The National Register.
London, England, 1817-08-11 00:00:00

'4l° r.t itittr+

Our thug, Coniftitution anti it AWL,

MONDAY, AUGUST 11,

The above will, we think be allowed M be a more
rational cause of the increase, than say of those
which the political theorists have given us. Indeed it
appears to be the only one, that can with any degree
of reason be assigned ; and this involves the question,
whether our manufactories, curried o the hight which
they have been, are not a greater evil than a good.
On this subject we will give an extract from a very
sensible work published a few years ago entitled " Em-
priella's Letters."
" Two causes, and only two, will rouse a peasantry to rebellion ;
intollerable oppression, or religious zeal either fur the right faith or
the wrong ;no other motive is powerful enough. A manufacturing
poor is more easily instigated to revolt. They have no local attach-
ments ; the persons to whom they look up for support. they regard
more with envy than respect, as men who grow rich by their labour;
they know enough of what is passing in the political world to think
themselves politicians ; they feel-the whole burthen ei taxation, which
is not the case with the peasant. because he raises a peat part of his
own food; they are aware of their own numbers, and the moral feel-
ings which in the peasant are only blunted, are in these men debauch.
ed. A manufacturing populace is always ripe for rioting; the direc-
tion which this fury may take is accidental. In 1780 it ran against
the Catholics; in 1790 against the dissenters. Governments who
found their prosperity upon manufactures shrap upon gunpowder.
" Do I then think," continues the writer. " that England is in
danger of revolution? If the manufacturing system continues to be
extended, increasing, as it necessarily does increase, the number, the
misery, and the depravity of the poor, T believe that revolutiim inevit-
ably mutt come, and in its most fearful shape. That system. if it
continues to increase, will more effectually tend to rmn F.righind
than all the might and all the machinations of her enemies, were
they ten times more formidable than they are. It communicates
,just knowledge enough to the populace to make them dangerous. and
it poisons their moral's. 'rite temper of the mob has been manifested
at the death of Despard, and there is no reason to suppose that it is
not the same in all other great towns as in London. It will be well
for England when her cities shall decrease, and her villages multiply
and grow; when there shall be fewer streets and more cottages. The
tendency of the present system is to convert the peasantry into poor;
her policy should be to reverse this, and to convert the paw into pea-
santry; to increase them and to enlighten them ; for their numbers
are the strength, and their knowledge is the security of states."

Having pointed out, what in the opinion of the Com-
mittee is the cause of the present evil, the Report pro-
ceeds to detail the various modes which had been adopt-
ed in various parts of the kingdom to meliorate the dis-
tres3 consequent upon such a change.
;lan the course of the evidence many details are enumera-
ted of the actual amount and comparative Mereate of the rates
in different places and at different periods t and information
has been also collected of the manner us which relief is given
and of the description of persons who partake of it in diff.
erent parts of the kingdom. In many parishes a system has
been adopted, in consegnence of the decrease in the demand
for work, of employing labonren in rotation amongst the Car.
mers ; and in some places this practice has beenearried to
such an extent, that fewer regular labourers have been em-
ployed than the necessary worksin husbandry would have re-
quired Upon ear h 6rm : those works having been performed by
( what are called) roundsmen, at less them the usual rate of
wanes. Wherever superfluous labourers have been employs
ed in works, nut of absolute necessity lint which have been
undertaken and executed by individuals for the sail. of afford-
ing relief and tarnishing, employment to those who could not
otherwise have obtained it, this practice must have afforded
an important though temporary relief; but is the ease refer-
red to, as stated in the evidence, the effect oldie system of
roundsusen has been to throw upon the general rates of pa
riches in which the system has prevailed, in time most direct
and obvious manner, a very considerable proportion of. he
wages of that labour, the charge of which ought to have oi:en
defrayed by the individuals for whom it was performed-
" The Committee have also observed, in the emirs(' of
their enquiry, that a practice which appears to have com-
menced at the period of scarcity in the sear 1753, and which
was continued in the years WO and lAA. of making up to
labourers with families the insufficiency of their simnel wazes
by aid from the pour rates, has been eeI:MA.IIY continued
in Many parts of the kiagdom; a practice which, though it
may have prevented for souse time the raising the direct
prier of Labour, has been to a certain decree alt ended with
the injurious ctlect of taxing those who have ail interest in
it with a proportion of the es pence."
_

We are not a little surprised that their Lordships
should have confined themselves to harcly psiinting out
the pecuniary evil resulting from this practice. For this
we conceive, in a moral point of view, to have been the
greatest promoter of the evil. 'lie Agriculturists, in
the years alluded to, particularly in the two last of them,
were the most opulent of all the classes of Society ;
' the example of their labourers lw:teg thitipald, there-
fore, could not but have the worst effect:Awn those less,
fortunately situated, and the poor, generally, seeing the
labourers of the most wealthy, degruled to the state Of •
paupers, could have little difficulty in onquering their
aversion to a mule of life, which they had hitherto
been taught to consider as disgraceful. Thus was the
spirit of the peasantry at once broken down ; and front
dependance upon parish bounty to plunder of private

PRICE 9.1 A

property, was an easy and palpable transition. Of the
moral evil resulting from the system, the Lords, indeed,.
appear to be aware, feom an observation made in another
part of the Report.
_

" The great increase in the amount of the rate' of late
years, has arisen not only from the 4311011(.1 which have been
enumerated, but from the general dopositilo to resort to-
that spvciet of inaintainance on account of the facility with.
which it has been frequently obtained; which has testier!
to weaken amongst the poor that disposition to evOuosw.
which formerly existed its many parts of the country, and
which it is highly desirable on iscrottur of their comfort and
independence, to encourage and yevive."
To this succeeds, in the Report, tte opinion of the
Committee on the best mode of improving the present
system, though, as they express themselves, " the ad.
vanced period of the Session will, of course, preclude
the possibility of any immediate alteration in the pre.
sent laws."

Not least among the evils of the present system is
the law of settlement. By it parishes are involved its
continual lawsuits, and frequently the aged and infirm
are removed front the spot where the days of their vig-
our have been spent, to some remote district where they
had obtained an accidental claim ; cut off for ever from
that little society in which they were known, and cast
among men the remembrance of whom time had ob-
liberated.

"The Committee, therefore, submit to the consideration of
the House. whether it might not not lie expedient to provide
that evely person residing for three y ears in any parish with-
mit being chargeable (and who hue been employed during the
above period in the said pal ish \ shall obtain a settlement ; ea
that, in case that mode of settlement should be adopted after
a time to he fixed, no person shall acquire. a settlement by
hiring and service, or by apprenticeship; and the Committee
think they may sa*ly reeominettil that no settlement shall be
acquired in any parish by renting a tenement, unless it shall
consist of a house or land, or of an house with land, and shall
Ire held tinder one landlord and in the sante perish, at an annal
bona fait rent of twenty pounds, and for; not less than one
year."
" The committee likewise submit, pastienlarly from the
evidence which they received from Manchester and Binning-
hem, that a power slued(' be given to remove velum* be-
longing to counties not within the operat. of the pour laws,
whoskall be chargeabk to anvparish, to their respect's e homes.
It hue also appeared t 3 the Committee, that great advantage
would arise, particularly in large parisln:s, from the appoint-
ment of perniament overseers and surveyors of the highways,
with salaries, and from the union of email parishes for a si-
milar purpose, amid that it is adviseable to give a power to
parishes, in certain eases, to occupy land with a view to the
employment of the puor."
- - -

To these salutary suggestions they add that of pa-
rishes making periodical returns to the Magistrates of
Counties, containing an account of the actual state of
the purishts, and the receipts anti disbursements of mo-
ney on account of the Poor; which returns they sug-
gest should be regularly preserved, and be open for in-
spection. _ .

The general adoptice of Savings Banls is strongly
recommended, as like:y to produce that sli'rit of enter-
prise and independence, which alone will render the
poor superior to the acceptance of parish relief: and in
conclusion they urge all persons of :eight and conse.
quence in their respective districts to watch over the
administration of the laws relative to ths poor, and by
example and direct interference to improve the general
management of those around them : by these means
much may be done until some legislative measure can
be matured, which it is hoped will be early in the next
Session.

The Emperor of Russia is about to introduce, fur
his domestics, liveries similar to those bf the Prince
Regent, with the variation of dark green cloth instead
of dark blue, with which our royal liveries are faced
and turned up. Suits are now making for two Eng-
lish lads, who have been training daily for about two
months past, at Carlton House Stables, under the di-
rection of the Prince Regent's principal coachman and
others, to learn to ride and drive properly; and when
they are in eNery respect thoroughly qualified to under-
take the management of horses, they will leave En-
I land for St. Petersburgh, taking with them thaler their
I, care certain choice and valuable horses which were*
purchased by the Grand Duke during his stay here.—
' His Imperial Majesty. is having Petersburgh paved in
a similar style to the streets of London.