The National Register.
London, England, 1819-04-12 00:00:00

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Our ding, ittminitution 410 RAW.

MONDAY, APRIL 12, 1819

and that a country with millions of acres of im.
provettb'e Land totally waste, and millions more but
miserably cultivated, and producing not one half of
what might by additional labour and additional ea-
pint' be drawn from them, can never justly cora-
plaits of Nino too thickly peopled. And we fur.
titer observe, that the very same oomiliiielemiseditst•
dent population, which t,are now so prevalen were
made quite as strongly, and with just as much rea-
son, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when our
population scarcely amounted to hull its present
trtrebers. It is not here, then, that the seat of the
disease is placed, nor here that the remedy should be
applied. The fact Is, that three powerful engines
have been long at work undermining the fabric, and
unhinging the frame of society amongst us. These
arc, first, an oppressive taxation, which renders the
earnings of industry of but little comparative value
as the representative of provision to the poor, and
e4ually cripples the means of employment and bene-
volence on the part of others. Secondly, an unna-
'haul paper currency which, supported by the Bank
Restriction, acknowledges no other limit than the
extent of credit or demand, violates the first and
I only prieciple which can or give or maintain the
proper value of a circulat medium, and, by thus
becoming the source of that rapid depreciation of
money which loaves erety thing behind it in Its
progress, throws the whole system of what used to
be the relative proportions of prices and commodities,
of moans nod of expeadft** law complete disor-
der. Labour, and partiaaleeffsgrieultural labour,
must necessarily fellow at a very slow rate, the mug.
mentation in the price of provisions, and the poor
husbandman, whose labour is the only thing he deals
in, is at once disabled from struggling against a
torrent that sweeps away his means, his indepen-
dence, and his spirit together, and leaves behind it
nothing but a miserable wreck of hopelessness and
despair, the parent of apathy, indolence, and vice,
it is a fact which will both illustrate and confirm
the argumeet we are now pursuing, that for a con-
siderable time Stier the discovery of the silver mines
in Am. rice, the unusual influx of the precious metals
into Europe caused a distress the very same in cha.
lacter, though not in degree, to that under which
we are now groaning. The excess of 'diver operated
then, as the excess of paper, with many super-added
aggravations, dots now; and it is not a little curious
to observe, that out of this very circumstance sprung
the Act of Elizabeth, which laid the great Ihunda.
tion for our present ruinous system of parochial
relief—The last great engine Is the eternal, and
often perfectly tv,ectat., interference of magistrates
with the management of the poor. In a very large
portion of the country parish relief, under the name
of meal money, is uniformly insi.ted upon by the
overseers, without any reference whatever either to
character, to circumstances, or to those means of
subsistence which ingenuity or industry would have
provided, and a substitute is thus eateblished (hz
what nature ordained, and the good of society del
mends, should be the fruits of individual tail, Prue
deuce, anti economy. But upon this head we.sitaq
dwell no longer; the Report of the Hnoae 94 Cons,
mons is full and satisflonory upon it, and on apprit
priate remedy will, we trust, be arlopted. If, the
the premises here La down be ke* the inguosil is i