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even mooted in society, or if it was, it was only as an outcry against all poorlaws whatsoever. During the last year the appearance of the assistant commissioners, in the various districts to which they were sent, has excited some little curiosity upon the subject; and though no well-defined ideas appear to be yet entertained, even as to the working of poor-laws elsewhere, yet in conversation, a wish is generally expressed that something may be done for the poor; of the advantages or disadvantages of any one probable scheme of the awful difficulties which lie in the way of the adoption of any, but few have formed an opinion. In order to estimate properly some of these difficulties, let any one only read the published selection from the report of the English Poor Inquiry Commission, and think of the crimes, horrible to imagine, which the English law has fostered, and of the distress which, owing to its imperfect nature, it has left unalleviated; and then let him remember, that this law was the result of legislative wisdom-that for generations its blighting effects were not felt, and were felt even then through the vices of maladministration; let him visit the district from which the most piteous accounts were sent of paupers absolutely devouring the whole substance of the honest labourer; let him visit Kent, and if he is an Irishman he will be inclined to ask, where are the poor? and to ponder over the probability of his own estate, so inferior in value, bearing the assessment necessary for the support of a pauper list so much more wretched, so infinitely more numerous.

Ist Prop. The legislature is bound to provide against the possibility of any citizen's perishing from want.

Many voices have been from time to time raised against this proposition, and one in particular produced a considerable effect;* but the advocates of a voluntary system have, as in the instance referred to, generally rested their arguments upon its practical success in guarding against this possibility, when supported by the unwearied diligence of one benevolent leader and many active corporators; but he must know little indeed of Ireland who could fancy that he saw in her, materials for the general application of that system which has flourished in Glasgow, unaided by legislative compulsion.

There can be no doubt but that similar zealous superintendence might, in some favoured instance, so affect the moral character of a neighbourhood, as to render crime almost unknown and the interference of the law unnecessary. But such an instance would be but a poor argument against the enactment of a law calculated to suppress crime elsewhere. If every one did his duty, laws would not be required. The proposal of a law implies its correlative, a dereliction of duty; and it would be hard to imagine such a dereliction more strongly marked than in the instance of many of the gentry of Ireland, who are either willingly expatriated or live at home in palaces, indifferent to the utter wretchedness of the countless thousands whose lot has been cast by the Creator upon the land on which they were born, while their drawing life from its produce has been left by the laws of man to depend upon the caprice of individuals. Here may be seen the able-bodied workman, labouring all day for that which cannot satisfy the demands of nature-perhaps returning to his starving family only to say, I would have toiled to earn you bread, but could no where find one willing to employ me-perhaps driven by madness to the commission of outrage, or to seek oblivion of his misery in the fatal facilities offered to intemperance; then, with spirit and constitution alike broken, wasting away under the effects of indigence until the grave reChalmers' Evidence.

The object of the following pages is to excite discussion upon the principal difficulties which have occurred to the writer in the consideration of the subject, and upon certain propositions put now hypothetically, as the grounds upon which they rest, are at present only his own belief of what the state of the country is, but will soon be tested by the report of the commissioners. For the discussion of the general principles upon which such laws are founded, and the result of their application in England, ample materials are already before the public.

ceives the indirect victim of starvation, and his family wander forth to live upon the precarious contributions of those who are almost as poor as themselves. If the principle of a legal provision has been recognized as applicable to England and to France, it is surely a fortiori applicable to Ireland, where the lower classes are more indigent, and the higher more culpably indifferent.

2d Prop. The legislature is bound to provide that no permanent obstacle shall stand in the way of the industrious citizen's bettering his condition.

This is a more questionable proposition than the first, but it is well worth consideration, as it is upon this as a principle, that all preventative measures must be founded, and these are the

most important of all. The great difficulty is, to avoid the danger of interfering with the rights of private property, and with that competition, which is to the dealings of man with man, what the fly-wheel is to a machine, regulating and confining within due limits its energy. But if a case is supposed, in which one part of a district is, as occupied by demesnes or large pastures, unproductive of labour; another part, on account of legal difficulties in the way of draining and reclaiming it from a state of waste, unproductive of food; and the remaining part occupied by a poor tenantry, whose interest in their holdings is merely sufficient to supply them with a minimum of subsistence, who have no motive to providence, no check to reckless increase in the prospect of bettering their condition-who, in fact, cannot find employment sufficient to occupy all, and are therefore driven to a ruinous

competition, each trying to underbid the other as to the amount of value to be received for his labour-the alternative being half wages or none at all, and the employer too ready, in most instances, to avail himself of the necessities of the employed—it is hardly possible, in such a case, to imagine anything but good resulting from another party's coming in and finding, upon some other ground, or assisting the proprietors in finding upon their own unproductive wastes, employment for the superabundant population, and thus altering the language of the labourer from "Give me employment, and give me what wages you

please," to "If you do not give me a reasonable remuneration, I am able to seek and find it elsewhere." A reasonable remuneration may be fairly described as that which, given for the full work of an able-bodied man, will enable him to support himself and his family, and to lay by something to provide for the wants of old age-of that night when no man can work. Nothing short of this will give the peasant a motive to providence and an interest in the preservation of order and the support of the laws and institutions of the country. It is possible that the legislature may be this third party, and, by means of public works, effect this desirable object. If then, these propositions be assumed as true, there will follow a twofold division of the objects of a legal provision for the poor

I, The indigent who are unable to work; and II, the able-bodied who are unable to find employment. To begin with the

INDIGENT WHO ARE UNABLE TO WORK,

those upon whom the hand of God has fallen--the widow and the orphan--the parent bereft of children-he who is visited by misfortune, or stricken by sickness. No one can deny the claims to public relief that these bring with them; but the difficulty in this case is, to grant it so as not to interfere with the working of the social frame, by holding out an inducement to relations to abandon those who are bound to them by natural ties. This danger will be guarded against by making the distinction as wide as possible between those who find support among their own relations and those who are obliged to seek refuge in the public asylums: the latter ought to be adjusted upon the lowest scale, the former raised as high as possible. To consider, therefore, first,

PUBLIC ASYLUMS,

or indoor relief. There are two modes in which these may be distributed over the country; either as centres of small or of large districts, of parishes, of baronies, or counties. If in every parish, or such small district, there were to be found a few upright persons, who would devote some of their time to a constant superintendence of an establishment of this nature, no doubt such a division of labour would be highly

desirable; but, alas! there is no one who knows this country, who is aware of the difficulty of getting the people to attend to any business that does not directly concern themselves; who has watched the working of the dispensary system; who has attended vestries or meetings summoned for the purposes of beneficence, but must feel bitterly the inexpediency of trusting the care of such persons or the distribution of such funds to the united apathy and corruption of the middle classes: If such evils have been found to accompany the parochial system in England, we should look forward to their existence here in a tenfold degree. It is only in the towns that there would be any tolerable certainty of finding honest committees, who would undertake voluntarily such offices of charity. And, fortunately, it is in the towns, too, that a large proportion of the objects of charity are to be found. The natural progress of pauperism is this: from ill conduct, misfortunes, or oppression, the tenant loses his holding: he, perhaps, struggles on for some time as a lodger or householder, seeking employment; when this fails, he is driven to wander upon the road, or to settle in the suburbs of towns and villages, where many unite in one lodging, and the opportunities of begging are multiplied. His location there is a great burden at present to the inhabitants of the town or village. The humane are taxed for the support of the outcast from the estate of some wealthy absentee or worthless resident. The difficulties to be avoided are, the making preparations upon too expensive a scale-building palaces instead of lazar-houses, so taxing the county too heavily for an outfit, and rendering the condition of their inmates superior to what it would have been had they remained among their own connexions; and also the erring on the same side in the mode of supporting them. The resource to public charity must be rendered distasteful to the objects of it; and it will require vigilant care to keep accurately the balance between the attention required by old age, infancy, or ill health, and the excess which would prove injurious. It would be better to fit up some unoccupied building, or a

range of houses, than to build a new one. There must be a sufficient number of divisions to admit of a classification of the paupers; beds, to be hung against the wall in the daytime, and benches, are all the necessary furniture; cleanliness, ventilation, and heat, the principal objects to be attended to. But, as such an establishment ought to be kept as much as possible as a last resource for the neglected indigents, the propriety of another expedient may be considered; namely,

AN ANNUITY SYSTEM,

or outdoor relief, the reception of which need not imply a loss of gradein the receiver or injure the feelings of moral independence. There must be a certain point, when he who has occupied his station as a useful member of society, as a householder. as a labourer, as a contributor to public resources and private charities, is driven, by declining strength and unforeseen misfortune, to abandon this independent station, and sue for the charity of others. Now, the legislature, that should prevent him from falling, would confer a benefit upon the state by upholding the character of the citizen, and necessarily attaching him more firmly to her interests. It is not too much to say, with an eminent author of the present day,* "Is it not indisputable that the claim of the state to the allegiance involves the protection of the subject? and, as all rights in one party impose a correlative duty upon another, it follows that the right of the state to require the services of its members, even to the jeoparding of their lives in the common defence, establishes a right in the people to public support, when, from any cause, they may be unable to support themselves."' If the giving of a small annuity to a person who is past his labour will enable him to remain in his natural station, when, without it, he would certainly be driven to the poorhouse, the public would lose nothing in a pecuniary but gain much in a moral point of view. Upon the very moderate scale upon which it has been shown, that these two systems must be carried on in order to ensure their safety, the country could have no reason to com

Wordsworth.

plain of the expense. One of the very best organised mendicities in the country, is that in the city of Londonderry; the report of which says, "It was once an experiment whether the poor could be effectually relieved by united aid, and street begging suppressed; it was tried, and the result has answered the highest expectations; the poor are relieved, and street begging is, for the most part, unknown. The cost of each pauper, including every extra expenditure during the past year, has been about three-halfpence per diem; for this sum they are not only entirely fed, but those within the asylum are cleansed and warmed, and many of the old allowed the comfort of tobacco and snuff. A subscription of £2 7s. 6d. will give comfortable support to a pauper for a whole year." With this simple fact, this known result of experiment before their eyes, it is difficult to conceive how many people can talk of the prospect of the support of actual pauperism as likely to be the ruin of the country. The assessment would not be to the poor farmer half what he now gives as voluntary alms. The only people who would feel it would be those rich land or fund-holders who now give nothing at all compared to their means. This naturally leads to the important consideration of the

MANNER IN WHICH THE FUNDS NECES

SARY ARE TO BE RAISED.

This question is beset with difficulties, but what financial question is not? The duty of the legislature will be, to provide such a system of taxation as shall raise the requisite sum as evenly as possible, making each individual contribute according to his ability. In order to effect this, the population of the country will probably have to be divided into two classes, the manufacturing or monied, and the agricultural or landed interests. The first may, perhaps, be made to contribute in the shape of a poll-tax, either directly or indirectly, through the employers thus, in fact, only making the principle of benefit societies compulsory. The landed interest is more difficult to deal with. Two great difficulties stand in the way of an equitable adjustment of a land-tax. If collected from the occupier, the burden, at the outset, would be

It

borne by him, almost exclusively. would be a long time before the landlord could be made to feel it, and the mortgagee would escape untouched. If it were collected from the landlord, the same inequality would be found, only that the places would be changed, and he would be the principal sufferer; and in cases where a large proportion of his property is in the hands of mortgagees, the burden would be excessive. It is possible that a percentage upon rent, received from the occupier, legally deducted by him from his payment to the landlord, and by the landlord from his payment to all holders of incumbrances upon his estate, would effect something like an approximation to even collection. The expense in this case would be scarcely anything. It would be the tenant's interest to see that the sum was paid into the hands of the collectors at present in the employ of government. However, if the sum is to be raised, it will rest with the wisdom of parliament to do so in the most even manner. The next thing to be considered is the

MODE IN WHICH SUCH FUNDS ARE TO BE DISTRIBUTED.

One of the strongest objections to the English parochial system is the necessity for laws of settlement. With the litigation, inconvenience, and anomalies attendant upon them, the wholesome working of that natural principle, by which the supply of labour follows the demand, is partially checked. The stranger is watched with an eye of jealousy, and the manner in which he is hunted from house to house, from parish to parish, is anything but calculated to increase love and goodwill towards men. It is possible that these great inconveniences might be obviated by a system under which, the money raised from the whole country, should be distributed to the different asylums, at a fixed rate for every individual supported within them. When this rate is fixed at a minimum, it will be impossible for extravagance to creep into the management of any particular institution. When it is a matter of indifference whether all the poor are collected in one town or distributed through a great many, they will be found to arrange themselves according to natural circumstances, and no ne

cessity will appear for any act of settlement.

THE MODE IN WHICH THE DISTRIBUTION
IS TO BE REGULATED.

The money being once raised, and the principle of its application established, it is conceived that there will be no great difficulty in collecting together in each town, where it is determined that an asylum should be, a sufficient committee for the purpose of undertaking the management. But in order to ensure uniformity in the practice, and secure the public against the vices of maladministration, it will be absolutely necessary to have a central board acting with a staff of permanent assistant commissioners, of the same character, and invested with the same powers, as the English permanent commission. Possibly the whole system of dispensaries may be placed under the same guidance and control. When thus a refuge and security of support has been secured to the helpless poor, the legislature may, at once, proceed to the absolute

SUPPRESSION OF MENDICANCY.

This may be done without any additional expense to the country, through the means of the police. Without such a law, there would be but half a dam thrown across the stream of misery, and the unchecked current would flow on with more destructive velocity than ever. There is a charm in the chances of a wandering and precarious exist

ence which leads those who have once felt it, to cling to it as a dram-drinker to the poison which is pressing him into the grave; and until human nature is completely changed, it will be sweet to give to him that needeth, and to witness the joy and content of the relieved. But if the misery endured; if the crime and disorders propagated; if the frequent success of impudent fraud and the heart-rending sufferings of retiring modesty; if the extreme pressure upon the benevolent few, and the hard-hearted escape from it of the virulent many, under the present system of vagrancy, be contrasted with the order and evenness of pressure, effectiveness and moral influence of a system under which there may be ample security given, that the charities of the country shall not be abused; few will, perhaps, hesitate in agreeing to the principle of a compulsory provision for the helpless poor.

We now come to the other division.

THE ABLE-BODIED POOR WHO ARE UN-
ABLE TO FIND EMPLOYMENT.

This is a much more difficult subject, and must be approached with great caution; the lead must be heaved at every step-the evil, which we find is one of acknowledged magnitude, the evils induced by every remedial system which has been yet tried, are frightful to contemplate, but they do not prove the impossibility of discovering a remedy, and as long as such is possible, it is the duty of the legislature to seck

* One instance of this nature may serve as an example of what does too frequently and alas! too secretly occur. The writer was travelling on the western coast of Ireland during a period of scarcity. At some distance from the road there was a miserable turf hovel, from which, as soon as his jaunting car came in sight, a woman ran to the road; her appearance was emaciated; an old and tattered cloak was wrapt round her; she hurried to and fro until the car came up to her; then she sank down, with her face turned away, and was silent. When the car had passed she got up, she walked about; then suddenly ran a little way after the car; then stopped, stood still for a few moments, and then turned slowly to her hovel again. The writer concluded that she was some poor maniac, and passed on; but suddenly the truth flashed upon his mind: he made inquiries and found that she was a widow with an orphan family; that she was starving, and yet could not bring herself to beg. If the pen of Wordsworth had delineated such a scene of utter misery, it would have been wept over in gilded salcons. The fiction would have been felt, while any proposal of a law which should guard against the possibility of the existence of such an appalling reality, would be met by the cold-blooded argument of the political economists, who see in it but the natural punishment of improvidence, or by the incredulity of those who give human nature credit for more kindness than it possesses.

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