The National Register.
London, England, 1816-09-30 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER.

arislies, farmers employ all that want work, paying Yuper-
it.6 less than the wages of the regular or constant men.
B this means, the bad effects of idleness are prevented, and
the rates kept from any great increase. In other p.u•ishes,
farmers take a certain nuoilier of these Mg patilimeraries. on
the requisition of the overseer, accordion' to the .atilig of the
farmer, pet-hap/I our man for every 40, 30, or 20 pounds, and
for each man Gs. a week for his work. It' the labourer has a
family, he receives sufficient out of the poor i.ltes to maintain
them, and in the following proportion :—For his wife only,
about Is.; if one child, .2-.; two children, 3.. 1;d.; three chit.
dren, 5%. Of.; four children, tis. oil.; and so on. This has
been done by the advice, and under the direction of the Ma-
gistrates, who have entered into minute estimates, calculation.,
and enquiries, on the points that lone led them to a pretty full
acquaintance svith the situation of the labouring class. You
can easily imagine the t,,teirit 4.f magisterial into ;Terence in
these matters of recent °evil rretive. I speak in respect of the
neighbourhood of W !bridge. I believe very great benefit
to have arisen to all classes trout this interference•. But lam
running into too tedious a detail. Inability to pay lent and
their current expellees, are other eireamstances denoting the
distress of the farmers, who still hold their ground. Instead
of riding, they walk to market, where within short dist:lures;
instead of dining at their clubs at their different inns, many of
them go home to dinner. ►do not • this as a distres.sing
part, only as denoting a feeling of the times. Few of those
who do remain to diun drink wine, as they almost all did,
until lately. This is no great hardship, nor that their daugh-
ters conic no longer to the milliners or dancing-masters, etc.
who have thus lust by their best customers. Even gentlemen
of comfortable incomes (say 60111 one to two or three thousand
a year) depending on the rents and profits of land, are unable
to pay their tradesman's hills. A uu•dical man, in great prac-
tice, instead of receiving 3001. from the neighbouring farmers,
as lie usually does, on account of his hills, at Christmas, did
not this year recelse 241. ii. short, the pressure is very great.
I give it as my opinion, not farmed hastily, but necessarily
somewhat vaguely, that it' the farmers of Suffolk had, for the
last year,
,their farms rent free, they would not have made
any money of them. Labour, taxes, tvtlie, and tradesmen's
hills, would, I think, have absorbed the whole produce. I
farm 150 acres of my own; it is a highly improved little farm,
that I estimate at 3001. a year rent (it would have let for more
three years ago), and 1091. fur interest of capital employed.
The produce of the year coding last Michaelmas was 1501. less
titan my outgoings, and I go pretty closely to work. Perhaps
501. may have been expeuded in dm' ' g and permanent im-
provements; still I cannot reckon my loss at less than 5001.
however, I do not offer as an approximation to the
average result of the loss of farmers, and I cannot easily ac-
count how I happened to be so much out of pocket; for the
year before last I got 3001. over my yearly expences, and the
year before upwards of 5001. It thus appears to me, that such
of us as have capital are living on It; those who have not (or
credit, which conies to the same thing) must sink. Those
who were rich are virtually bankrupts; those who were poor
are paupers.

W. CHAPLIN.—There is a general distress among the far-
mers, owing to the low price of corn. lam quite sure the
taxes, rates, 11/4e. will not be paid fur the time to come, without
a distress being made upon their stock for the payment. 1
believe the depression on stock is much the same now as on
corn : 1 myse•lt keep 590 ewes : in Augnst 1813, I sold my
lambs for 265. 6d. each; in 1814, for 21s. each; and in 1913,
for only 17s. The two last years they were not interior to the
first.

JOHN HAYWARD.—The different failures of merchants, mil-
lerv, butchers, Sze. are. ; also the great loss that arises from
putting off business by ties low price that live and dead Mock,
implements, and every other :wade are now selling ; so that I
consider, if a man gives up his feria, he loses two-thirds of his
property ; and if lie keeps it on at the present low price of corn,
'tis very probable lie will lose the whole.

ItosERT Fta.Lert.—Tbe country suffers beyond all possible
calculation, as there seems to be almost a total stop to the cir-
culation of paper and specie. Labourers have nothing to do ;
and I consider, and am owe, that if the poor laws are not revised
very soon, that the country cannot be at peace long : for, if
the labouring hands are out of employ, they will assemble to-
gether, and lay plans to deceive the Magistrate, the church-
wardens and overseers, which is daily the case already here.
The poor .know the farmers to be without money, or we should
not be in peace now.
ll.—Causes.

DR. M. MACQUEEN.-01 the various evils that combine
against the agricultural interest, tithes end poor-rates, as these
are now constituted, appear to me to have the moat extensive
operation, far more than the Income tax, or perhaps the whole
War-taxes together. Tithes should never be paid by the far-
mer: they operate as a discouragement to his industry and en-
terprise, and are a constant source of ill-will towards the Clergy,
and the Established Church in general, especially in the many
instances where they are gathered for the benefit of some rich
Dignitary, or other man of rank, whom the parishioners never
see nor hear. In regard to the poor-rates, I always view these
as coupled with the Idleness and depravity of the working
classes. And on this subject I would observe, that the morals,
as well as manners, of the lower orders of the community here,
hare been degenerating since the earliest ages of the 'French
Revolution. The doctrine of equality, and the Rights of Man
is not yet forgotten, but fondly cherished, and reluctantly
abandoned. They consider their respective parishes as their
right an,: inheritance, to which they are entitled to resort, under
every real and imaginary grievance, however it may have been
ineorre'd ; and if their request be not granted, they Ay to the
next Magistrate, who- is frequently the Parson of the parish,
and obtain an order to the Overseers. Hence they are become
cureless and improvident, negligent us to their labour, and im-
patient of routs-out :of their earning too, a large proportion is
spent at the ale-house, a misconduct for which they deem
themselves accountable to no authority. To obtiiate this coin-
plicateL mischief; Saving Ranks should be encouraged; the
lc
latidlirs themselves, and the princii,al farm rs, ought to be w
Members of such Institutions, by ay of girl' them 'mom-
rageinent. The Magistrates should be 11101 P unwrous, and
armed with mneh more power than they hold ander the exist-
ing laws. The poor and labouring man should be taught to
depend taietly on himself, on his industry, sobriety, and good
behaviour, and to expect relief only in cases wherein the dis.
tress was urgent and manifest, add proceeding from causes
that are natund and inevitable. Hence would. follow all ame-
lioration of their conduct amtemnforts, togeffier with a dimi-
nution of the intolerable contributions that are now levied for
their support. Connected with the MOMS and conditions of
the lower orders, I would remark on the great number of ale-
bowies in every part of the country, the common resort of the
men when the liminess of the day is ekred. These houses are
now almost all bought up by the neighbouriog brewers, who
place in them trusty Sii rants to sell their sophisticated compo-
sitions, a soft liptorisb, iatoxicattog liquor, extracted Ism