An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations Part 40

It is impossible to tax the people of a nation so highly, as they can all bear, because, before some will feel, others will be crushed; before the bachelor feels the tax, the father of a large family is obliged to starve his innocent offspring. Before he who has only two children feels the hard pressure, the family of twelve will be reduced to want; and so in proportion. The mode, then, to raise the most money possible, would be to tax the whole nearly as high as the bachelor can bear, and then to give a drawback in favour of the man with the children, they would then be on a perfect equality as to taxation, and the highest sum possible might be raised without hurting any one portion of the people more than another.

If the links of a chain are not all equally strong, before any strain is felt by the strong links the weak ones give way, and the chain is broken. The case is the same with the members of a community. Now, when you lay on taxes, the general tendency is to raise the price of food and labour; most labourers receive the advantage of the price of labour, but many pay unequally for the rise of food.

A tax on the wealthy, it will be said, is the thing proposed, but no, that would do nothing, it must be a premium or drawback to men with families who are poor, not merely to counteract the effect of any one tax, but the total effect of taxation with respect to maintaining their children. Wide, indeed, is the difference between a tax on those who are well able to pay, and a premium or drawback in favour of those who are not.

The manner of providing for the poor in England leads to a degree

{195} Probably, the reason that so small a sum serves the purpose in Scotland is, that relief is administered to the families, at their own houses, by the minister and elders of the parish. It is a rare instance of an administration, without emoluments and without controul. The funds are distributed with clean hands, in all cases, and impartially in most.

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of wastefulness and improvidence unknown in any other country.

Improvidence ought as much as possible to be discouraged; for, with those who labour hard and are indigent, the desire to gratify some pressing want, or present appet.i.te, is continually uppermost. This may be termed the war between the belly and the back, in which the former is generally the conqueror. It would be a small evil if this victory were decided seldom, as in other countries, but in the great towns of England there is as it were a continual state of hostility. In London, the battle is fought, on an average, at least, once a week; and idleness, and the profits of those sort of petty usurers, called p.a.w.nbrokers, are greatly promoted by it.

Some part of this evil cannot, perhaps, be remedied, but there are certain articles that ought not to be taken in pledge, such as the clothes of young children and working tools. {196}

There is no doubt but, that, in a populous inhospitable trading town, where there is no means of obtaining aid, from friends.h.i.+p, where the want is sometimes extreme, the resource of pledging is a necessary one. This is to be admitted in the degree, but by no means without limitation; for the facility creates the want, (even when it is a real want) for it brings on improvidence and carelessness. The lower cla.s.ses come to consider their apparel as money, only that it requires changing before it is quite current. {197}

If this matter were well looked into, together with the other causes from which mendicity proceeds, which increases so rapidly, we should

{196} In Scripture it is forbidden to pledge the upper or the nether mill-stone. This is a proof, of very great antiquity, and indisputable authority, of the care taken to prevent that sort of improvidence that hurts the general interest of a people. It should be imitated in this country with regard, to all portable implements of labour, such as mill-stones were in those early times.

{197} In Scotland, twenty years ago, there were not so many p.a.w.nbrokers as there are in Brentford, or any little village round London. In Paris, as debauched a town as London, and where charity was as little to be expected, there was only one lending company, the profits of which, after dividing six per cent., went to the Foundling Hospital. It was, as in London, a resource in cases of necessity, but there was too much trouble to run it on every trifling occasion, as is done in London, and, indeed, in most towns in England.

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soon perceive a diminution of the poors' rates, and the wealthiest country of Europe would not exhibit the greatest and most multiplied scenes of misery and distress.

The numbers of children left in indigence, by their parents, would be comparatively lower, and there would not be that waste in the administration of the funds on which they are supported.

There is, probably, no means of greatly diminis.h.i.+ng the number of helpless poor, but by an encouragement to lay up in the hour of health an abundance to supply the wants of feebleness and age, but this might go a great way to diminis.h.i.+ng the evil. All persons who have places under government, of whatever nature, ought to be compelled to subscribe to such inst.i.tutions; this would be doing the individuals, as well as the community, a real service, and would go a great way to the counteracting of the evil. {198} Preventatives are first to be applied, and after those have operated as far as may be, remedies.

The poor, &c. to whose maintenance 5,500,000 L. a year goes, (a sum greater than the revenues of any second rate monarchy in Europe,) may be divided into three cla.s.ses:

First, Those who by proper means might be prevented from wanting aid.

Second, Those who, for various reasons, cannot get a living in the regular way, but might, with a little aid, either maintain themselves, or nearly so; and,

Third, Those who, from inability, extreme age, tender youth, or bodily disease, are unable to do any thing, and must be supported at the public expense. n.o.body will dispute that there are of all those descriptions maintained at pressnt =sic=; and, therefore, all that can create a difference of opinion is about the proportions between the three.

It is probable that one-half, at least, could maintain, or nearly

{198} The widows scheme, as it is called in Scotland, for the aid of the widows and children of clergymen, is a most excellent inst.i.tution; it has been attended with the best effects, both on individual happiness and national prosperity so far as it goes. The plan is such as might, with very little variation, be applied to all the officers of the revenue, clerks in office, &c. &c.

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maintain, themselves; one-quarter might be prevented from ever requiring any aid at all; and the other quarter would be a.s.sisted as at present.

This would reduce the expenses to less than one-third, and, probably, to one-quarter of what they are now; that is, of 5,500,000 L. there would be a saving of 3,500,000 L. but that is not all, for the national industry would be augmented by 2,000,000 L. and more; that is to say, by the industry of the half that maintained themselves, so that the nation would gain partly in money saved, and partly in money got, 5,500,000 L.

According to the true spirit of the English nation, in which there is a great fund of generosity and goodness at the bottom, it may perhaps be said, that the poor are not able to labour at all, and, that the plan would not answer. This is but a rough manner of answering a proposal, which neither is in reality, nor is meant to be, void of humanity. There were, by last years =sic= accounts, nearly 900,000 persons of one sort and another maintained or relieved, which does not make above six pounds a year for each person, now, where is there a person that can work at all, that cannot earn above four-pence a day in England? {199}

The plan for remedying this abuse ought to be very simple, for it will be administered by such ignorant and rough directors, that, if it is not simple, it must fail entirely.

{199} It would be foreign to the plan of this Inquiry to enter into the details of the poor persons, and shew the absurdity of the management; but, it is very evident, from those that are printed, that they get no work to do, the quant.i.ty of materials delivered to them to work upon will not admit of earning money to maintain themselves.

The following is a specimen of the attention given to this subject, and the means taken to enable the poor to pay for their maintenance, by their labour. In Middles.e.x, where the expense amounted, in 1803, to 123,700 L. or about 340 L. a day, the sum expended to buy materials amounted to no more than 4L.1s.11d. !!! It is impossible to comprehend how this capital stock could be distributed amongst above ten thousand labourers. It is not very easy to conceive the impertinence of those who presented this item, as a statement to the House of Commons, which would have done well to have committed to the custody of the sergeant-at-mace, the persons who so grossly insulted it. One thing, however, is very easily understood and collected from all this. The business altogether is conducted with ignorance, and executed carelessly and negligently, and that to an extreme and shameful degree.

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To have a good surgeon or physician is essential; and those who would not work, and who were able, should have the same allowance that a prisoner has in a jail; but those who would work should be paid a fair price, and allowed to lay out the money, to h.o.a.rd it, or do as they please, except drinking to excess. [{200}]

Though many for want of vigour are refused employment in a workshop, some for want of character, and others for various reasons, become burthensome, yet there are not a few, who, from mere laziness, throw themselves upon the parish, where they live a careless life, free from hunger, cold, and labour. When the mind is once reconciled to this situation, the temptation is considerable, and there are many of those poor people, who will boast that the have themselves been overseers, and paid their share to the expenses.

Whatever evil is found to have a tendency to increase with the wealth of a nation ought, most carefully, to be kept under; and this is one not of the least formidable, and, of all others, most evidently arising from bad management and want of attention.

It would be necessary to have all sorts of employment, that the persons in such places can, with advantage, be occupied in doing, and a small allowance should be made to defray general expenses; amongst which, ought to be that of surveyors of districts, who should, like those employed by the excise-office, inspect into the state of the different poor-houses, and the whole should be reported, in a proper and regular manner, to the government of the country, from time to time.

Those little paltry parish democracies that tax one part of the people, and maltreat the other, ought to be under some proper con-

{200} [Transcriber's note: a.s.sumed location--footnote not a.s.signed a place in the text.]

The system, in England, of only employing people in the vigour of life is a source of much mischief, and is an increasing evil, which government, the East India company, and all the public bodies, are encouraging. Men are treated in this instance exactly like horses. They are worked hard and well rewarded in their vigour; but, in so wealthy a county =sic= as this, those occupied in commerce, and men in power, will not be troubled with any but such as can do their business with little trouble to the master. They do not consider what mischief they are preparing for their country. Shenstone, the poet, seems to have thought of this when he says, in a case of woe:

"But power and wealth's unvarying cheek was dry."

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troul; and the happiness and prosperity of England should not be left at their mercy.

In a country where every thing is done with such admirable accuracy in the revenue-department, as England, it would be useless to attempt pointing out the manner of executing the plan; it is sufficient to shew its practicability and the necessity of attending to it.

If, in the first instance, the advantage would be such as is here mentioned, it would, in a few years, be much greater, particularly in so far as fewer families would be left in a state of indigence; for, it is clear, that such families are a continual enc.u.mbrance on the rising generation, and tend to the diminution of the general ma.s.s of useful citizens.

If it should so happen, that taxes augment, or that trade falls off, (both of which may very likely happen,) then the interference of government may become a matter of absolute necessity; but then, perhaps, it may be too late. It would be much better if government would interfere, before the evil is actually come to the highest pitch.

The parishes might, perhaps, look with jealousy on an interference of this sort, as being an infringement on their rights; for Englishmen are sometimes very tenacious of privileges that are highly pernicious to themselves. This difficulty, (for it probably would be one,) might be got over, by previously establis.h.i.+ng inspectors in the different bishop's sees, who should be obliged to render an account to the bishop, to be communicated to government, by which means, the evil would either be removed, or its existence ascertained, so as to answer the complaints that might be made, and thereby prevent all discontent on the subject.

Without being able to say what might absolutely be the best remedy, it is, at least, fair to ask the question, whether it is fit that the administration of 5,500,000 L. a year should be intrusted to the hands of ignorant men? It may likewise be asked, if the feelings of the necessitous ranks of society (as keen in many instances as those of their betters,) should be wounded by men, who have not sufficient knowledge of any sort to act with the humanity necessary. The candidates for popular favour, amongst the lower housekeepers, are generally flattering, fauning =sic=, cringing men, and such are almost without exception, cunning, ignorant, and overbearing, wherever they have the least [end of page #255] authority over others. Such, in general, are the parish-officers, to whose care this important affair is committed.

Though this is an inst.i.tution almost on the purely democratic principle of equal representation, it is a very bad specimen of that mode of government. The shameful lawsuits between parishes, about paupers, the disgraceful and barbarous treatment of women, who have been betrayed and abandoned, admit of no excuse. They are not productive even of gain or economy. Amongst some tribes of savage Indians, the aged and helpless are put to death, that they may not remain a burthen on those who are able and in health; and it is equally true, that, in England, the young innocents, who have not parents to protect them, are considered as a burthen; and, if they are not absolutely sent out of the world, the means necessary to preserve them in it are very inadequate to the purpose. If criminality could be engraved on a graduated scale, their deaths ought in general to be written down at some intermediate point between accidental homicide and wilful murder. The persecution of this unfortunate race may be said to commence before they are born; and, though the strength of a nation depends much on its population, less care is taken to encourage it, than to produce mushrooms, or to preserve hares and partridges.