第7章 SECT.V(1)

It may seem strange in a country where agriculture,arts,manufactures.,and commerce,are most flourishing,all of whichhave a mutual and corresponding influence on each other,to say that the laws discourage manufactures;yet this may besaid of the poor laws in England.By our present system we prevent their introduction,check their progress,and hastentheir departure.If the rental of a parish were not bound to provide for the increasing poor,every gentleman of landedproperty would be solicitous to have manufacturers established on his estates,in order to consume the produce of hislands.By multiplying the consumers he would enhance the value of all the various products of the soil:he would enjoy themonopoly of hay and pasture,and share with all his neighhours to a given distance in the sale of corn.But when heconsiders that manufactures fluctuate,that the benefit which he is to derive from them will not bear proportion to theburthen which he must entail upon his property;he will rather wish to keep them at a convenient distance.The principalbenefit he can expect is,that the value of his pastures should be doubled:but even whilst the manufacture prospers,thedemands of the poor,both upon his arable and pasture,will be more than doubled,and when it fails,the poor's rate willswallow up the whole.The surrounding parishes will reap the chief advantage:he will have the happiness to see themflourish;but the load and burthen of the poor will remain upon his own estate."Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra,boves."(8)In every parish,as the law now stands,they who have legal settlements,have the monopoly of labour,because thelabouring poor are confined to their respective parishes.This provision is perfectly consistent with the whole system of ourpoor laws,and was designed not only to prevent the evils which naturally arise from vagrancy,and which might be equallyprevented by more wholesome laws;but to protect each parish from intruders,who might become chargeable either forthemselves or for their children.This provision is productive of considerable evils,which the legislature has never yet beenable to remove:for not only have the industrious poor been restrained from seeking employment where they wouldotherwise have been received with joy,and confined to their own parishes,in which they were regarded with an evil eye;but for want of competition the price of labour to the manufacturer has been much enhanced.With a certificate,indeed,thepoor are permitted to reside in any parish where work is to be had,but then a certificate is not easily obtained.Now it isevident that by raising the price of labour you must directly check the progress of the manufactures;and by experience it isfound,that the same effect arises indirectly to a more considerable extent;for in proportion as you advance the wages ofthe poor,you diminish the quantity of their work.All manufacturers complain of this,and universally agree,that the poorare seldom diligent,except when labour is cheap,and com is dear.It must be confessed that too many of them have somelittle resemblance to the animal described by travellets under the name of Nimble Peter;a creature so inactive,that,whenhe has cleared one tree,he will be reduced to skin and bones before he climbs another,and so slow in all his motions,thateven stripes will not make him mend his pace.(9)Drunkenness is the common vice of poverty;not perhaps of poverty assuch,but of the uncultivated mind;for it is the characteristic of unpolished nations to be fond of intoxicating liquors.