The National Register.
London, England, 1816-08-12 00:00:00

Vt

No. 444.—V0L. IX.

POLI'I7C,'AI, 1)ISQU1SITIO

ON THE PRESENT PUBLIC DISTRESS.
lt.neeolenee is the zrea test luxury ; and !he c-n.' man, after
all, is the 4i•intine epicure.' L'i•hop Hun N r..

WE have not hitherto been over anxious to advert to the
distressed situation of the country, in the hope that, 'ere
this time, we should have realized that opinion which
affirmed that the distress was temporary ; and that
our sufferings would now be mentioned only as a tate
of past times ; but we find ourselves, after a year's
tranquillity, still emlrarrassed, and suth2ring in a mea-
sure exceeding the fears of our warmest friends, and the
hopes of the bitterest of our enemies.
That after a war of protracted duration, in which our
armaments and exertions have been unexampled, we should
at first find it difficult to twover ourselves, is not sur-
prizing ; but no one could have foreseen that our corn-
mere;., would have been envied, and our marmf:ictures
excluded, by our Allies. We were told, that Russia had
entered into the war against the late Usurper of France,
because she was disgusted at his enmity to our trade, in
what was termed the continental system ; because she
wouhl not consent to sn hos•ile a measure, even thou.rli
at wa: with us: but the Oppressor has disappeared, and
his continental system is no long cr heard of; and' yet
the polieyof it is adopted spontancously by Russia ; and the
system is revived under another name, by an Emperor
whom we regarded as the came of its ruin. NVe are in-
farmed, that by tho late Tara our trade with Russia is
almost annihilated.

The American trade too, for some reason, perhaps dig-
talnilar in its nature, but equally operative, is almost ru-
ined. Ships are continually sailing to the United
States from our ports; but they carry wthing hence but
our emigrating countrymen.
Repeated failures have now clamped the ardour of spe-
culation, and utterly extinguished the daring spirit of
commercial enterprise which employed the wealth of the
rich, and the labour of the poor. By the finning-offing-of of
car trade with the Cont inent, our Sheffield manufacturers
no longer require the usual quantity of iron; or the ac-
cusamed supply of coals. To this we trace the suspen-
sion of the iron-works at Bilston, Re. and the severe dis-
tresses of our collie: s. There is no one branch of trade
which has ma, either in a lesser or greater degree, par-
taken of the general suffering.
Such, then, being the state of our trade, our labourers
are without employment, aid eonscquently without
means of support. By those heart-rending, but by no
means exaggerated accounts which we published in our
last, it appears, that the humane and just provision of the '
English laws, by which the indigent arc to be relieved in
their necessities from the estates of the rich, is found in
many places inefficient ; it appears, that the distress is so
general, and so severe, that it is impossible to carry into
effect measures which (whatever may be said of their '
policy) have been always sufficient to supply the poor
with bread. In the accounts to which we have alluded,
it is said, the parishes can neither find employment nor
tood tbr their poor.
_ _

This state of thinzs certainly calls loudly upon the Le-
gislature fur some permanent redress, and upon the pub-
lic individually for some present relief. The Legislature
Will enter into some regulations, beyond all doubt, by
which the expenditure may be retrenched, and the
taxes materially lessened; by the slowly-working effects
of these the distress may be gradually alleviated. But
the benevolence of individuals is calculated, on many ac-
counts, to gibe a more speedy relief than any enactments
of the Legislature can possibly all;nd. It is this, there-
fore, to which, as an inexhaustible fund, the poor look up,
claiming for Englishmen that liberality whose benefite-
tions have gladdened at different periods above half the
nations of Ennope. The only purpose to which the pro-
ceeds of private munificence should be applied, is inae-
(bate relief. There was never any time, perhaps, when
this old was so easily attainable as it is at the pre mat,