Whately's parish the poor did not dig quite half an acre, so the poor in St. Margaret's parish probably would not fill quite half a barge: but if they did not, others, probably, would; and that which is now a source of annoyance and discomfort, as well as injurious to the health of the vicinage, might, as it would, prove a means of gain to industry, which would, at all events, be relieved from the burden of enabling able-bodied workmen to live idle who ought to work in order to gain their living.

Herein may appear the inadequacy of the Act of Mr. Sturges Bourne*, and, in truth, of every act of the legislature that attempts to regulate industry or interfere with charity. Neither can be dealt with by act of Parliament: the attempt can only lead to restrain the one and to banish the other.t

But we have had the 43 Eliz. for upwards

* 59 G. 3. c. 12.

† Herein may also appear the inexpediency of a Poor Law for Ireland, whose poor are almost all able-bodied. It would not be difficult to show that the evils which afflict Ireland have proceeded from legislative restraints upon industry, but this is not the place for it. I trust, however, I have said enough to show, that any Poor Law for Ireland would only increase evils springing from restraints upon industry, and that if industry in England were set free from restraints, in place of having too many, we should find we have too few labourers, and in place of Irish vagrants being a burden,. we should find them a benefit.

I

of two centuries; and are we to reject it? — No; but we are to cease to make it the instrument of abuses contrary to its intendment. Let us no longer confound relief with work: let no relief be given to the able-bodied; and before even relief is given to the aged, the infirm, or the helpless, let it be enquired, and let it be ascertained, whether it be necessary; for the 43 Eliz. allows only of necessary relief.

For the sick poor, charity, free and unrestrained, has never been wanting in this country. Palaces, in the name of hospitals, have been largely provided for the relief of every kind of human suffering except poverty. Supported, as they are founded, by voluntary contributions alone, can we believe that institutions or associations for the relief of honest poverty, or the encouragement of honest industry among the poor, would have been wanting if it had not been for the abuses of the Poor Laws? Let, then, every parish in England set about putting an end to these abuses, as the parishes of Cookham, White Waltham, Thurgaton, and Uley have done; and then in every parish of England, as in those parishes, honest poverty will be relieved, and honest industry encouraged.

CHAP. VII.

EXPEDIENTS FOR THE RELIEF OF THE POOR.

THE grant of small portions of land to cottagers, which is a favourite measure with many, can only have a very limited effect in remedying the abuses of the Poor Laws. It may tend to produce a better description of labourers, and may be highly beneficial as an encouragement to well doing; but this is the extent of it.

It is like a system which has grown up in the northern counties of England, and in the southern counties of Scotland, where every married farm servant has a cottage on the farm, with a piece of garden-ground attached to it, to whom the farmer allows the keep of a cow and a pig, with some poultry, and ploughs for him a piece of potatoe-ground, which is manured with the dung of the cow and pig; and whose services are paid in kind of the produce of the farm, with a very small portion in money. These

The particulars of this system are given by Mr. Grey, a proprietor and extensive occupier of land in the county of Durham, in his evidence before the Lords' Committee on the Poor Laws, in 1831. It removes all the objections to large farms which prevail in these districts.

things do excellently well when left to themselves, but become vitiated when touched by an Act of Parliament, as may be exemplified by the 31 Eliz. c.7., which prohibited the erection of any cottage, unless there should be assigned "to the same cottage or building four acres of ground at the least, to be constantly occupied "and manured therewith, so long as the same cottage shall be inhabited;" an enactment which has been as little regarded in practice as the 43d Eliz. c. 2.

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A general Inclosure Act, which has been recommended by the Committee of the House of Commons on the Poor Laws of 1828, and for which purpose a Bill was introduced in the Session about to close, and is still pending, is a good thing in itself; but there are so many local interests to reconcile, that, in order to remove their opposition, provisions will be introduced, which, operating in the way of restraint, may do more harm than good. Though it is of great importance that the remaining commons and commonable lands of England should be brought under cultivation, it is of more importance that the lands already in cultivation should be well cultivated; and if land in severalty is not or cannot be improved, by reason of the injurious operation of our Corn Laws, still less can land yet in common; so that a general Inclosure

Act will remain a dead letter, in so far as relates to its main purpose, until the Corn Laws shall be altered; and in regard to the poor, it can only carve out of the inclosure a pauper farm; and this is incompatible with Mr. Whateley's system, which renders any such farm unnecessary, and would prevent its cultivation as a pauper farm.

A bill to enable the majority of rate-payers to come to an agreement as to the mode of employing the poor, is unobjectionable, in so far as it gives only enabling powers; but the danger is, that these powers will be abused. This is not said lightly, seeing all the powers given by the statute of Elizabeth have been perverted as well as abused. But the bill introduced for this purpose in the House of Commons in the session about to close and now passed, as first brought in, proposed to enable the majority of rate-payers not only to send a pauper for employment to any rate-payer they pleased, but to compel such rate-payer to employ the pauper; as if a master was to be obliged to take a servant, whether he wanted him or no; and to take a servant, not of his own choice, but of his neighbours, to say nothing about treating the pauper as a slave. I, therefore, cannot be without apprehension that any such enabling bill may be perverted to this purpose, or to establish