sound and enlightened policy, to supply the means of maintaining an industrious population, than a standing army!! The money would be better employed in giving the amount to the same number of men, or the same identical men in useful and public undertakings, than to men who are soldiers merely in name. The great public works of the Romans were in all probability performed by the Roman soldiers when they were not engaged in the active services of war. But the employment of soldiers, as soldiers, even in public works, would be a death-blow to the constitution of this country; a standing army of the very worst description. But it is not necessary to resort to parliament to find means for the employment of the poor. An ample fund is ready for the purpose, even without the aid of those various charities which are shamefully misapplied, and might be usefully appropriated to this great work of charity. This fund for employment, is the poor-rate itself!! "The poor-rate some will exclaim. "It is already too much burthened it is the evil of which complaint is made. To increase the poor-rate is to add to the evil, not to alleviate it; still less to remedy it !"

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First impressions are often erroneous. In common with others laboring in the same vineyard, the object of the writer of these observations is to diminish the poor-rate gradually, and, in the progress, to make that rate the means of exciting and employing. industry, and to keep pauperism within the bounds of true charity; to leave none but the objects of the statute of Elizabeth a burthen on the poor-rate; to make all others who resort to that fund laborers for the public, and by their services to earn for the public the value of the money which the public shall expend on their labor.

Another and not the least important part of the plan, is to bring the idle, or those who look to the poor-rate as their property, into a condition to choose employment, rather than have it prescribed to them; to bargain for their labor, rather than to be dependent, and to have the price of their labor (since labor will be necessary) fixed by others. It is hoped and believed that the system would, at a period not far distant, leave the poor-rate without any other pensioners or claimants on the fund, than those who of necessity are proper objects of charity, and must be a burden on some fund; and none can perhaps be found more just than the poor-rate, after some modifications which should bring contributions from those who have the ability to assist in this work of charity. Whoever offers any plan for the alteration of a system, is in justice to the publie bound to give a general outline of that plan, so far as to prove that the plan is feasible; that it is practicable; and that it is not exposed to the danger of innovation, and of becoming an evil greater than that which it proposes to remedy.

The first part of the plan is to declare, and consequently enact, that the poor-rate has attained its maximum.

From this declaration there is expected the incalculable benefit of awakening the lower classes of the community to a sense of their condition, with a conviction, that the law opposes a systematic reliance on the poor-rate. It will teach them, that their industry is their property, their patrimony; that their independence, and even their subsistence, depend on their own exertions; that the system admits of no increase; that all the objects fastening themselves on the poor-rate cannot have more than a participation of this fund; that an increase in the number of paupers drawing their subsistence from the poor-rate must diminish the proportion of each pauper, and even were the rate to continue at its present enormous amount, an increase in the number of paupers would, like the increase of rats or mice in a baro, render that supply, which was abundant for a few, an insufficient store for many; that wretchedness and want must from necessity be the portion of those who had neglected to form habits of industry, and had foolishly calculated to eat the bread of idleness; bread designed for those only who are, or for them when they shall become, objects of a judicious and wholesome charity, which reserves in the shape of the tax levied under the name of poor-rate, the surplus earnings of industry or the abundance of wealth, for those alone who are the sick, the lame, the aged, and impotent; who were the proper and legitimate objects of charity, those for whom alone the statute of Elizabeth meant to provide, and in an especial manner for those who, by their labor and industry in their youth and in the vigor of health, have a claim to be supported in their old age and infirmity, by a generous and liberal public, who have profited by their labor, their industry, and also by their example.

The second part of the plan is to declare and enact, that in effect the poor-rate has attained an alarming magnitude, and ought to be gradually diminished. The excess in the poor-rate is supposed to be sixty per cent., or an increase from four millions, taken at a very large and liberal allowance for all the wants of charity, to ten millions annually.

To diminish the rate at once, would be productive of incalculable misery; would effect too sudden a change of system; would increase instead of diminishing distress; would excite rather than discourage pauperism; would multiply rather than reduce the number of paupers,

It would cause a redundance of labor, a competition for employment, and its necessary attendant, a reduction in the value of labor and the just rate of wages; a mischief which cannot be too carefully avoided by those who wisely appreciate the real state of the country; or who have the means of tracing the real cause of a

very large proportion of pauperism to its actual and genuine source!! But by an enactment that the poor-rate shall be gradually reduced, the system of calling the attention of those who possess industry, to a correct view of their condition, will, in the most effectual manner, be promoted. Active, healthy persons, seeing that the poor-rate is diminished, and is, by positive law, to experience a progressive reduction, will be led to reflect, that the rate cannot contribute to support them in idleness; that there are objects who stand in priority to them, and whose claims are to be, and in justice ought to be, preferred to any they can urge. This reflection will produce a great moral effect, a gradual change of system. It will call industry into action; lead to habits of econo my; impress the duty of some savings to guard against accidents, the temporary suspension of employment, the day of necessity; and will induce a habit of economy and a spirit of independence. This change of system would enlist, and this is important and highly desirable, the parent against the child, in the great article of the necessity and morality of industry. Parents would be provident to guard their children against resort to a fund which would diminish the subsistence to which they the parents themselves were the first and rightful successors, if infirmity or accident should render them necessitous. The system would raise a spirit of pride, by making it a shame to children, able to earn their subsistence by means of labor, to partake of that loaf which was already, or would, at a period not far distant, be necessary for the support of their aged and helpless parents.

This spirit aided by the encouragement of individuals, by a liberal and judicious diffusion of knowledge among cottagers, &c.&c., of the means they possess of bettering their condition and increasing their comforts, would lead to the most useful and salutary results. It would gradually reduce, and ultimately annihilate the necessity of resorting to the poor-rate for relief, except in cases of actual necessity; except in those instances in which the relief would be requisite, and would be afforded and administered with cheerfulness, as a debt of justice to the individuals; as belonging to them by the provision of a just and wise law, and from that sense of duty which is implanted in the heart of man.

It is submitted, that the first enactment should be to the effect, that the average of the poor-rate of each parish during the last three years, should be taken as the maximum to be paid by that parish.

The regulations should be-That no parish, except by an order to be made by the Privy Council, or some other constituted authority, should at any time with the next twenty years contribute annually owards its poor-rate, more than the amount of that sum, or its amount under the reduced or graduated scale. That any offence in this particular should subject the offending parish to

the payment of a double rate, for the next three years; such increase to be added to that fund for the employment of labor, of which notice will afterwards be taken; and that the poor-rate of each parish should annually, in the next twenty years, be reduced in amount at the rate of at least three pounds on one hundred pounds in each year.

The first branch fixes the maximum; the second branch provides for the reduction by very easy steps. It contemplates, that at the end of twenty years the poor-rate should be brought back to about. four millions a year. It does not prescribe, nor is it meant to prescribe, that the poor-rate should be kept up to the maximum in the first year, or to the full amount of the graduated scale in the succeeding years.

Should circumstances admit, the rate may be reduced at an earlier period, and in a greater degree: and it is confidently expected, that it will graduate to a low scale much earlier than would occur to the minds of those who do not easily perceive how readily a change in system will produce its beneficial effects.

In particular districts, circumstances which cannot be easily defined, and which no human wisdom can foresee, or any general system prevent or control, may call for a relaxation of the law; and the Privy Council, or some other body, may be entrusted with the power of relaxing the law, when urgent necessity may require that it should not be enforced.

On the other hand, a departure from a law of policy ought to be visited with a penalty, to guard against similar offences, and make those who contravene the law examples of folly, and contributors towards the system in the like degree as they have defeated its operation, or attempted to impair or retard its effect.

The third part of the plan is to provide employment for industry...

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To withdraw the assistance of the poor-rate from men who, by habit or from necessity, have been led to depend on that rate for support, without finding them employment as the means of subsistence, would not be a just or humane regulation; perhaps, all things considered, it would not be a wise or politic enactment. There should be subjects for the employment of labor, and the means of paying for the employment of that labor. This labor should, from choice, be on subjects which do not call for the ordinary application of labor. The sources of new labor should be created, so that the created subjects may afford employment to the surplus labor of the country till that surplus labor shall be called into action for the ordinary and general occasions of society.

By withdrawing this surplus labor from ordinary demands, the labor which, during the period of war, was employed on these

subjects, would obtain a full and regular demand, at prices regulated by the change in the prices of the necessaries of life and the means of subsistence.

At a moderate computation, more than one-half of the poorrate is drawn by persons who are able to work and to earn a livelihood, but cannot find employment; or at least they cannot find employment on such terms as will supply the means of subsist

ence.

The persons who depend on the poor-rate by necessity for part of the means of support, quickly degenerate into paupers of the worst description; paupers who, hurled from the independence and honest satisfaction of living on the fruits of their own labor, as a just reward for their industry, feel that they are degraded; that they have lost their station in society; that they are no longer independent members of the state, but are pensioners on the poor

rate.

The transition in their mind is easy; they cannot be more than paupers, though they draw all their subsistence from that rate, or though they place their children in the parish workhouse.

The children, paupers from their birth or from their early youth, look to the poor-rate as a patrimony, a birth-right; they are children of the system, heirs in succession to this tax. With them, and in their minds, the tax is a property. Instead of shame in resorting to it, their very education leads them to this fund as an expectancy, as certain, as rightful, as the succession of a child to the inheritance of his ancestors.

Few can extricate themselves from the thraldom, the misery, the wretchedness of this system. Hence the increase, hence the vice of pauperism. The sentiments which lead to a dependence on, and to an expectation of the rate, is the very origin and cause of the evil to the poor themselves; foresight is abandoned, provision for the future neglected, and habits of idleness and a dependence on the poor-rate assume the place of habitual industry, of prudent economy. The pride of honest independence, the fear, the shame and disgrace of becoming pensioner on the poor-rate, give place to sloth, to wretchedness, and depravity.

Our ancestors, watching the temper of the times, felt the necessity of correcting the evil. They formed the system of work-houses, houses of industry, and of badges and it was a mistaken humanity which withdrew the power of marking those whose vices or idleness fastened them for support on the industry and even the subsistence of others.

Supposing the poor-rate to be ten millions; upwards of three millions are expended annually for the assistance or the support of families, who have a member in that family, capable of working and earning an honest livelihood, unless labor be reduced in value be