, of an increase beyond the original limitation. It

is fit, however, to apprise the House, that it was thought necessary by the legislature, in the year 1795, to relieve these parishes from the obligation of this clause,

by reason (as it is stated) of the late very great increase of the price of corn, and other necessary articles of life." They were, therefore, enabled to raise sums exceeding the amount of the limited assessment, whenever the average price of wheat in Mark-lane exceeded the average price at the same market, during those years from which the average amount of the poor rates were taken. But a new limitation was again imposed by the same act, providing, that after the 1st January, 1798, no assessment should exceed double the sum raised in 1795. And your committee apprehend, that this limitation remains still in force. In case it was thought expedient to adopt this limitation of assessment generally, it appears to your committee, that provision might be made against such an emergency as that of the year 1795, without abandoning the principle, by providing, that in case of an urgent and unforseen necessity, far exceeding any such average, the vestry of the parish might apply to the justices, in their quarter sessions, for an aid from the county to the amount of one moiety of such necessary excess, and for permission to raise the other moiety, by way of assessment within the parish, in addition to such average amount; and if the justices, or a committee of them appointed for that purpose, should, after examination on oath as to the necessity of such excess of expenditure, be of opinion that