The Sun.
London, England, 1828-04-14 00:00:00

6PIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Mr. Cobbett w mid seem to have taken it into
his head that we have some idea of encroaching
on his monopoly of infallibility. One Pope in
the political world is quite sufficient at a time,
and we know of no man better entitled to the
Chair than Mr. Cobbett, for no man is more
thoroughly satisfied that it is impossible for him
ever to err. For our part, • a more extended ex-
perience has not unfrequently led us to change
or modify our opinions; and we never, from
any supposed necessity of appearing consistent,
make a show of supporting an opinion, when
we no longer sincerely entertain it. In the
following passage, which we extract from the
Register of Saturday, Mr. Cobbett reproaches
us under the title, for which we are indebted to
his courtesy, with having been fallible on a sub-
ject in which he was not :
" Now, Doctor, I directly accuse you, in the face
of the public, of being either the most inconsistent or
she dirtiest of writers; and this charge I make good
thus :—in 1823 (I think it was, for I hare not the
book before me), 1 said, and I repeated it several
times in print, that the only way to prevent occa-
sional starvation in Ireland; the only effectual way of
restoring that country to anything like a peaceable
and happy state, was-, to establish Poor Laws in
Ireland similar to those in England. I related, that
when the collectors for Irish relief came to my house
at Kensington, my ansWer was, I punctually and
&eel-folly pay rates for the relief of the poor of my
even parish—let Irish Gentlemen do the same, and
where would he no starvation in Ireland. Whatever
you were to receive from me, would be so much
given to the Landlords of Ireland, and therefore not
one farthing shat, you have.' I afterwards published
a somewhat elaborat Essay, reproaching the Land-
iords of England with st',"roidity as well as cowardice,
:Or not compelling the Irish Landlords to maintain
their own poor. you, impunt, flippant, and
shameless Doctor Black, published ViL7t you called
an answer to my essay, in which you abuslqd ti
proposal in the grossest manner; an ,said in si7b
stance, although I cannot recollect th precise words,
that the Irish Landlords had a right 'to their rents,
and that the Irish poor had no rignt to relief. 1
:n?erted your paper; I knew the day would come,
;when you would be compelled to recant, and to
seem to forget your Scotch barbarity. I will find
the paper one of these days; and when 1 have it, 1
rill thrust it up under your nose."
We have always, since the time of our ad-
dresaina the public on the subject, been an ad-
ocate -for Poor Laws, though we confess that
at one time we thought the Scotch Poor Law
System preferable to that of England. We do
not hesitate to state that we have seen reason to
change our opinion in this respect, and that we
are now satisfied the English system is -decidedly
the best of the two. That we had at one time
doubts as to the practicability of introducing
Poor Laws into Ireland. we do not deny, and in
the state to which the population of that coun-
try has been reduced, the task of introducing
Poor La eve, will certainly be one of peculiar dif-
ficulty. But ifeee recollect right the answerto which
Cobbett refers, as having been written by
as to one of his Essays. was directed to a pro-
position. advanced by him, that the population
of a country never could be excessive,- as for every
mouth brought into the world there were a pair
of hands, and the hands would always provide
food for the mouth. We endeavoured to sa-
isfy Mr. Cobbett of the possibility of a redun-
dancy of people, and we hope we did not do
so flippantly. One great reason for our pre-
ferring the English Poor Law system to that
of Scotland, for Ireland, is that the former would
compel the landlords to check the growth
of a pauper population---the great source of the
misery cf that country. Even an Irish family
cannot live wholly. in the open air, but require
time shed or cabin to put their heads in at
time.. Now if the people were charged for
their maintenance on the land, the Landlords
would be obliged to prevent the erection of huts.
We know that all political writers, till of late
nears, agreed in making it an accusation against
the Poor Laws, that they tended to depopulate
the country. Dr. Burn, in his History of the
Poor Laws, published in 1764, in speaking of
the Overseers of the Poor, expressly says, that
they consider it their business " to move Heaven
and earth if any dispute happens about a settle-
ment, to pull down cottages ; to &flee out as
many inhabitants, and admit as few as pons sly
they can ; that is, to depopulate the parish in
order to lessen the Poor Rate ;" and, if any faith
to be placed in the table of the growth of the
population_in England during the last century,
the preliminary observations in the last Pilau,.
iation Return, the efforts had been tolerably
successful : for, from 1700 to 1750, the popula-
tion had only increased from 5,175,000 to
6,736,000. But even now, after the principles
of the Poor Laws has been tampered with
by Parliamentary; relaxations of the strictness
of settlements, we have only ie look to
the Marriage Returns, in the Population
Abstract, and compare them with wkat
stated regarding other countries, to be satisfied
that the Poor Laws even now keep down
eery considerably the number of inhabitants.
_in an excellent work on the Mendiciay
of East Flanders, by the Baron Keverberg,
the Governor of that populous province, a work
to which we have several times alluded (we have
it not at hand at present), we were struck by the
circumstance of the marriages being more nu-
merous in the country than in Ghent and the
nther towns, and consequently the poverty &um
superabundance of children being,. much the
greatest in the country. Now directly the re-
verse of this takes place in England. In the
agricultural districts, marriages are much less
frequent than in -the manufiicturing districts. Iu
Hereford, the marriages to the population are
Ito 170 ; Hertford, Ito 179 ; ?routh,
Ito 154 ; Northumberland, 1 to 145 ,• Rut-
land, 1 to 145 ; Shropshire, ! to 155 ; SUSSEX,
.1 to 151; Wilts, 1 to 145 ; Worcester, 1 to
143 ; Essex, 1 to 150 ; Dorset, 1. to 154, &c.
Now in Middlesex, the proportion is l to 106 ;
Lancashire, 1 to 126 ; Warwick, i to 123 ;
Stafford, 1 to 128 ; West Riding of York, 1 to
131. If, therefore, we find in England, not-
withstanding the dissipation in great towns, and
ahe strong disposition of our agriciltural popu-
lation to early marriage, that marriages are yet
much more frequent in the towns than in the
country, to what are we to attribute this but to
checks whichlptillioiesorPal
the wholesome
Lomoaor:,
almost
v rrim-
pose on the amounts
population ?
to a demonstration that the
land, by restraining the operation of the great
n
cause of poverty, have coattributed greatly to the
prosperity of the country .—Mornzng Chronicle.
As the Finance Committee are about to re.
assemble after the Easter adjournment, and ac it
most desirable that they should receive as
little obstruction or delay as possible in official
quarters, we think it right to inform them, that
in many instances the orders which they have
:issued for the production of accounts from
the puplic offices have hten returnedto the Trea-
2urv, •,;, unintelligible to the parties to whom
;hey ere addrec.,,e(l. In the very numerotr