nioemtg of 
 (California 
 
J 
 
OVER-POPULATION 
 
 ITS REMEDY; 
 
 OR, 
 
 AN INQUIRY INTO THE EXTENT AND CAUSES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 DISTRESS PREVAILING AMONG THE LABOURING CLASSES 
 OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS, 
 
 AND INTO THE MEANS OF REMEDYING IT. 
 
 WILLIAM THOMAS THORNTON, 
 
 *' The destruction of the poor is their poverty." 
 
 PROVERBS OF SOLOMON. 
 
 or THE 
 I UNIVERSITY 1 
 
 LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, 
 
 PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
 
 1846. 
 

 
 LONDON : 
 
 Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE, 
 New- Street- Square. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE only Preface which a work of this kind re- 
 quires is an apology for the defects of its execution. 
 Instead of pleading the claims of the poor to an 
 earnest investigation of their distresses, one would 
 be almost rather disposed to wonder that any other 
 subject can be esteemed of national interest while 
 this most momentous problem remains unsolved. 
 The author, therefore, need take no pains to justify 
 his choice of a subject; and he only wishes that he 
 had equal cause to be satisfied with his treatment 
 of it. Of his motive for writing at all, it can only 
 be said, that "out of the abundance of the heart the 
 mouth speaketh." With zeal for the cause he has 
 espoused, he is amply, perhaps too amply, supplied, 
 and he has spared no exertion to make up for the 
 want of more sterling qualities. Perhaps, indeed, 
 diligence was really the most indispensable requisite 
 for his task. The volume now offered to the public 
 has little claim to originality, and does not pretend 
 to be the herald of any new discovery. The author's 
 
 A 2 
 
IV PREFACE, 
 
 object has been less to construct a theory of his 
 own, than to collect and arrange the ideas of others, 
 to work out their hints, to reconcile their inconsis- 
 tencies, and to form a regular and practicable 
 scheme out of their scattered and apparently incon- 
 gruous materials. If he has failed in this design, 
 he trusts that he has at least been able to bring the 
 subject into a more convenient shape for discussion. 
 Though he may not persuade any to adopt his 
 sentiments, he may at least induce some to think 
 for themselves, and assist them in coming to con- 
 clusions of their own ; and he will not esteem even 
 such partial success an inadequate recompence for 
 the labour with which his leisure has long been 
 occupied. 
 
 London, Dec. 1845. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Definition of the Term " Over-population. " Importance of the 
 Subject. Objects and Plan of the Work - - Page 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 EVIDENCES OP OVER-POPULATION IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 
 
 Kind of Evidence admissible. Proposed Test of Over-popula- 
 tion. Actual Remuneration of agricultural Labour. 
 Where highest : in Lincolnshire Rutland Northum- 
 berland Cumberland, and Westmoreland. Where lowest : 
 
 in Dorsetshire Wiltshire Somersetshire. Condition 
 of agricultural Labourers in Kent, Norfolk, Suffolk, Bed- 
 fordshire, Buckinghamshire, South Wales. Condition of 
 other Labourers in rural Districts. Migration from the 
 Counties into Towns. State of Town Labourers. Their 
 recent severe Distress. Examples of it at Stockport and 
 Other Places. Brief Duration of this Distress. Digres- 
 sion respecting the Causes from which it proceeded. Com- 
 parative Prosperity of the urban labouring Population in 
 ordinary Times. Differences in Remuneration of different 
 Classes of Town Labourers. Trades Unions Long-con- 
 tinued Distress of Hand-loom Weavers. Sufferings of 
 indigent Strangers in Towns. Of self-dependent Females 
 and Children. General Conclusions as to the Extent of the 
 Redundancy of Population in rural Districts, and in Towns. 
 
 Amount of Pauperism relieved by public Charity - 7 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EVIDENCES OF OVER-POPULATION IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. 
 
 Small Amount of official Pauperism in Scotland. Thriving 
 Condition of the Peasantry of the Lowlands. Destitution 
 and Distress in the Highlands in Sutherland on the 
 "Western Coasts in the Hebrides. Munificence of the late 
 Duchess of Sutherland and others. General Neglect of 
 their Tenantry by Highland Proprietors. Privations of 
 Highland Immigrants in Glasgow. General Condition of the 
 labouring Classes in Scotch Towns. Partial Character of 
 Over- population in Scotland. Ireland. Importance of the 
 Information obtained at the last Census. Striking Contrast 
 in the Distribution of the Population in Great Britain and in 
 Ireland. Notoriety of the Misery of the latter Island 
 Description of it by Irish Railway Commissioners. Com- 
 parative Prosperity of Ulster. Insufficiency of Employment 
 in that Province. Wretchedness of Donegal. Little De- 
 mand for Labour in Leinster. Desperate Expedients for 
 a Livelihood resorted to by the People. Particulars of the 
 Sufferings endured by them. Similar Particulars respecting 
 Munster. Unparalleled Misery of Connaught. Condition 
 of Labourers in Irish Towns. Small Alleviation of Irish 
 Misery effected by the Establishment of a Poor Law Page 70 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CAUSES OF OVER-POPULATION IN GENERAL. 
 
 Decrease in the Demand for Labour. Excessive Augmentation 
 of the Numbers of a Community. Propensity of Mankind 
 to multiply too rapidly. Motives for restraining this Pro- 
 pensity. Influence of such Motives upon People in easy 
 Circumstances. Their utter Inefficacy among the very 
 Poor. Tendency of Misery to promote Population. Illus- 
 trations of the Theory proposed Structure of Society 
 among pastoral Nations. Gradual Conversion of the Poor 
 of such Communities into agricultural Serfs. Physical 
 
CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 Well-being of Serfs. Frequent Transformation of them into 
 free Peasant Proprietors. Prosperity of the Peasantry in 
 Germany, Esthonia, Holland, Belgium. Sketch of the 
 Progress of Society in the Netherlands. State of the Nor- 
 wegian and Swiss Peasantry. Causes and Antiquity of 
 their Prosperity. Explanation of the Pauperism existing 
 in continental Towns. Past and present Condition of the 
 People in Poland and France. Wretchedness of the la- 
 bouring Class in Southern Italy. Happiness of the Pea- 
 santry in Tuscany and Lombardy - Page 114 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CAUSES OF OVER-POPULATION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Prosperous Condition of English Labourers in early Times. 
 History of the English Peasantry. Peculiarities of the Saxon 
 Conquest. Structure of Society among the Anglo-Saxons. 
 Establishment of Serfdom, or Villenage. Its modified 
 Character, and rapid Extinction. Growing Importance of 
 Villains after the Norman Conquest. High Wages of 
 agricultural Labourers in the fourteenth and fifteenth Cen- 
 turies. Ineffectual Efforts of Parliament to reduce them. 
 Causes of the high Price of Labour at this Period. Deteri- 
 oration of the Condition of the Peasantry after the Accession 
 of Henry VII. Growth of Pauperism and Mendicancy 
 during the sixteenth Century. Explanation of the Change 
 in the Situation of the Peasantry. Temporary Improvement 
 of their Condition in the latter Part of Elizabeth's Reign. 
 Too rapid Progress of Population^ Renewed Advance of 
 Pauperism in the seventeenth and eighteenth Centuries. 
 Simultaneous Rise in the Remuneration of Labour. Operation 
 of the Poor Laws. Formation of Parks. Enclosure of 
 Common Land. Great Distress of the labouring Classes 
 during the six concluding Years of the eighteenth Century. 
 Dearness of the Necessaries of Life during the first ten 
 Years of the nineteenth Century. Severe Privations of 
 agricultural Labourers. Encouragement given to Marriage 
 by the Poor Laws. Increase of National Wealth. Rapid 
 Progress of Population. Improvement in the Condition of 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 the Peasantry in the ten Years ending with 1820. Prodi- 
 gality of Poor Law Administration. Unprecedented Ad- 
 vance of Population. Its accelerated Progress in the 
 Period ending with 1830. Unexampled Increase of the 
 national Wealth. Reform of the Poor Laws in 1834. 
 Beneficial Consequences of the Change. Recurrence of 
 Distress among agricultural Labourers. Deterioration of 
 their Condition since 1836. Results of the Census of 1841. 
 Causes of Over-population in particular Districts. 
 Obstacles to an excessive Increase of Population in Towns 
 from natural Causes. Distress of Town Labourers, occa- 
 sioned by the Withdrawal of their Occupation. Immigration 
 from rural Districts. Recapitulation of foregoing State- 
 ments - - Page 161 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CAUSES OF OVER-POPULATION IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. 
 
 Relations subsisting between Highland Chieftains and their 
 Clansmen in former Times. Decline of the clannish Feeling 
 after the Rebellion of 1745. Ejection of Highland Tenantry 
 and Formation of Sheep Farms. Decay of Kelp Manufac- 
 ture. Effects of Misery on the Character and Habits of the 
 Poor. Usual Explanation of the excessive Population of 
 Ireland. Its Incompleteness. Primeval Poverty of the 
 Irish Peasantry. Pastoral Occupation of the primitive 
 Irish and of their Descendants until the latter Part of the 
 eighteenth Century. Wretched State of the labouring Class 
 down to the same Epoch. Slight Improvement of their 
 Condition, in consequence of the Extension of Tillage. 
 Effect of this Improvement upon Population. Contrast 
 between Ulster and the Rest of Ireland. Tenant Right. 
 Proneness of the Irish Poor to early Marriages - 246 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 REMEDIES FOR OVER POPULATION IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 
 
 Restrictions on the Marriages of the Poor. Soundness of the 
 Theory of Malthus. Its Incompleteness. Consideration 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 of various Schemes for the Cure of Poverty. Vindication 
 of the New Poor Law. Emigration. Improvement of 
 Agriculture. Free Trade. Ability of foreign Countries 
 to supply Great Britain with Provisions. Imperative 
 Obligation on foreign Merchants to accept British Goods 
 in exchange. Groundlessness of the Opinion that Cheap- 
 ness of Food would occasion a Fall of Wages. Exami- 
 nation of Objections to free Trade in Provisions. Loss of 
 Revenue. Dependence on foreign Countries. Reduction 
 of Rents. Possible Extent of such Reduction. Circum- 
 stances by which it would be compensated. Inadmissibility 
 of the Objection that free Trade might lower Rents. Effect 
 of Free Trade upon the Demand for agricultural Labour. 
 Subdivision of Farms. Manner in which that Subdivision 
 would affect Landowners and agricultural Labourers. 
 Superior Productiveness of small Farms. High Rents 
 obtainable for them. Great Amount of human Labour 
 
 required for their Cultivation Cottage Allotments Their 
 
 Advantages. Examination of their supposed Tendency to 
 create an excessive agricultural Population. Peculiar Cir- 
 cumstances which have led to the minute Partition of Land 
 in Ireland. Dissimilar Condition of England. Actual 
 Results of the Occupation of Land by the Peasantry in some 
 Parts of England. Its Influence in preventing and curing 
 Pauperism, and in checking improvident Marriages. 
 Tendency of Cottage Allotments to promote the social and 
 moral Improvement of the Occupants - - Page 267 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 REMEDIES FOR OVER- POPULATION IN ENGLAND AND WALES 
 
 (continued). 
 
 Certainty of the early Repeal of the Provision Laws. Import- 
 ance of the subsequent Conduct of Landowners in determining 
 how Rent and the Remuneration of Labour will be affected. 
 Certainty of considerable Benefit to Agricultural La- 
 bourers, from the Establishment of Free Trade. Ability of 
 Landlords to improve their Condition forthwith. Expe- 
 diency of their preparing for the approaching Change in their 
 
 a 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 own Position. Identity of the Means of promoting the In- 
 terests both of themselves and their Dependants. Peculiar Ob- 
 ligation of Landowners to provide for their poor Neighbours. 
 
 Recent Movements of Parliament in behalf of the Pea- 
 santry. Mr. *Cowper's " Field Gardens " Bill, and Lord 
 Lincoln's " Commons' Enclosure" Act. Objectionable Pro vi- 
 sions of the latter. Advantages obtained from it. Suggestion 
 of other Expedients for the Extension of the "Allotment 
 System." Estimate of the Amount of Benefit derivable by 
 agricultural Labourers from Free' Trade and Cottage Allot- 
 jnents. Probable Permanence of the Improvement in their 
 Condition. Auxiliary Means of promoting their Welfare. 
 Payment to Farm Servants of fixed Proportions of the Crop. 
 
 Location of them on the Farm Premises. Education. 
 Its general Advantages. Inapplicability to the labouring 
 Classes of the ordinary Modes of Teaching. Oral Instruc- 
 tion. Sorts of Knowledge most useful to the Poor Ex- 
 pediency of a national Provision for Education. Obstacles to 
 its Establishment in England. Secondary Importance of 
 scholastic Education. Improvement of the Habitations of 
 the Peasantry. Retardation of the Progress of Population 
 consequent on Improvement in the Condition of the People. 
 Moderation of the necessary Restraints upon Marriage. 
 Means of ameliorating the Situation of Town Labourers. 
 Insufficiency of high Wages alone to render them comfortable. 
 
 Paramount Importance of Education, and of proper 
 Lodgings. Limitation of the Labour of Females and young 
 Persons. Probable Consequences of legislative Inter- 
 ference - - Page 349 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 REMEDIES FOR OVER-POPULATION IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. 
 
 Similarity of the Measures required in England and in the Low- 
 lands of Scotland. Defects of the Scotch Poor Law. 
 Inadequacy of the recent Attempt to amend it. Necessity 
 for an efficient Poor Law in the Highlands. Restoration of 
 the Class of Crofters Probable Advantages of that Course 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 both to Landlords and Tenants. Little Benefit to Ireland 
 to be expected from the Redress of her political Grievances. 
 Inapplicability to Ireland of most of the Measures recom- 
 mended for Adoption in Great Britain. Necessity of pro- 
 viding additional Employment for the People. Uncertainty 
 of permanent Results of this Kind from Expenditure on 
 public Works, or on the Reclamation of waste Land. Suffi- 
 ciency of the Land at present under Cultivation for the full 
 Employment of the Peasantry. Defectiveness of the pre- 
 sent Tenure of Land. Exorbitance of Rents. "Want of 
 Leases. Profit experienced from the liberal Application of 
 Labour to Agriculture. Baselessness of Prejudices against 
 Cottier Tenantry. Necessity for Leases. Expediency of 
 legislative Interference to enforce the Grant of them. 
 Location of Poor on waste Land. Happy Effects already 
 obtained from this Measure. Possibility of providing for 
 the whole Body of Peasantry by means of a Partition of 
 waste Land. Duty of Parliament to adopt a Scheme for 
 that Purpose. Repeal of the Union with Great Britain. 
 Chances of its ever being efFeeted. Speculations on its 
 ultimate Effects - Page 400 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Concluding Reflections. Prospects of the Stability of national 
 Prosperity - - 441 
 

 OVER-POPULATION, 
 
 AND 
 
 ITS REMEDY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IDEFINlTION OF THE TERM OVER-POPULATION. IMPORTANCE 
 
 OF THE SUBJECT. OBJECTS AND PLAN OF THE WORK. 
 
 BY Over-population is to be understood, throughout 
 the following pages, that condition of a country 
 in which part of the inhabitants, although able- 
 bodied and capable of labour, are permanently 
 unable to earn a sufficiency of the necessaries of 
 life. A country is not necessarily overpeopled 
 merely because it contains a greater number of 
 inhabitants than its own soil can supply with food 
 and clothing, for the natives may nevertheless 
 obtain abundant supplies from abroad; and pro- 
 vided the supplies be adequate and regular, it 
 matters not from whence they come; Neither is 
 population always excessive where people are to 
 be found in a state of destitution, for this destitu- 
 tion may proceed solely from indolence, or from 
 bodily or mental infirmity.^ But wherever persons, J 
 able as well as willing to work, are for many years 
 
 B 
 
2 DEFINITION. 
 
 together unable to procure by labour a competent 
 subsistence, it is clear that there are too many 
 of them, and that the land they inhabit is over- 
 peopled. Further, population may be excessive 
 without being dense. In almost every community, 
 the owners of the soil, or of any considerable 
 amount of other property, are a minority, and many 
 of them must possess a greater quantity, or the 
 means of producing or of purchasing a greater 
 quantity, of food and of other necessaries than they 
 require for their own consumption. Few however 
 will be at the trouble of producing more than they 
 themselves can use, unless they can exchange the 
 surplus for something else. But many of their 
 countrymen have nothing to offer in exchange 
 save personal services, and if there be more appli- 
 cants for employment than the rich are disposed 
 to employ, the services of all will not be accepted, 
 or if accepted, will be very scantily remunerated, and 
 either food enough for all will not be raised, or 
 when raised, part of it will be sent for sale to a 
 foreign market. In either case, the labouring class 
 is larger than the stock of food to which it has 
 access can properly maintain ; and the country, how- 
 ever thinly inhabited it may be, and although it 
 may be only half cultivated, or may export provi- 
 sions, is nevertheless overpeopled. It must be 
 observed, however, that in order to indicate over- 
 population, the distress of the working class must 
 be of long continuance, for merely temporary dis- 
 tress may be produced by famine, commercial 
 vicissitudes, or other accidents, in a country where 
 
DEFINITION. 3 
 
 a livelihood may ordinarily be obtained without 
 difficulty. 
 
 After this explanation, over-population may be 
 shortly defined to be a deficiency of employment for 
 those who live by labour, or a redundancy of the 
 labouring class above the number of persons that the 
 fund applied to the remuneration of labour can main* 
 tain in comfort. Of all the evils by which a nation 
 can be afflicted, this is perhaps the worst. The 
 ravages of war and pestilence are only occasional, 
 and may be soon repaired ; a tyrant's caprice and 
 cruelty are felt by comparatively few; and no 
 government, however bad, which does not con- 
 demn the mass of its subjects to positive destitu- 
 tion, can avoid leaving them the means of consi- 
 derable enjoyment. But the bulk of every commu- 
 nity consists of persons entirely dependent on their 
 own industry, and where these are too numerous 
 to earn a competent subsistence for themselves and 
 their families, competition takes place amongst 
 them : each, in his anxiety to obtain employment, 
 oifers to accept lower wages than he requires for 
 his comfortable maintenance, and, if the competition 
 be sufficiently severe, will take the lowest pittance 
 upon which life can be supported. Entire sections 
 of the labouring class are thus reduced to extreme 
 and almost hopeless misery. Hunger, cold, endur- 
 ance of every sort of hardship, become the habitual 
 portion of multitudes, nor are the evils of their 
 condition limited to physical sufferings. Their 
 moral debasement generally keeps pace with their 
 social degradation. The desperate struggle they 
 
 B 2 
 
4 MISERY RESULTING 
 
 must maintain for existence, their cruel privations, 
 the scenes and practices with which they must 
 become familiar, seldom fail to harden their dispo- 
 sitions, and to make them deceitful, brutal, and 
 dissolute; while the impossibility of materially bene- 
 fiting themselves by any exertions of their own 
 renders them indolent, and indolence aggravates 
 their wretchedness. Neither has this state of things 
 any tendency to correct itself. Whatever point 
 population may attain, it can with equal ease at 
 least maintain itself there, and the evils of its too 
 great density may be not less lasting than severe. 
 
 Now, if this be the condition of the working 
 class, it is no proof of national prosperity that the 
 rest of the people are wealthy and civilised. A 
 nation may be pre-eminent in power and grandeur, 
 and equally distinguished in the arts of war and 
 peace ; native industry and foreign commerce may 
 supply in abundance every requisite for ease and 
 luxury, and to these solid materials of enjoyment 
 may be superadded all the resources of literature 
 and science: still, if these advantages contribute 
 only to the happiness of the few, while the many 
 are sunk in bodily and mental destitution, the lot 
 of such a people is any thing but an enviable one. 
 With all their civilisation and refinement, their 
 condition would not be ill exchanged for that of 
 the rudest horde of wandering Tartars, whose num- 
 bers are better proportioned to their means of 
 subsistence. The balance of happiness is appa- 
 rently in favour of the latter. The conveniences 
 of life may be almost unknown to them, and they 
 
FKOM OVER-POPULATION, 5 
 
 may have scarcely a trace of intellectual culture ; but 
 if they are acquainted with few enjoyments, they are 
 equally ignorant of the worst kinds of misery ; if none 
 can indulge in luxury, none are exposed to habitual 
 want; to none is existence itself a prolonged penance. 
 The distribution of national wealth is almost of 
 as much consequence as its aggregate amount. A 
 nation has no sense or feeling in its corporate capa- 
 city ; it is its individual members that enjoy and 
 suffer. If half of these are miserably poor, it is no 
 consolation to them to know that their countrymen 
 are rolling in riches. If the majority are wretched, 
 no other epithet can properly be applied to the whole 
 body. 
 
 To say that this description is generally appli- 
 cable to the British Islands would no doubt be a 
 gross exaggeration, but it cannot be denied that 
 it would hold good of particular parts of them. 
 The extreme destitution of the Irish peasantry has 
 long been proverbial, and it now appears that a 
 counterpart to it may be found in the Scottish 
 highlands. Even in many English counties^ the 
 indigence of agricultural labourers, handloom wea- 
 vers, and others, is such as can scarcely be paralleled 
 out of the United Kingdom, and shows that we 
 also are following, though happily still at some 
 distance, in the steps of our neighbours. So much 
 misery cannot be contemplated without awakening 
 the intensest sympathy and the most gloomy fore- 
 bodings. The constant occurrence of the topic in 
 periodical literature, and in political discussion both 
 in and out of parliament, the speeches, reports, and 
 
6 PLAN OF THE WORK. 
 
 pamphlets incessantly devoted to it, evince the deep 
 interest it excites. The present is another attempt 
 to investigate the same engrossing subject. The 
 first object of this essay will be, to determine how 
 far the prevailing distress may be taken as proof of 
 a redundant population. An endeavour will then 
 be made to trace the circumstances in which over- 
 population originated ; and when the causes of the 
 evil seem to have been discovered, suggestions will 
 be offered for its correction. In the course of the 
 inquiry, the three divisions of the kingdom will 
 come separately under consideration, but the largest 
 share of notice will be occupied by Great Britain. 
 To have omitted all mention of Ireland would have 
 been to leave the work obviously incomplete ; but 
 the reference to that unhappy island will be chiefly 
 designed to illustrate the general principles laid 
 down. Her distress, which has already furnished 
 materials for so many volumes, is too deeply rooted 
 and too complicated to admit of satisfactory exami- 
 nation in the few pages which can here be assigned 
 to it. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 EVIDENCES OF OVER-POPULATION IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 
 
 Kind of Evidence admissible. Proposed Test of Over- 
 population. - Actual Remuneration of agricultural Labour 
 where highest, in Lincolnshire, Rutland, Northumberland, 
 Cumberland, Westmoreland; and where lowest, in Dorset- 
 shire, Wiltshire, Somersetshire. Condition of agricultural 
 Labourers in Kent, Norfolk, Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Bucking- 
 hamshire, South Wales. Condition of other Labourers in 
 rural Districts. Migration from the Country into Towns. 
 State of Town Labourers. Their recent severe Distress. 
 Examples of it at Stockport and other Places. Brief Dura- 
 tion of this Distress. Digression respecting the Causes from 
 which it proceeded. Comparative Prosperity of the urban 
 labouring Population in ordinary Times. Differences in Re- 
 muneration of different Classes of Town Labourers. Trades' 
 Unions. Long-continued Distress of Handloom Weavers. 
 Sufferings of indigent Strangers in Towns ; and of self- 
 dependent Females and Children. General Conclusions as 
 to the Extent of the Redundancy of Population in rural Dis- 
 tricts and in Towns. Amount of Pauperism relieved by 
 public Charity. 
 
 IT follows, from the remarks made in the preced- 
 ing chapter, that the only unquestionable evi- 
 dence respecting the existence of over-population, 
 is the condition of the labouring class ; and this 
 cannot be ascertained satisfactorily except by re- 
 ference to the remuneration of labour. It is only 
 when the average earnings of labourers are insuffi- 
 cient for their average requirements that labourers 
 
 B 4 
 
8 TEST OF 
 
 can be safely pronounced to be too numerous. 
 An inquiry into the evidences of over-population 
 is therefore little more than an inquiry into the 
 wages or other reward of labour. 
 
 Unfortunately, there is infinite diversity of opi- 
 nion as to what constitutes a sufficient subsistence. 
 No one will deny that a labourer's food, clothing, 
 and lodging, should be such as to maintain him 
 in health and strength ; but it will not be so easily 
 settled whether he should eat meat, wear broad 
 cloth, and dwell in a neat cottage, or content 
 himself with potatoes, fustian, and a mud cabin. 
 Upon these points the reader will for the present 
 be left to form his own judgment, but it should 
 be clearly understood, that wages must not be 
 merely sufficient for the subsistence of the la- 
 bourer himself. In every community there are 
 many persons physically disqualified for labour ; 
 in fact, one half of mankind are so disqualified to a 
 certain extent by sex alone, and very young child- 
 ren and very old men are likewise disqualified. But 
 where able-bodied men can earn only a -bare sub- 
 sistence, feebler persons are not prevented from 
 maintaining themselves by physical weakness only. 
 They would still be unable to earn a competent 
 livelihood, even if they could work as well as the 
 rest, for their competition would then reduce the 
 wages of labour below the amount necessary for 
 subsistence. Such a state of things has already 
 been shown to constitute over-population. Where 
 population is confined within proper limits, the 
 earnings of those members of the labouring class 
 
OVER-POPULATION. - 9 
 
 who can work, will suffice to maintain not only 
 themselves, but also those who cannot work. The 
 rate of wages ought to be such, as, supposing 
 the care of maintaining the helpless members of 
 their class to belong equally to all the able-bodied, 
 would enable each of the latter to keep his fair 
 proportion of dependents as well as himself. Now, 
 even supposing that children above ten years of 
 age, and women under sixty, can earn enough to de- 
 fray their own expenses, there will still remain a 
 vast number of persons who may be regarded as 
 almost entirely helpless; for children under ten 
 years of age, old women of sixty, and old men of 
 seventy, are generally incapable of earning any 
 thing worth mentioning. It was ascertained at 
 the last census, that the number of such persons is, 
 to the number of males between the ages of 
 twenty and seventy, as 4,566,813 to 3,670,677, 
 or as about 1^ to 1. In England, therefore, the 
 average earnings of an able-bodied male adult, 
 whether married or single, ought, after supplying 
 his own personal wants, to yield a surplus which 
 would suffice for the subsistence of l other per- 
 sons. If the average rate of wages be anywhere 
 insufficient for this purpose, that part of the coun- 
 try may be considered to be overpeopled. It 
 is, however, no sign of over-population that a 
 man's income is too small to allow of his main- 
 taining a more than average family. His distress 
 in such a case proceeds from causes peculiar to 
 himself. It does not spring from any excess of 
 labourers, nor, strictly speaking, from the low 
 
10 SUB-DIVISION OF 
 
 remuneration of labour, but merely from the 
 unusual largeness of his family, and the extreme 
 youth or other infirmity by which an unusually 
 large proportion of its members are disqualified 
 from earning their own livelihood, and are ren- 
 dered dependent on their parents. 
 
 The labouring population has hitherto been 
 spoken of as if it formed only one class, but it is 
 really divided into several, among which the rates 
 of remuneration are far from being uniform. It 
 might be supposed that competition would render 
 the price of labour everywhere the same, and 
 that the only differences in the rate of wages would 
 arise from the superior hardship or delicacy of par- 
 ticular occupations. In reality, however, there are 
 monopolies of labour as well as of other commodi- 
 ties. Various causes, both natural and artificial, 
 prevent labour from flowing freely in every direc- 
 tion; and wherever the supply is deficient, it 
 finds of course a better market than elsewhere. 
 Wages, consequently, vary exceedingly in different 
 occupations; so that, in order to represent with 
 perfect fidelity the state of the labouring popula- 
 tion, it would be necessary to describe each class 
 separately. But this is neither permitted by the 
 limits nor required by the object of this work, for 
 the latter of which a much ruder and more hasty 
 sketch will suffice. The working population will 
 be treated under the separate heads of rural and 
 urban, but many minor subdivisions, which ex- 
 hibit no signs of general distress, may be alto- 
 gether overlooked, and attention will be chiefly 
 
LABOURING POPULATION. 11 
 
 directed to agricultural and common day labourers, 
 and to those engaged in some branches of manu- 
 facture. 
 
 Agricultural labourers claim the first notice, as 
 well on account of the importance of their occu- 
 pation, as of their forming, with the single excep- 
 tion of domestic servants, the most numerous 
 class in the country. According to the census 
 of 1841, their whole number, including women 
 and children, in England and Wales, was 966,271 ; 
 of whom 772,072 were male adults. The nature 
 of field labour being much the same in every part 
 of the country, it might have been expected that 
 the earnings of agricultural labourers would like- 
 wise be everywhere pretty nearly equal ; but 
 although subject to less striking variations than 
 wages in other departments of industry, they do 
 really vary very materially, not only in different 
 counties but in different parts of the same county. 
 It may seem strange, that where wages are un- 
 usually high, they should not be immediately re- 
 duced to the common level by the migration of 
 labourers from other quarters ; but, besides that 
 there is some foundation for Adam Smith's asser- 
 tion, that " man is the least transportable species 
 of luggage," the comparative isolation and .the 
 illiterateness of agricultural labourers prevent their 
 knowing much of the state of affairs beyond their 
 own neighbourhood. Moreover, until the late change 
 in the poor-law, the laws affecting the settlent'ent 
 of paupers virtually almost confined the English 
 field labourer to his native parish ; and would often 
 
12 CONDITION OF 
 
 have restrained him, even if so disposed, from 
 going elsewhere in quest of better remuneration. 
 It is unnecessary for the purposes of this inquiry 
 to examine the condition of the labourer in every 
 part of the country. We may confine our atten- 
 tion to those districts which present the most strik- 
 ing contrasts, and having ascertained both the 
 highest and the lowest degrees on the social scale 
 occupied by labourers, we shall be able to judge of 
 their general condition, and to determine in what 
 districts their numbers are excessive. 
 
 No other part of England seems to have a better 
 right than Lincolnshire to be entitled the la- 
 bourer's paradise. His wages in this county, ac- 
 cording to one account*, range from Us. to 13s. a 
 week, but according to a statement macle by Lord 
 Worsley in the House of Commons f, they are 
 never less than 9s. even in winter, nor less than 
 12s. at other seasons; while, if task- work be taken 
 into the account, a man's average earnings through- 
 out the year are from 13s. to 16s. 6d. a week, to which 
 his wife may, at certain seasons, add IQd. or Is. a 
 day by field-work. The money wages of labourers 
 in husbandry, however, sometimes form only part 
 of their income. In Lincolnshire, the practice of 
 allotting to them small portions of land of half 
 an acre in extent, at the rent customary in the 
 neighbourhood, to be cultivated in their spare 
 hours, has now become pretty general, and adds 
 
 * Reports on Employment of Women and Children in Agri- 
 culture, 1843. 
 f Hansard's Pad. Deb., 12th March, 1844, 
 
AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. H 
 
 greatly to their resources. Half an acre, under 
 spade tillage, may produce on an average ten pounds 
 worth* of potatoes and other vegetables, and 
 will allow of a pig being kept besides,^ so that the 
 average annual profit of a cultivator may be fairly 
 estimated as high as 117. Eleven pounds sterling 
 a year are a fraction less than 4s. 3d. a week, 
 which, added to 145. of wages, will make a weekly 
 income of 18s. 3d. altogether. In some parts of Lin- 
 colnshire, labourers are sometimes hired by the year, 
 and at Kilstern, where this seems to be a common 
 custom, they are said to have besides about 28. a 
 year in money, a cottage and garden rent free, 
 "" the keep of a pig in the crews in the winter, and 
 run upon the farm in the summer," and the right 
 to four quarters of barley and two quarters of 
 wheat at a low price. The total income of a single 
 man so situated may be thus estimated : 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Yearly wages 28 
 
 Annual value of cottage and of garden pro- 
 duce - 600 
 Profit by sale of pig - 100 
 Gain by low price of corn supplied by the 
 
 farmer - - - - 2 10 
 
 37 10 
 To which may be added for net produce of 
 
 allotment - - - 10 
 
 Making altogether the annual sum of - 47 10 
 Or about 18*. Bd. a week. 
 
 About Kilstern agricultural labourers can afford 
 
 * Minutes of Evidence before Committee on Cottage Allot- 
 ments. 
 
14 CONDITION OF 
 
 to eat fresh meat almost every day ; and throughout 
 Lincolnshire they seem to be able to do so pretty 
 frequently. At other times they have bacon (for 
 they almost always eat their pig themselves) ; but 
 their principal diet is wheaten, and sometimes 
 barley bread, dumplings, and potatoes ; with cheese, 
 butter, onions, and other vegetables, and tea. 
 
 This notice of Lincolnshire requires little al- 
 teration to adapt it to the adjoining county of 
 Rutland, where farm-servants are similarly well 
 paid, and are likewise in general allotment-holders. 
 It may be mentioned that, both in Lincolnshire 
 and Rutland, the cottager frequently keeps a cow 
 upon his land, and gets a daily supply of milk 
 instead of vegetables. 
 
 Next in order, according to the social position 
 of the peasantry, come the three northern counties 
 of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmore- 
 land. In the first of these the mode of hiring 
 farm-servants is peculiar. Some are engaged merely 
 by the day, in which .case the wages of men are 2s. 
 or 25. 3d. ; but this custom is not the most common. 
 There being but few villages from which occasional 
 assistance can be obtained, farmers endeavour to 
 maintain upon their own lands as many persons as 
 they are likely to require at the busiest season. 
 Upon every farm there are a number of cottages, 
 with gardens attached, and " every man who is 
 engaged by the year has one of these cottages. His 
 family commonly find employment more or less ; but 
 one female he is bound to have always in readiness 
 to answer the master's call, and to work at stipu- 
 
AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 15 
 
 lated wages, which are universally Wd. a day, ex- 
 cept at harvest, when they are Is. To this en- 
 gagement the name of bondage is given ; and such 
 females are called bondagers, or women who work 
 the bondage." * 
 
 The advantage of this system to the labouring 
 class is unquestionable. The hind, as the yearly 
 labourer is called, has a cottage and garden for 
 himself and his family, several of whom are, in many 
 cases, engaged by the year, as well as himself. His 
 own wages are paid chiefly in kind; those of his 
 sons, &c. either in money, or partly in money and 
 partly in kind. Their average amount may be 
 ascertained from the subjoined detailed examples, 
 taken from Sir F. H. Doyle's Eeport, of the condi- 
 tions entered into with their labourers by three 
 large occupiers of land : 
 
 Mr. Grey. Mr. Fenwick. Mr. Hindmarsh. 
 
 36 bush, oats 10 bush, wheat 36 bush, oats 
 
 24 barley 30 oats 24 barley 
 
 12 peas 10 barley 12 peas 
 
 3 wheat 10 rye 6 wheat 
 
 3 rye 10 peas 1000 yards of potatoes 
 
 36 to 40 bush, of A cow's keep for the A cow's keep 
 
 potatoes year House and garden 
 
 24 Ibs. of wool 800 yards of potatoes Coals led 
 
 A cow's keep for the Cottage and garden 51. in cash. 
 
 year Coals led 
 
 Cottage and garden Si. 10s. in cash 
 
 Coals carrying from 2 bushels of barley 
 
 the pit in lieu of hens. 
 
 41. in cash. 
 
 * Sir F. H. Doyle in Reports on Emp. of Women and 
 Children in Agric., 184-3. It may be worth while to mention, 
 
16 CONDITION OF 
 
 A still better idea of the condition of the 
 Northumbrian peasantry may be obtained from the 
 annexed specimen of the half-yearly accounts be- 
 tween Mr. Hindmarsh and one of his hinds, and 
 from the succeeding table, showing the sums due 
 at the end of the half-year to several hinds on a 
 farm in another part of Northumberland, being 
 the surplus earnings of all the members of each 
 family, which they had not found it necessary to 
 call for in the course of the half-year, and had left 
 in their master's hands till Martinmas. 
 
 William Hindmarsh, Esq., Dr. to John Thompson. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Jane Thompson, the bondager, 12 1J days at Wd. - 5 1 3 
 
 Kate Thompson (a child), 24 harvest days at Is. - 1 4 
 
 73J days at 5d, I 10 7 
 
 Eliza Thompson (a younger child), 7 days - 1 
 Isabella Thompson (a dress maker at other times), 
 
 35 1 days at Is. - - 1 15 9 
 
 20 harvest days at 2s. 3d. - 2 5 
 
 Wife, 9 harvest days - 1 3 
 
 His old Father, 52 days - - 3 18 
 
 John Thompson's half-year's cash - 2 10 
 
 19 6 8 
 
 that there is nothing slavish but the sound in these terms 
 "bondage" and "bondager." They only mark the Danish 
 descent of the modern Northumbrians. Like the Norwegian 
 bonde, and the English husbandman and husband, they are not 
 " derived from the word band, or bond, or bind, synonymous 
 with vinculum and its derivatives, but from the Scandinavian 
 words, bond, brend, bor, synonymous with inhabiting, dwelling 
 in, dwell. Bonder and husbandmen are the in -dwellers and 
 householders. Bonde is the inhabitant, not the bondsman." 
 Laing*s Norway, p. 369. 
 
AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS, 17 
 
 Half-yearly Accounts of Hinds. 
 
 s. & s. d. 
 
 .G.Cranston - 8 3 6 T, Robson - .- 4 3 11 
 
 A. Tunnat - - 15 4 J. Cranston - - 6 12 4 
 
 J. Redpath - - 9 711^ A. Young - - 7 2 5J 
 
 S. Ewart - -559^ E. Davison - - 5 15 1 
 
 A. Gray - - 7 14 4J G. Chernside - - 5 16 7 
 
 A. Elliott - - 23 2 2 T. Middlemas - 4 9 1(% 
 
 T. Fullerton in debt to his master 11. 9s. 8d. He had lost 
 
 ja valuable cow, and his master had lent him 10/. to replace it. 
 
 The food of these people is, as might be presumed., 
 composed chiefly of the articles they receive in lieu 
 of wages, and consists of oatmeal porridge, bread 
 made of barley and peameal mixed, potatoes, milk, 
 and occasionally bacon. They cannot complain of 
 deficiency in the quantity of their food, " It often 
 happens indeed that a hind with but few in family 
 has at the end of the year a good deal of corn to 
 dispose of, for which his master is always willing 
 to give him the market price." The Northumbrian 
 peasantry are however much better fed than housed. 
 Sir F. Doyle shrewdly remarks, that if throughout 
 a large district cottages were held rent free, many 
 of them would probably be unfit to live in, and 
 Northumberland, he says, justifies the assertion. 
 The cottages there generally contain only one room, 
 about 17 feet long by 15 broad. The walls are of 
 rubble, or stones embedded in mud; the floor is 
 also mud ; and the thatch, old, patched, and rotten, 
 looks more like the top of a dunghill than of a 
 house. There is a sketch of a group of these hovels 
 in a little tract * by the Rev. Dr. Gilly, which shows 
 
 . * Appeal on behalf of the Border Peasantry, . 
 C 
 
18 CONDITION OF 
 
 that they are such as no kind-hearted master would 
 keep a cow in. It must be owned, however, that 
 something has been done of late to wipe away this 
 disgrace. Sir Walter Riddell and other bene- 
 volent landlords have built ranges of comfortable 
 cottages on their estates, and it is to be hoped that 
 so excellent an example will soon be generally 
 imitated. 
 
 The peasantry of Cumberland and Westmoreland 
 ought perhaps to have been placed before those of 
 Northumberland, for a smaller proportion of them be- 
 long to the class of mere labourers. Heads of families 
 are very commonly proprietors of a few acres of land 
 which they cultivate with their own hands, procur- 
 ing from their little freeholds not only every neces- 
 sary article of food, but also the raw materials of 
 clothing, which they partly manufacture themselves. 
 These "statesmen," or "lairds," as they are called, 
 do not aspire to luxury ; but all their wishes are 
 amply satisfied, and few people enjoy more of hum- 
 ble happiness. Their sons, if not required at home, 
 enter the service of the neighbouring farmers. 
 They are commonly hired by the half-year, for which 
 period they are paid from 6/. 10s. to 9/. 10s., and 
 are lodged and boarded in their masters' houses, 
 which they seldom leave until, through the death of 
 some relation or neighbour, they succeed to the 
 ownership or lease of a cottage farm. " What is called 
 surplus labour does not here exist. Intersected in 
 every direction by ranges of almost inaccessible and 
 barren mountains, the population is thinly dotted 
 over the intervening valleys," in due proportion to 
 
AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 19 
 
 the facilities for cultivation and the opportunities 
 for employment. * 
 
 These particulars may enable the reader to judge 
 of the condition of the happiest portion of the 
 English peasantry. Truly it presents no very cap- 
 tivating picture. The allotment holders of Lin- 
 colnshire and Rutland, and the yeomen of Cumber- 
 land and Westmoreland, indeed, are in a position 
 which leaves little to be wished for, but such 
 labourers as are entirely dependent on wages, al- 
 though they may be secure from want, can scarcely 
 be said to know any thing of comfort. Still it is 
 something to obtain, by incessant toil, a sufficiency 
 of the necessaries of life, and it would be well if 
 even this modicum of good fortune were everywhere 
 the husbandman's lot. How far otherwise is the 
 fact we shall perceive, when, having observed him in 
 his palmiest state, we now descend to the other ex- 
 tremity of the scale, and see what sort of a life he 
 leads in the counties of Wilts and Somerset. 
 
 Dorsetshire affords an instance of the way in 
 which the rate of wages sometimes varies at places 
 within the same neighbourhood. If any dependence 
 can be placed upon statements made by witnesses 
 of the highest respectability f, which, while attracting 
 a great deal of public attention, still remain unre- 
 
 * Mr. Voules' Report on Westmoreland and Cumberland, in 
 Appendix to Second Annual Report of Poor Law Commis- 
 sioners. Messrs. Bailey and Culley's Report on Northumber- 
 land, Cumberland, &c. 
 
 f See letters to Editor of " Times " newspaper, from the 
 Hon. and Rev. Godolphin Osboriie, Mr. Sheridan, and others. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 CONDITION OF 
 
 fated, it is certain that in most parts of the county 
 the total receipts of a labouring man do not exceed 
 85. a week, yet in others, in the neighbourhood of 
 Blandford for example, the average is represented 
 on equally good authority* as not less than 11s., 
 exclusive of other advantages, such as the posses- 
 sion of a cottage either rent free, or at a reduced 
 rent, a potato ground rent free, and the occasional 
 use of his master's horses in his allotment. It is 
 certain, however, that this is an exception to the 
 rule, and that in general a field labourer cannot 
 one week with another earn more than 8 shillings. 
 A woman may earn sixpence, eight-pence, or a shiU 
 ling a day, according to the season, but the em- 
 ployment of women in agriculture is not continuous, 
 and it is supposed that the earnings of a cottager's 
 wife throughout the year do not much exceed 50 
 shillings, f A man and his wife may therefore have 
 9s. a week, or 23. 8s. a year, to provide for three 
 and a quarter persons on an average. Fifty shil* 
 lings go for rent, thirty for fuel, thirty more for 
 soap and candles, and five pounds for clothes, leav- 
 ing twelve pounds eighteen shillings a year, or about 
 eight-pence halfpenny a day, to buy food for the 
 family, that is to say, a fraction more than two-pence 
 halfpenny a head daily. Taking the average price 
 
 * Mr. Austin's Rep. on Emp. of Women and Children in 
 Agriculture. 
 
 f Dr. Kay, an Assistant Poor -Law Commissioner, made an 
 inquiry, in the year 1838, into the incomes of 539 families in 
 Norfolk and Suffolk, and found the average annual earnings of 
 an agricultural labourer's wife to be sS2 12s, 7d. 
 
AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 21 
 
 of such bread as is used by the peasantry in the 
 West of England to be one shilling the gallon loaf 
 of 81b. lloz. aiid that of potatoes to be fourteen 
 pence per bushel of 551b., two^pence halfpenny will 
 purchase about 29oz. of bread or 1 Olb. of potatoes. 
 In Ireland, where the character of the potato may 
 be presumed to be best understood, five pounds are 
 considered no more than a sufficient meal for a la- 
 bouring man, but it appears that two of such meals 
 a day are as much as the Dorsetshire labourer can 
 venture to indulge in. 
 
 It must be borne in mind> that these calculations 
 are not intended to represent the actual condition 
 of the Dorsetshire labourer^ but rather to show what 
 it would be if every able-bodied man had to main- 
 tain an equal proportion of the helpless members 
 of the community. Most of the aged and orphan 
 poor are maintained by the parish, but it must not 
 on that account be supposed that the average num- 
 ber of persons for whom an agricultural labourer 
 has to provide is less than one and a quarter, or 
 that each person's share of the daily eightpenny- 
 worth of food is proportionably greater. Marriages 
 take place both much more frequently and much 
 earlier among labourers than among people of 
 higher rank, and their families are consequently 
 larger than the average. Certainly the real condi- 
 tion of the Dorsetshire peasantry is very little, if at 
 all, superior to the description given above. Bread 
 and potatoes do really form the staple of their food. 
 As for meat, most of them would not know its taste, 
 if once or twice in the course of their lives on the; 
 
 c 3 
 
22 CONDITION OF 
 
 'Squire's having a son and heir born to him, or on 
 the young gentleman's coming of age, they were 
 not regaled with a dinner of what the newspapers 
 call " old English fare." Some of them contrive to 
 have a little bacon, in the proportion, it seems, of 
 half a pound a- week to a dozen persons, but they 
 more commonly use fat to give the potatoes a relish, 
 and as one of them told Mr, Austin, " they don't 
 always go without cheese." 
 
 Particular stress has been laid upon the quantity 
 and quality of food, because these are the most 
 unerring tests of poverty. Few will stint them- 
 selves when they have the means of buying provi- 
 sions, but many wear dirty ragged clothes merely 
 because they are slovens, and every one must dwell 
 in a hovel where no other dwellings than hovels 
 exist. Otherwise the habitations, not less than the 
 diet, of the Dorsetshire labourers, might be cited in 
 proof of their extreme indigence. The cottages are 
 generally old and decayed, and rarely contain more 
 than three, and often only two rooms, so that grown- 
 up persons of different sexes, fathers and daughters, 
 brothers and sisters, are obliged to sleep in the same 
 chamber. The walls are of mud, the floors gene- 
 rally of stone, but sometimes of earth, which in wet 
 weather becomes mud, as the floors are often below 
 the level of the ground outside. Drainage, and 
 similar accommodations, are universally neglected, 
 and the air is poisoned by the heaps of filth that 
 accumulate beside the doors and windows. But 
 though these wretched dens are doubtless as good 
 as the Dorsetshire labourer can afford to rent, he 
 
AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 23 
 
 could not choose but liye in them, even if his means 
 were greater, for the cottages in his neighbourhood 
 are mostly of this description. As he must live 
 near the farm on which he works, he must content 
 himself with such lodgings as the owners of the land 
 think proper to provide ; and the condition of his 
 dwelling, therefore, indicates chiefly the degree of 
 the landholders' regard for their dependents, and is 
 less certainly a proof of the inhabitant's poverty 
 than an aggravation of his wretchedness. 
 
 Dorsetshire has lately become a byeword among 
 the advocates of the agricultural poor, as if it ex- 
 hibited the darkest picture of rural distress to be 
 discovered in England ; but in the lowest deep there 
 is still a lower deep, as the traveller finds on passing 
 out of this county, and entering either Wilts or So- 
 mersetshire. It has been stated, that in Dorsetshire 
 the average rate of wages is about 85. a- week, and 
 there are numbers of men who have nothing besides 
 this money payment ; but still there are numerous 
 instances of persons obtaining other advantages, 
 which make a sensible, and sometimes important 
 addition to their income. In Wiltshire wages are 
 quite as low, and indeed rather lower, and the 
 labourer seldom receives any thing additional from 
 his master, or has any means of increasing his in- 
 come, unless he has an allotment or keeps a pig. 
 The farmers wonder how their men can live upon 
 their earnings, and it would be wonderful indeed if 
 the effects of insufficient food did not show them- 
 selves in the rapid deterioration of the race. Re- 
 cruiting officers find a material difference in the 
 
 c 4 
 
24 CONDITION OF 
 
 appearance and strength of candidates from the 
 south-western and from the north and north-mid- 
 land counties^ and farmers observe an equal varia- 
 tion in the amount of exertion which they can ob- 
 tain from their men. In Wiltshire the labourer's 
 diet consists, as in Dorsetshire, chiefly of potatoes 
 and bread, but the proportion of the latter article is 
 smaller, and potatoes with salt are sometimes the 
 only food. In Somersetshire, matters are still worse. 
 Wages are there 8s., 7s., and in some places as low 
 as 6s.- a week, without any addition except an allow- 
 ance of cyder, worth about I6d^ which the labourer 
 perhaps would be quite as well without. Allotments 
 also are less general than in the adjoining counties. 
 Nevertheless, as the quality of the food used in those 
 counties cannot easily be much reduced, potatoes 
 and bread form the chief sustenance of the cottager 
 in Somersetshire also, though the quantity of those 
 articles consumed by him corresponds, of course, 
 with his inferior earnings; 
 
 From this view of the agricultural labourer's 
 condition in the several counties in which it wears 
 its brightest and its gloomiest aspect, a pretty 
 correct idea may be formed regarding it throughout 
 the rest of England. It ranges, of course, between 
 the two extremes^ being nowhere so tolerable as in 
 Lincolnshire, and nowhere so melancholy as in 
 Somersetshire, but nevertheless approaching in dif- 
 ferent districts to the comfort of the one or the 
 wretchedness of the other. Thus in most parts of 
 Yorkshire and others of the northern counties, the 
 peasantry are little, if at all, worse off than their 
 
AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 25 
 
 brethren of Northumberland. They are nearly as 
 well fed, and they cannot be worse housed. In 
 Kent also the rate of agricultural wages is rather 
 above the -average. Ten or twelve years ago the 
 Kentish peasantry were among the most degraded 
 in England, and their nearly universal dependence 
 on the poor's rates for part of their subsistence 
 seemed to be an unequivocal sign of over-popula- 
 tion. The New Poor Law, however, while it threw 
 them more upon their own resources, showed at 
 the same time that those resources were much 
 greater than had been supposed. Since the passing 
 of this law the rate has not fallen, but remains at 
 the old amount of 10s. or 12s. a- week, thus showing 
 that previously, when so many of the poor were 
 maintained in idleness, the funds for profitably 
 employing them were not really wanting, but were 
 merely misdirected. 
 
 If official reports could be implicitly trusted, the 
 condition of the peasantry in Norfolk and Suffolk 
 would likewise be above the average. It may really 
 have been so until lately, at least in Norfolk, where 
 farms are generally very large, and farmers men of 
 considerable capital, and little disposed to drive a 
 hard bargain with their labourers. During the last 
 two or three years, however, the fall in the price of 
 produce has made them anxious to diminish the 
 expenses of cultivation, and in many instances they 
 have tried to save by employing fewer labourers and 
 lowering wages. Even when employment was 
 abundant, and while wages remained at the old rate 
 of 10s. a week, the peasantry of these two counties 
 
26 CONDITION OF 
 
 seldom tasted anything better than dry bread ; sd 
 that, when employment was only to be had every 
 other day, and the rate of wages fell to seven or 
 eight shillings a week, their situation became truly 
 deplorable.* 
 
 The peasantry of Bedfordshire and Buckingham- 
 shire, also, are not much more to be envied than 
 those of the west of England. These two counties 
 are the principal seats of two manufactures those 
 of pillow lace and straw plat, which, twenty or 
 thirty years ago, enabled the wives and daughters 
 of cottagers to earn as much as their husbands and 
 brothers. These manufactures have since fallen 
 into decay, and are now brought so low that persons 
 engaged in them cannot obtain a fifth part of their 
 former earnings. The farm-labourer's seven, eight, 
 or nine shillings a week have now become the main- 
 stay of his family, and the smallness of their amount 
 is only too perceptible. A recent though somewhat 
 too highly-coloured account speaks of the cottages 
 as being little better than pigstyes ; and says, that 
 the raggedness and filth of the inmates are surpassed 
 nowhere but in Ireland, while their wasted forms 
 and pale faces give them almost the appearance of 
 people recovering from severe illness. 
 
 The Rebecca riots that took place in South Wales, 
 in the summer of 1843, drew a large share of pub- 
 
 * See the Reports written from Norfolk and Suffolk, by the 
 Correspondent of the " Times " newspaper, in June and July, 
 1844. Next to personal observation, nothing can give a better 
 idea of the real position of the English peasantry than these 
 most interesting letters. 
 
AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. 27 
 
 lie attention to the state of the inhabitants of that 
 quarter, where the peasantry seem to be worse off 
 than in the worst parts of England. Seven shil- 
 lings a week the minimum of English agricul- 
 tural wages are there the maximum, and are ob- 
 tained only by labourers in the employment of 
 landowners and gentlemen farmers. Such labourers 
 commonly have their cottages rent-free. Most of 
 the farms, however, are small, not extending be- 
 yond 100 acres ; and the poorer farmers pay their 
 men only eight-pence, nine-pence, or, at most, a 
 shilling a day, or sixpence or eight-pence a day 
 with food, if, as is often the case, the men board 
 with their masters. Coarse barley bread, flummery, 
 and potatoes, are almost their sole food, and many 
 of the small farmers themselves have little else ex- 
 cept milk, cheese, and bacon. They seldom taste 
 any other animal food.* 
 
 The general application of machinery and steam 
 power to manufactures has caused the latter to be 
 removed almost entirely from the country to towns, 
 where the number of workpeople required in a 
 large establishment is most easily procurable. One 
 or two decaying manufactures still linger in the 
 cottages of the poor, such as those of pillow lace 
 and straw plat, already mentioned, in Buckingham- 
 shire and Bedfordshire, and some others, both of 
 the midland and western counties ; and that of 
 shirt-button making, in Dorsetshire. A good many 
 
 * Letters of the Welsh Correspondent of the " Times,' 
 Written during the summer and autumn of 1843. 
 
28 RUKAL OPERATIVES; 
 
 hand-loom weavers and stocking makers also reside 4 
 in the villages of the manufacturing districts ; and 
 isolated factories, on a large scale, are to be found 
 here and there in country places ; but the numbed 
 of persons employed in them bears too small a pro- 
 portion to the mass of the rural population, and 
 the condition of rural operatives, as far as wages 
 are concerned, differs too slightly from that of their 
 brethren in towns, to require more than a passing 
 allusion to them. It may be laid down as a general 
 rule, that, wherever agriculture is carried on in the 
 neighbourhood of other occupations, its wages will 
 be found nearly, if not quite, at the bottom of the 
 scale. Almost every other business, with the soli- 
 tary exception of hand-loom weaving, seems to be 
 more disagreeable than husbandry, or to be less 
 easily learned, or to demand greater exertion, and 
 is consequently better paid, except when its remu- 
 neration is temporarily depressed by peculiar cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 Colliers and other miners are a much more nu- 
 merous and important class than rural manufac- 
 turers, but they are still less entitled to lengthened 
 notice in this place. There is perhaps no body of 
 men whose physical as well as moral condition is 
 more susceptible of improvement, but, among the 
 evils from which they suffer, scanty remuneration, 
 the distinctive symptom of over-population, is 
 rarely to be found. High wages are required to 
 counterbalance the numerous hardships and incon- 
 veniences of their mode of life, and miners are 
 always much better paid than any other unskilled 
 
MIGRATION INTO TOWNS. 29 
 
 labourers in the same neighbourhood. In Stafford^ 
 shire they earn from 15s. to 18s. a week; in War- 
 wickshire, 18s. a week; in Yorkshire, 20s. to 25s. 
 a week; in Durham and Northumberland, 20s. to 
 30s. a week; in Cornwall, 40s. to 65s. a mouth; in 
 South Wales, 25s, to 60s. a week.* 
 
 Notwithstanding the generally low remuneration 
 of agricultural labourers, early marriages are very 
 prevalent amongst them, and in most cottages chil- 
 dren are more numerous than the adult inmates. 
 The rural population, however, does not advance at 
 the rate which these facts would seem to indicate, 
 owing to the migration which is continually taking 
 place from the country to the towns. The extent 
 of this migration may be ascertained by a compa^ 
 rison of the annual reports of the Registrar-General 
 with the returns of the last census; from which 
 it appears that, in counties containing important 
 manufactures or numerous towns, the increase of 
 population between 1831 and. 1841 was much 
 greater, and in counties chiefly agricultural much 
 less, than the annual excess of births over deaths, 
 uninfluenced by other circumstances, would have 
 effected. Thus, in Lancashire, the increase of 
 population in the ten years ending in 1841 was 
 330,210 ; and in Cheshire, 60,919 ; while the excess 
 of births (supposing it to have been the same in 
 each year of the series as in the last year) was only 
 150,150 in the former, and 28,000 in the latter. 
 
 * Report of Children's Employment Commission in Mines 
 and Collieries. 
 
30 RECENT DEPRESSION 
 
 In particular towns the contrast is still more 
 striking. In Liverpool and Bristol the annual 
 deaths actually exceed the births, so that these 
 towns are only saved from depopulation by their 
 rural recruits, yet the first increased the number 
 of its inhabitants in ten years by more than one- 
 third, and the other by more than one-sixth. In 
 Manchester the annual excess of births could only 
 have added 19,390 to the population between 1831 
 and 1841 ; the actual increase was 68,375. The 
 number of emigrants into Birmingham, during the 
 same period, may in the same way be estimated at 
 40,000 ; into Leeds, at 8,000 ; into the metropolis, 
 at 130,000. On the other hand, in Dorset, Somer- 
 set, and Devonshire, the actual addition to the 
 population in the same decennial period was only 
 15,491, 31,802, and 39,253 respectively; although 
 the excess of births over deaths, in the same coun- 
 ties, was about 20,000, 38,600, and 48,700. People 
 cannot of course be induced to leave their birth- 
 place and the society of their relatives and friends, 
 and to change their habits and modes of life, ex- 
 cept by the hope of some counterbalancing advan- 
 tage ; and accordingly, in most considerable towns, 
 wages, independently of any differences in the na- 
 ture of the occupation, are generally somewhat 
 higher than in the adjoining country. It scarcely 
 ever happens that any class of townsmen are worse 
 paid than husbandmen, unless their wages have 
 been depressed below their former level by peculiar 
 causes ; but an example has been very lately exhi- 
 bited of such a depression, affecting the whole body 
 
OF MANUFACTURING OPERATIVES. 31 
 
 of labourers in many English towns, which deserves 
 to be particularly noticed, in order to prevent its 
 being confounded with the ordinary condition of 
 our urban population. 
 
 A very large proportion of the workpeople resi- 
 dent in English towns are engaged in manufac- 
 tures. Using this term in its common and restricted, 
 but not very easily defined sense, as distinguished 
 from handicrafts, and as denoting only part of the 
 processes whereby the raw produce of the earth is 
 converted into fabrics for man's use, more than 
 400,000 male adults, and a still greater number of 
 females and young persons, are so employed. A 
 short time back the greater part of this vast multi- 
 tude seemed to be sunk in the lowest depth of 
 misery. Thousands were absolutely unable to pro- 
 cure employment, and might be seen standing in 
 constrained idleness about the streets ; or might be 
 found in their dismal homes, bending over a scanty 
 fire, their heads sunk on their breasts, r and sur- 
 rounded by pale emaciated beings, imploring them 
 for food, which they knew not where to seek. Others, 
 somewhat less wretched, were able to obtain work, 
 but only irregularly, and at greatly reduced wages. 
 Scarcely anywhere was there an individual wholly 
 unaffected by the prevailing distress, and who did 
 not perceive its presence at least in some diminution 
 of his accustomed comforts. These expressions are 
 no rhetorical exaggerations, introduced for the sake 
 of effect. The subject is too serious for such 
 trifling. They are a plain and temperate represent- 
 ation of the recent condition of English operatives 
 
32 RECENT DISTRESS 
 
 (the modern appellation for manufacturing labour- 
 ers), and are supported, as will immediately be seen, 
 by the minutest and most trustworthy evidence. 
 
 In January, 1842, when misery in the manufac- 
 turing districts was at its height, the Poor Law 
 Commissioners thought it expedient that a search- 
 ing inquiry should be instituted into the circun> 
 stances of some one town situated in those districts ; 
 and having selected Stockport as the place which 
 was understood to be in the most deplorable condi- 
 tion, they sent there two of their assistants, to 
 examine into the extent, nature, and causes of the 
 prevailing distress. These gentlemen executed 
 their task with the assiduity and and ability which 
 have seldom been wanting in the instruments of the 
 Poor-Law Commission, and their Report presents 
 a picture of human suffering, at once so severe and 
 so heroically borne, as can scarcely be contemplated 
 without tears of mingled pity and admiration. 
 
 Stockport is one of the principal seats of the 
 cotton manufacture, and, five years before the 
 Assistant Commissioners' visit, had been in a very 
 flourishing condition. The weekly income of tjie 
 family of a labourer of the lowest class was then 
 seldom less than one pound, and not unfrequently 
 double or treble that amount. Between this time 
 and 1842, not less apparently than ten thousand 
 persons were thrown out of employment. Of these, 
 many had migrated from other parts of England, 
 and now returned to their own parishes. Others 
 voluntarily left the town, and went in search of 
 work elsewhere, sometimes exploring the whole of 
 
IN MANUFACTURING TOWNS. 33 
 
 Lancashire and Yorkshire on this errand. Those 
 who remained behind, struggled gallantly before 
 they applied for parochial relief : they first exhausted 
 the little hoard accumulated in better days, and 
 sold or pawned their furniture, eking out the money 
 thus obtained with the earnings of occasional jobs. 
 " They did not appear before us, " says the chair- 
 man of the Stockport Board of Guardians, " until 
 their little savings, their household furniture, and 
 nearly the whole of their clothing and bedding had 
 been sold or pawned, in hopes of a change in the 
 times. This hope has been deferred until their 
 souls have sickened within them, and the complaints 
 of their starving wives, and the crying of their 
 hungry children, have driven them to the alterna- 
 tive of applying for relief, or of allowing their 
 families to die from destitution." Instances occurred 
 of persons being brought to a premature grave by 
 the privations they thus voluntarily endured. One 
 of these, who died within a week after the applica- 
 tion which he was at last compelled to make to the 
 guardians, being asked why he had not sought 
 relief sooner, replied that he wished to go on as 
 long as he could first, "a very common reason" 
 observed the commissioners' informant, " with some 
 of the poor." Yet, notwithstanding this independ- 
 ence of spirit, and notwithstanding that a large 
 portion of the population of Stockport consisted of 
 strangers not entitled to parochial relief, the num- 
 ber of persons of every description who were able 
 to claim and were compelled to accept that relief, 
 had increased, in December, 1841, to nearly seven 
 
34 RECENT DISTRESS 
 
 thousand, one-twelfth at least of the whole popula- 
 tion of the Union. To so large a multitude, only 
 scanty relief could be afforded ; not more than one 
 shilling per head weekly. The poor rates, of course, 
 were increased in proportion; but the poverty of 
 the rate-payers created so large a number of de- 
 faulters, that the amount collected invariably fell 
 far short, not exceeding two-thirds at most, of the 
 sum estimated. In fact, out of 7464 rated houses 
 existing in the township of Stockport at the date of 
 the Eeport, 1632 were empty, and for nearly 3000 
 more default had occurred. 
 
 The commissioners personally visited the dwell- 
 ings of several poor persons. Many of them are 
 expressly stated to have parted with clothing and 
 bedding for food, before applying to the parish. 
 One man had pawned his wife's wedding-ring for 
 eighteen-pence, and his bible for a shilling. Some 
 were still living by the sale of their effects, and had 
 not yet applied for relief. John Daniels (his name 
 deserves to be recorded), a silk- weaver, with a wife 
 and five children, having been long without work, 
 was obliged to apply to the parish, and obtained an 
 order for a month for four shillings a week in provi- 
 sions. The whole of his incomings were then about 
 eight shillings a week. Being asked in what man- 
 ner he disposed of this pittance, he said, " We make 
 our breakfast for seven of us of a teacup ful of oat- 
 meal made into thin porridge, together with some 
 bread ; at dinner we have about six pounds of pota- 
 toes, with salt and bread; the tea, or supper, as 
 you may call it, the same as at breakfast ; in the 
 
IN MANUFACTURING TOWNS. 35 
 
 whole about four pounds of bread daily, say eight- 
 pence, two-pennyworth of potatoes, and two-penny- 
 worth of oatmeal, amounting to a shilling a day for 
 seven of us. This, and Wd. a week we have to 
 pay for coals, make up the 8s. nearly." This man, 
 on obtaining work, gave up of his own accord part 
 of the allowance ordered for him by the guardians. 
 He had received 4s. a week for three weeks, and 
 when the fourth payment became due, he went to 
 the relieving officer, and said, "I will have no more 
 relief. I have got one warp for myself, and the 
 prospect of another for my wife." 
 
 The cases personally inspected by the commis- 
 sioners, being chiefly those in which relief was 
 received from the parish, did not present the 
 extreme of wretchedness. There were other fami- 
 lies, in which, according to the chairman of the 
 Board of Guardians, it had been ascertained that 
 many women had "no clothes but a chemise, or 
 wretched outer garment; no flannel petticoat, or 
 anything fit to keep out the pinching cold of win- 
 ter." The want of bedding was still more general. 
 " A few flocks, or a little straw, spread in the corner 
 of the room or cellar," were all that some poor 
 creatures possessed, with "no covering but a single 
 sheet or rug. Many had to lie together, to the 
 number of six, seven, eight, and more, of both 
 sexes, indiscriminately huddled together in their 
 clothes, covered by an old sack or rug." As for 
 the food of these miserable beings, it commonly 
 consisted of a little oatmeal, or a few potatoes, or 
 perhaps a little bread. " Families " said a provision 
 
 D 2 
 
36 RECENT DISTRESS 
 
 dealer, " that used to buy flour, now purchase only 
 oatmeal ; they come for one or two pounds of oat- 
 meal a day, and live upon it." A furniture broker, 
 who was also examined by the commissioners, said, 
 " People now bring articles of such a mean descrip- 
 tion, as they would never have thought of bringing 
 for sale before. They offer me knives and forks, 
 bits of old iron, anything which they have about 
 them, and they tell me they want to raise money to 
 buy a few potatoes with, just to carry them on 
 another week. As for t clothing, I have never seen 
 children so badly clothed. The children come to 
 me often with their mothers, begging their mothers 
 to sell small articles, to get a bit of bread or a few 
 potatoes." 
 
 A few weeks previously to the arrival of the 
 commissioners at Stockport, a considerable sum had 
 been raised by subscription for the relief of the 
 poor, and a committee, composed of the principal 
 municipal authorities, the clergy of all denomina- 
 tions, and some of the leading manufacturers of the 
 place, was appointed for the management of the 
 fund. In a circular issued by this committee, 
 which is recommended by the commissioners to 
 attention, " as representing the impressions of all 
 parties in the borough respecting the extent of the 
 distress," is the following statement. " Of 15,823 
 individuals inhabiting 2965 houses, lately visited 
 under the direction of a committee appointed for the 
 purpose, 1204 only are found to be fully employed, 
 2866 partially employed, and 4148 able to work, 
 were wholly without employment. The remaining 
 
IN MANUFACTURING TOWNS. 37 
 
 7605 persons were unable to work. The average 
 weekly income of the above 15,823 persons was 
 1 s. 4f<i. each . The average weekly wages of those fully 
 employed were Is. 6^d. each. The average weekly 
 wages of those partially employed, As. l\d. each." 
 
 The distress of which these are such convincing 
 proofs was aggravated at Stockport by local causes, 
 but it existed in a degree very little inferior in 
 most other manufacturing towns. It was parti- 
 cularly severe throughout Lancashire and those 
 parts of Yorkshire in which the cotton manufacture 
 has its principal seat. In Manchester, there were 
 said to be 9,000 families earning on an average 
 only Is. a week. In Bolton, out of 50 mills, which 
 had formerly employed 8124 workmen, 30 mills 
 with 5061 workpeople were standing idle or work- 
 ing only short time, f The weekly earnings of 
 the bed quilt and counterpane weavers were re- 
 duced to less than one half of their amount in 
 1838. Those of the hand-loom weavers, though 
 long before depressed, had fallen again from 6s. to 
 3s. l\d. The destitution of the operatives and the 
 embarrassments of their employers were shared 
 largely by the tradesmen and handicraftsmen whose 
 customers they had been. In Bolton a diminution 
 of 365 II. took place in the weekly amount of 
 wages paid in twelve trades. Out of 150 carpenters 
 formerly earning 25s. a week each, only twenty -five 
 remained in full work and fifteen in half work, and 
 the number of stonemasons was reduced from 140 
 
 * Messrs. Power and Twistleton's Rep. on the State of the 
 Population of Stockport, passim. 
 
 f Lord Kinnaird in House of Lords, 2nd June, 1842. 
 
38 RECENT DISTRESS 
 
 earning 34s. a week to 50 earning 10s. 6d. * Very 
 similar and not much more moderate were the 
 sufferings of the clothworkers of Yorkshire and 
 Wiltshire, of the silkweavers of Spitalfields and 
 Macclesfield, the lacemakers of Nottinghamshire, 
 the potters of Staffordshire, and the hardware - 
 makers of the same county, of Warwickshire, and 
 Sheffield. In the last-mentioned town, where, in 
 1836, there was not a single able-bodied man out of 
 employment, there were, in 1842, one thousand 
 families supported by contributions from the 
 trades to which they belonged, at the rate of 
 Is. 3d. weekly for each person, and hundreds 
 more were in the receipt of parish relief, f In 
 Leeds, 4025 families, being one fifth of the 
 whole population, were dependent on the poor's 
 rates. J But it is needless to multiply examples, 
 for no one can have forgotten the formidable riots 
 that took place in the midland counties in the 
 summer of 1842, and which sufficiently attested 
 the desperate condition to which the operatives 
 were reduced. Almost everywhere and in almost 
 every manufacture the complaint of the workmen 
 was the same, of the difficulty of obtaining employ- 
 ment and of the utter impossibility of earning a 
 competent livelihood. If this state of things had 
 continued through a long series of years, no further 
 proof would be required that the number of opera- 
 tives was excessive. But the condition of per- 
 manence was fortunately wanting. The distress 
 
 * Dr. Bowring, in House of Commons, 15th Feb. 1843. 
 f Mr. Ward, in House of Commons, 14-th Feb. 1843. 
 { Leeds Mercury, 25th June, 184-2. 
 
IN MANUFACTURING TOWNS. 39 
 
 did not last more than three years. Symptoms of 
 its approach were perceptible earlier, but its pre- 
 sence was not manifest till 1840, and towards the 
 end of 1842 it began to subside. Both previously 
 and subsequently to this period, the condition of 
 manufacturing labourers (with one or two import- 
 ant exceptions) was, as it still continues to be, 
 little less comfortable than that of great bodies of 
 men similarly employed has ever been. It has 
 been mentioned that from 20s. to 60s. a week were 
 the usual earnings of a labouring family in Stock- 
 port previously to the late severe distress. In 
 1835, the average weekly earnings of adult opera- 
 tives are said to have been 16s. ft^d. ; but from nu- 
 merous examples it would seem, that single work- 
 men of a superior order, such as spinners and 
 dressers, earned from 20s. to 25s. * In Manchester, 
 according to a table drawn up by the Chamber of 
 Commerce in 1832, the usual weekly wages of 
 male spinners were from 20s. to 25s. ; of females, 
 10s. to 15s.; of stretchers, 25s.; of dressers, 28s. 
 to 30s. ; of mechanics, 24s. to 26s. ; of carders, 
 14s. 6d. to 17s. ; of male weavers, 13s. to 16s. Wd. ; 
 of female do., 8s. to 12s.; of machine makers and 
 iron founders, 24s. to 30s. In Bradford, in 1839, 
 the average rate of wages in the woollen and 
 cotton mills, was, of men, 15s. to 35s. a week ; of 
 women, 8s. to 15s. ; and of children, 2s. 6d. to 7s. 
 At Sheffield, about the same time, wages varied 
 from 12s. to 40s. a week. At Birmingham, the 
 average was about 23s. 6d. ; the average amount 
 
 * Stockport Commissioners' Report. 
 
40 RECENT DISTRESS 
 
 ' 
 
 received by 76 persons employed in 32 different 
 occupations having been 236-. * These were the 
 rates a few years back, and they seem to be quite 
 as high at present. In November, 1843, according 
 to statements obtained by Mr. Cobden, female 
 weavers in Lancashire were earning on an average 
 from 10s. to 125. a week, and many families employed 
 in factories could be found earning altogether more 
 ^ than 2/. weekly, f Three months later, Mr. 
 Bright, M. P. for Durham, stated, that in his own 
 mill, employing 518 persons, the average wages of 
 adult males were 16s. 2^., and of adult females 
 11s. Wd. ; and that of 5L families in his service, 
 the average income was 35s. 9d. a week, or 92/. 19s. 
 a year. J Calico printers in . Lancashire, working 
 ten hours a day, receive from 30s. to 45s. a week, 
 if machine printers, and if block printers can earn 
 from II. to M. 10s. The men employed in the 
 Staffordshire Potteries earn from 11. 4s. to 2/. a 
 week, according to the sort of work they are en- 
 gaged upon, and as the processes are such as 
 admit of the employment of whole families, their 
 united earnings are sometimes 31. or 4. a week. || 
 At Kidderminster, the carpet weavers earn from 
 11. 10s. to 21. 17s. a week. At Birmingham, many 
 workmen earn from 30s. to 50s. a week, and many 
 
 * See Mr. Symons' " Arts and Artizans at Home and Abroad," 
 1839. 
 
 t Times, Dec. 1. 1843. 
 
 J Hansard's Parl. Deb., 15th March, 1844. 
 
 Mr. Kennedy's Kept, to Children's Employment Com- 
 missioners. 
 
 || Mr. Scriven's Kept, to Children's Employment Com- 
 missioners. 
 
IN MANUFACTURING TOWNS. 
 
 41 
 
 women, from 10s. to 14s. a week. Of 134 males 
 of the age of 21 and upwards, members of a provi- 
 dent institution, the average weekly earnings were 
 found to be II. 4s. 2d. 
 
 How far such wages as these are equal to the 
 maintenance of an average family, will be seen, on 
 reference to the subjoined Table, showing the way 
 in which a family of six persons do actually live, 
 in Manchester, upon 34s. 6d. a week. * 
 
 
 Total 
 Expenditure of 
 the whole Family 
 per week. 
 
 Expenditure 
 of each Individual 
 per week. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 S. d. 
 
 Rent 
 
 050 
 
 10 
 
 Flour - 
 
 5 10 
 
 111 
 
 Meat 
 
 048 
 
 o 91 
 
 Bacon 
 
 004 
 
 o 
 
 Butter - 
 
 020 
 
 4 
 
 Eggs - 
 Milk 
 
 1 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 Potatoes - 
 
 1 8 
 
 o 31 
 
 Cheese - 
 
 009 
 
 11 
 
 Tea 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 Coffee - 
 
 006 
 
 1 
 
 Sugar 
 Soap 
 Candles - 
 
 020 
 006 
 006 
 
 4 
 1 
 1 
 
 Salt 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 Coals - 
 
 
 
 1 2 
 
 21 
 
 1 7 10 
 
 4 8 
 
 The fact of every individual here having been 
 able to spend a few pence a week on the super- 
 fluities of sugar, tea, and coffee, shows, that there 
 
 * Mr. Kennedy's Report to Children's Employment Com- 
 missioners. 
 
42 RECENT DISTRESS 
 
 can have been no want of the more indispensable 
 articles of food, more especially as one of the 
 family may be supposed to have been an infant, 
 that did not consume the whole of its allowance. 
 This particular family, it will be observed, con- 
 tained more than the average number of members, 
 while its income was, if any thing, rather below 
 the average earnings of families engaged in manu- 
 factures, whose wages are therefore high enough 
 to prove incontestably, that the temporary distress 
 lately experienced by the manufacturing classes 
 must have proceeded from other causes than their 
 own overcrowded state. It will not, perhaps, be 
 considered an impertinent digression, if a few 
 pages are here employed in an attempt to point 
 out what those causes were, before we proceed 
 further with the proper subject of this chapter. 
 
 In the interval between the years 1829 and 1836 
 the condition of British manufactures may be 
 described as one of general prosperity. In the 
 course of this period the quantity of native produce 
 and manufactures exported from the United King- 
 dom, was increased by very nearly one-third, and 
 though this vast increase is in a great measure 
 attributed to the increased cheapness of the goods, 
 and does not imply a corresponding increase in the 
 value of the exports, the latter also advanced very 
 materially; viz., from 38,271,597/. in 1830, to 
 47,372,270^. in 1835. The extension here denoted 
 was experienced chiefly by the cotton and woollen 
 manufactures, but, as will be shown by the subjoined 
 Table, it was experienced in a greater or less degree 
 by every important branch of industry. 
 
IN MANUFACTURING TOWNS. 
 
 43 
 
 Ill 
 
 1*1 
 
 SfMGi 
 r-tn-t 
 
 
 T 
 
 1^- Ci r ' CO i I CO O GO .t^- r-H J~ i I i^- 
 
 (MtM^fGp-^ 1 ' lOOOO oT<J> CO^oT 
 
 
 <M i t o cc <M 
 
 ^t | cDOir^ai 
 
 r^osai' l 
 
 OOOO^<MO 
 
 OJ^OOCD(M' i 
 
 II 
 
 S* 
 
 co oq i 1 
 
 co" oo^ co" cT ^ cxT 10" co** crT co~i 
 c^f c<T i T of c^ co^ co'' c^ co~ ^ 
 
 II 
 
 o 
 
 oo 
 ao o 
 
 GO !> 00 O^ C^I QO 05 CO i>- 
 
 oT t>^ j>T cT cT c<T ^ i 
 
 i i t i i i i i <M (M oq < 
 
 Oi 
 
 
 oo 
 ^ 
 
 **?> 
 
 See^S 
 
 OOOOOOOOQOOQOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 
 
44 RECENT DISTRESS 
 
 Altogether, an addition of more than nine millions 
 sterling was made, in the short space of six years, 
 to the amount annually obtained by the sale of 
 British exports, and after deducting the value of 
 the increased quantity of materials contained in 
 those goods, the largest portion of this sum would 
 still remain to be added to the fund annually distri- 
 buted amongst labourers and their employers. A 
 corresponding accession to the income of the manu- 
 facturers was made in the home market, where the 
 consumption of British goods was extended at least 
 as much as abroad. The aggregate income of the 
 manufacturing classes might however be augmented, 
 without benefit to either the workmen or their 
 masters, if their numbers and the capital invested 
 in their business were disproportionately increased 
 at the same time. The rates of wages and profits 
 might then be lower, though the total amounts 
 were higher than before. It is certain, indeed, that 
 this was not the case with wages at the time spoken 
 of, for the wages of operatives in the years imme- 
 diately preceding 1836, were, if anything, rather 
 higher than they had been for many years pre- 
 viously. But it must be acknowledged that com- 
 plaints were prevalent at that time of reduced 
 profits in several important branches of industry, 
 particularly in the cotton manufacture, the most 
 important of all, owing, as was supposed, partly to 
 the excessive investment of capital, and partly to 
 foreign competition. These complaints were made 
 by persons of such high authority, that it would be 
 presumptuous flatly to deny their accuracy; but it 
 
IN MANUFACTURING TOWNS. 45 
 
 may be permitted to remark, that the continued 
 influx- of capital into the cotton manufacture, not- 
 withstanding the asserted decrease of profit, shows 
 that profits in that business were at least as high as 
 in any other, and that, as foreign competition did 
 not prevent the exportation of British goods from 
 increasing with extraordinary rapidity, it could 
 not have exactly reduced profits, though it doubt- 
 less had its effect in preventing them from rising so 
 high as they otherwise might have done. At all 
 events, profits were high enough to induce the 
 masters not only to continue, but greatly to extend, 
 their transactions ; and this, coupled with the full 
 employment and adequate remuneration of the 
 workmen, may be accepted as sufficient proof of 
 the reality of the asserted prosperity of the whole 
 manufacturing body. Until 1836, too, this pros- 
 perity seemed to be, and indeed was, based on a 
 sound foundation, but in that year an important 
 change took place in this respect. 
 
 Of the whole foreign commerce of Great Britain, 
 very nearly one-fifth is, or at least till lately was, 
 carried on with the United States of America; and 
 it need scarcely be remarked, that when two coun- 
 tries are so closely connected, no important move- 
 ment can take place, in one without its consequences 
 being more or less felt in the other. The people of 
 the United States possess every requisite for the 
 growth of their wealth and power immense unoc- 
 cupied tracts of fertile soil, an extensive coast, 
 numerous navigable rivers, free institutions, and an 
 enterprising spirit ; and their actual progress has 
 
46 RECENT DISTRESS 
 
 been without example in the history of nations. 
 Their prosperity, however, is not unchequered, but 
 is liable to severe disturbance from neglect of so 
 obvious a precaution as that of securing a good and 
 stable pecuniary currency, and of guarding against 
 its depreciation by the over-issue of paper-money. 
 We, in England, have had no great cause to pride 
 ourselves on our prudence in this respect, but our 
 omissions, deplorable as their consequences have 
 frequently been, have been far surpassed in reck- 
 lessness by the Americans. Among the latter, not 
 only is every set of men at liberty to establish a 
 joint-stock bank, and to issue notes payable on 
 demand, without the wealth and character, or even 
 the names, of the issuers being known, and without 
 any security being taken for the real existence of 
 the bank's declared capital : the shareholders are 
 not even held responsible for the whole debts of 
 the bank, but only for an amount equal to their 
 shares of stock, or of some fixed multiple thereof. 
 Needy adventurers are thus enabled to become 
 partners in a bank, and bankers, even when men 
 of property, are tempted to engage in the most 
 hazardous speculations, for which a few reams of 
 silver paper made into notes furnish ample re- 
 sources, and to discount bills and make advances or 
 loans with careless prodigality. As their notes, 
 while current, possess all the qualities of money, 
 and as the value of money, like the value of all 
 other commodities, is, cceteris paribus, inversely as 
 the quantity in the market, these operations of the 
 bankers frequently render the currency redundant, 
 
IN MANUFACTURING TOWNS. 47 
 
 and depreciate its value. Prices rise in proportion ; 
 speculators make, or seem about to make, large 
 profits ; their good fortune tempts others to imitate 
 them ; fresh advances are obtained from the banks ; 
 prices rise still higher; activity pervades every 
 department of trade. Suddenly this pleasing pic- 
 ture is overcast. With the price of other articles, 
 the price of the precious metals rises also; the 
 foreign exchanges become adverse, and gold and 
 silver coins are eagerly sought after, to be melted 
 down or exported. Notes are returned to the banks 
 to be exchanged for specie : many of the banks are 
 probably unable to meet this demand, and even the 
 most substantial cannot do so without contracting 
 their issues, and by refusing the usual discounts 
 and other accommodation to their customers, placing 
 both the latter and themselves in danger of ruin. 
 But, instead of a longer description, it will be suffi- 
 cient, in order to show the disastrous results of the 
 American system of banking, to state, this one fact: 
 that between the years 1811 and 1830, no fewer 
 than 195 banks became altogether bankrupt, inde- 
 pendently of a much greater number that stopped 
 for a while and afterwards resumed payments.* It 
 is not easy to exaggerate the wide-spread ruin that 
 must have accompanied these failures. 
 
 During the greater part of this period there 
 existed one banking establishment, " the Bank of 
 the United States," of undoubted solidity, with a 
 large paid up capital, and branches in all parts of 
 
 * Macculloch's Com. Diet., art. " Bank." 
 
48 RECENT DISTRESS 
 
 the Union, where its notes being readily accepted, 
 served in some measure to restrain the operations of 
 the other banks. But, in 1836, the charter of this 
 national establishment expired, and President Jack- 
 son, for no other conceivable reason than perhaps 
 to show that the science of government, like all 
 other sciences, can only be acquired by study, re- 
 fusing to renew it, the United States' Bank ceased 
 to exist as such, and became a mere provincial 
 bank, with a sphere of action confined within the 
 limits of Pennsylvania. In the other states a 
 number of joint-stock banks immediately sprang 
 up to supply its place; so that between June, 1834, 
 and January, 1836, the whole number in the Union 
 increased from 506 to 713. Other circumstances 
 concurring at the same time to excite a spirit of 
 commercial speculation, the activity of the Ame- 
 rican banks increased still more than their number, 
 and in the two years ending with the 1st January, 
 1836, the value of the bank-notes in circulation 
 increased from $95,000,000 to $140,000,000, 
 and the loans and discounts of the banks from 
 $324,000,000 to $457,000,000.* 
 
 This excessive issue of paper-money originated, 
 as was just observed, in a spirit of commercial ex- 
 citement, but aggravated the cause from whence it 
 sprang, and was itself aggravated in return. Its 
 first eflPect was a rise of prices, and this led to 
 trading speculations, more particularly in foreign 
 goods, which, having become dearer in the American 
 
 * Macculloch's Com. Diet., art. " Bank." 
 
IN MANUFACTURING TOWNS. 49 
 
 market, while their price in the producing countries 
 remained unchanged, seemed to promise extraordi- 
 nary profits. Unlimited orders for goods were 
 accordingly sent to foreign countries, and more 
 particularly to Great Britain, where* an increased 
 demand for native manufactures had already sprung 
 up from a different cause. The harvests in England, 
 in 1834 and the two following years, were so un- 
 usually productive, that the average price of corn 
 during that period was only 44,?. Sd. per quarter, 
 or less than it had been in any previous year since 
 1786, or for nearly half a century. The only class 
 that can suffer from a plentiful harvest is the 
 farmers, who, though they have more corn to sell, 
 may not be able to obtain so large a sum for their 
 whole stock ; but, with this exception, every mem- 
 ber of the community, from the prince to the 
 ploughman, has reason to rejoice in the low price 
 of food. Every one, having less to pay for food, 
 has more money to spend in other things ; and it 
 has been proved by experience that the difference 
 in the sums laid out by the labouring classes in 
 dress, &c. in cheap and dear years, has more effect 
 upon the welfare of the manufacturers than almost 
 any other cause whatever. Owing then to this in- 
 crease of both the home and foreign demand, our 
 manufacturers in 1836 found their profits advancing 
 rapidly, and they naturally strove to maintain and 
 enlarge their shares of so lucrative a business, while 
 other persons were equally eager to obtain admis- 
 sion into it. Ample means for both purposes were 
 unhappily procurable from the joint-stock banks, 
 
50 RECENT DISTRESS 
 
 which were then not very much better regulated in 
 England than in America ; and which, between 
 September, 1834, and September, 1837, increased 
 in number about one half, while their issues in the 
 same period increased from less than two to not 
 quite four millions sterling. Mills, factories, and 
 furnaces sprang up in every direction ; and in the 
 single county of Lancaster, new steam engines, of 
 the aggregate power of about 7000 horses, were set 
 up in the course of 1835 and 1836. The resident 
 inhabitants of the manufacturing districts were 
 found to be too few to perform all the work offered 
 to them ; and agricultural labourers, attracted by 
 the hope of high wages, were brought to their as- 
 sistance from every corner of the kingdom. With 
 the exception of the farmers, who were depressed 
 by the low price of their produce, the whole nation 
 seemed never to have been in a more thriving state ; 
 but it was not long before the inevitable reverse 
 took place. 
 
 The first blow was received from America, where 
 the insane proceedings of the banks led to a re- 
 action, and to a demand for specie which they were 
 unable to satisfy ; so that by May, 1837, every bank 
 in the United States, without, it is believed, a single 
 exception, was compelled to stop payment. The 
 excessive importation of foreign goods into the 
 American market must, of itself, have occasioned 
 a fall in their price that would have proved ruinous 
 to many speculators ; but when to this was added 
 the total annihilation of paper-money and of credit 
 consequent upon the stoppage of the banks, the 
 
IN MANUFACTURING TOWNS. 51 
 
 ruin became nearly universal. The whole com- 
 mercial community might be described, without 
 very gross exaggeration, as in a state of bank- 
 ruptcy. Of course, this state of things extended 
 its influence to England. The merchants there 
 were in many instances ruined by the failure of 
 their American debtors, and the losses of the mer- 
 chants were shared largely by the manufacturers. 
 The latter, however, were not so much injured by 
 their actual losses as by the diminished demand for 
 their goods ; for, owing chiefly to the commercial 
 revulsion in the United States, the value of British 
 exports to foreign countries fell, in 1837, to more 
 than eleven millions sterling below its amount in 
 the preceding year. Nevertheless, the production 
 of manufactured goods in Great Britain does not 
 seem to have experienced a check for a very consi- 
 derable time. The manufacturers in general pro- 
 bably fancied that the depression of trade would be 
 of short duration, and did not immediately perceive 
 the necessity of contracting their operations ; and 
 those among them who had established themselves 
 with borrowed capital, saw no other chance of 
 meeting their engagements than by extending their 
 business as much as possible. Every manufacture 
 consequently continued to be carried on with un- 
 abated activity; and as the number of factories, 
 &c. had been largely increased in 1835 and 1836, 
 the quantity of goods produced, instead of falling 
 off in proportion to the diminished demand, seems 
 even to have gone on increasing. This abundance 
 of goods lowered their price, and their low price 
 
 E 2 
 
52 ORDINARY CONDITION 
 
 caused the consumption of them in foreign coun- 
 tries to be so largely augmented, that, in 1838 
 and the three succeeding years, the average annual 
 value of British exports became nearly as great as 
 it had been in 1836, and much greater than it had 
 been in 1835. This increased exportation was not 
 indeed beneficial to the master manufacturers, for 
 it was occasioned by prices so low as to leave little 
 or no profit on capital ; but, as long as it lasted, it 
 kept the operatives in full employment, and pre- 
 vented them from feeling very sensibly the distress 
 of their employers. But it was impossible for the 
 latter to continue this course long, and their diffi- 
 culties were augmented by the scanty harvests of 
 1838-41, which, raising the price of food in England 
 by one-half above its price in 1835-6, reduced in a 
 corresponding degree the home demand for their 
 goods. Their resources gradually decreased, and 
 as prices still remained depressed, many of them in 
 the course of 1841 were compelled to withdraw 
 from business, and most of those who remained 
 could only work " short time," that is, fewer days 
 in the week and fewer hours in the day. Thou- 
 sands of working people were then thrown out of 
 employment, and that severe distress began to per- 
 vade the whole class, of which an attempt has been 
 made by a few examples to convey some faint idea. 
 It has been shown that this distress was only 
 temporary, and that the ordinary condition of manu- 
 facturing operatives is very far from being one of 
 privation. Handicraftsmen are in general equally 
 well off. Journeymen tailors seldom earn less than 
 
OF TOWN LABOURERS. 58 
 
 18s. a week, or shoemakers less than 15s., while, in 
 London, those who work by the piece earn half as* 
 much again, and the wages of carpenters, sawyers, 
 bricklayers, masons, painters, plasterers, slaters, and, 
 blacksmiths range between 18s. and 40s. a week. 
 The position of operatives and handicraftsmen, how- 
 ever, affords no clue to that of other portions of the 
 labouring population of towns. The skill, only to 
 be acquired by long practice, which is required in 
 all handicrafts, and in most manufacturing processes, 
 and still more the great number of workmen needed 
 to carry on an extensive business, enable them to 
 combine successfully against their masters, and to 
 raise their wages much higher than free competition 
 would permit. The fear of their deserting him in 
 a body, and the impossibility of readily supplying 
 the places of so many skilled labourers, frequently 
 compel a master to acquiesce in the unreasonable 
 demands of his men, who are thus enabled not only 
 to dictate, within certain limits, the rate of wages 
 and the hours of labour, but to forbid the employ- 
 ment of persons of whom they disapprove, or the 
 engagement of a greater number of apprentices than 
 they may think it prudent to admit to a knowledge 
 of their art. Suitable arrangements are made for 
 the exercise of this power. In almost every trade 
 in the kingdom the journeymen are formed into 
 local associations, which are governed by laws and 
 officers of their own. In some instances, all the 
 workmen in a place engaged in a particular business 
 assemble, and appoint their office-bearers by a major 
 rity of votes; in others, the several factories, or the 
 
 E 3 
 
54 ORDINARY CONDITION 
 
 " houses of call" at which the workmen meet, send 
 delegates, who afterwards select four or five of 
 themselves to form a ruling council. But, however 
 appointed, this committee is invested with absolute 
 authority, which it often exercises in a most despo- 
 tic manner. It directs at its pleasure all the move- 
 ments of the association ; it decides according to 
 its own judgment when a " strike' 7 or cessation of 
 work shall take place, and its edict is immediately 
 obeyed by all to wl^om it is addressed. These forth- 
 with, though often very reluctantly, abandon their 
 occupation, compelled to do so, both by regard for 
 the oath administered to them on joining the asso- 
 ciation, and by fear of persecution and of personal 
 violence, or even death, which is not unfrequently 
 inflicted on refractory workmen by the emissaries 
 of the ruling council. In this state of constrained 
 idleness they are maintained for a while by means 
 of a fund to which every member of the association 
 contributes, until either this fund fails, and they 
 are compelled to accept their master's terms, or 
 until he, on the other hand, is compelled to accept 
 theirs, to escape the loss and ruin consequent upon 
 a continued stoppage of his business. One condi- 
 tion upon which they almost always insist is, that 
 none but members of their association shall be em- 
 ployed by their masters ; and to check the excessive 
 influx of -new members, a heavy pecuniary fine 
 (amounting frequently to 5L or more) is imposed 
 on all persons, whether skilled workmen or appren- 
 tices, obtaining admission into the society.* By 
 * Reports of Committee on Combinations of Workmen, 1838. 
 
OF TOWN LABOURERS. 55 
 
 such means as these wages are often raised very 
 considerably above their natural level, and one ne- 
 cessary result is, that the rates of wages in different 
 occupations vary exceedingly, and quite independ- 
 ently of any difference of skill to be exerted or of 
 hardship to be borne. This is the case even among 
 manufacturing operatives. While cotton -spinners 
 have been earning from 20s. to 305. a- week, power- 
 loom weavers have obtained only 14s. or 15s.; and 
 though handloom weavers of silk, linen, and woollen 
 often earn 16s. or 18s., handloom weavers of cotton 
 have for years been unable to obtain more than 7s. 
 a- week. The difference here, it is true, arises partly 
 from inferiority of skill or strength on the part of 
 the worse-paid workman, but partly also merely 
 from his inability to obtain admission into the bet- 
 ter-paid occupation. 
 
 The condition of handloom weavers, it should be 
 observed, has been depressed, in consequence of 
 improvements in machinery, and other circum- 
 stances peculiar to them, so that, notwithstanding 
 their great number, and the large proportion which 
 they bear to the whole class of manufacturing 
 operatives, they cannot be taken as fair examples 
 of that class. Handloom weavers of cotton have 
 not of late, even in comparatively prosperous times, 
 and when fully employed, been able to earn more 
 than 6s. or 7s. a week on an average, so that, with- 
 out reference to their recent still deeper depression, 
 they may be safely pronounced to be in as pitiable 
 a situation as any portion of the whole population 
 of the country, whether urban or rural. But, with 
 
 E 4 
 
56 ORDINARY CONDITION 
 
 this, and one or two other exceptions, operatives 
 and handicraftsmen are generally in a position 
 very superior to that of other labourers in towns, 
 that is to say, of porters, spademen, &c., who have 
 no particular qualification for any pursuit, but are 
 ready to turn their hands to any thing requiring 
 merely muscular strength and ordinary ingenuity. 
 Yet even these, in the metropolis and other great 
 towns, commonly earn from 105. to 185. a week. 
 In London, labourers in the docks, whose condition 
 may be regarded as representing pretty faithfully 
 that of unskilled labourers in general, get from 15s. 
 to 18<s. In Manchester, porters get 14s. or 15s. a 
 week; packers, I/., and common day labourers 
 from 10s. to 15s. Ten shillings a w r eek, indeed, 
 seem to be the lowest rate at which out-of-door la- 
 bourers are ever paid in English towns, and in 
 general their wages are a shilling or two higher. 
 Upon the highest of these wages it is not impossi- 
 ble to support a family pretty comfortably, and 
 even the lowest, however inadequate for comfort, 
 are, as we discovered in our survey of the agricul- 
 tural districts, considerably more than are abso- 
 lutely necessary for existence. It might reason- 
 ably be thought, therefore, that where they were 
 prevalent there could not be any surplus labour, 
 as otherwise they would probably be reduced still 
 lower by the keen competition of the unemployed. 
 Such an inference would not be strictly correct. 
 The occupations carried on in towns are not, for 
 the most part, such as to require the engagement 
 of many unskilled labourers by the same employer. 
 
OF TOWN LABOURERS. 57 
 
 Most masters have probably only two or three 
 such workmen in their service, and entertain- 
 ing for them the personal regard commonly spring- 
 ing from familiar intercourse, they are not eager 
 to avail themselves of an opportunity to lower 
 their wages. Masters who employ a greater num- 
 ber of men are proportionably wealthy, and they 
 also are restrained by shame, or by a better 
 motive, from taking advantage of the distresses of 
 the poor. Thus there may be persons absolutely 
 unable to obtain employment in a place, where 
 those who are employed are in the receipt of tole- 
 rable wages. An example of this is the destitu- 
 tion in the midst of London, to which public at- 
 tention has of late been so strongly drawn. It 
 has been discovered that " fifty or sixty persons of 
 both sexes and of all ages, have become dwellers 
 in the parks, with no other shelter at night than 
 what the trees and hollows in the embankments 
 afford. 7 ' * Into two asylums in the city, opened 
 for the purpose of affording a night's lodging to 
 houseless wanderers, 9840 persons were admitted 
 in the first three months of 1843. f In the neigh- 
 bourhood of the docks, at the eastern end of the 
 metropolis, " hundreds of poor men may be seen 
 before daybreak in the winter, waiting for the 
 opening of the gates, in the hope of obtaining a 
 day's work, and when the youngest and strongest 
 and those best known have been taken, hundreds 
 still may be seen returning, sick at heart, to their 
 
 * Times, Oct. llth, 1843. 
 t Id. Dec. 22nd, 1843. 
 
58 ORDINARY CONDITION 
 
 destitute families." * These poor creatures would 
 doubtless joyfully accept a smaller remuneration 
 than that obtained by their more fortunate com- 
 petitors, but, for the causes mentioned above, it 
 would be impossible for them to obtain work even 
 on such terms. 
 
 These causes, however, could only be of tem- 
 porary operation, and could not long protect wages 
 from the natural effects of competition in a town, 
 in which part of the able-bodied inhabitants were 
 in a state of permanent destitution. But there is 
 no reason to suppose that this is the condition of 
 any part of the able-bodied population permanently 
 settled in London. This metropolis did indeed 
 suffer, although in a lesser degree, from the dis- 
 tress that lately invaded so many other parts of 
 the kingdom. Many of its inhabitants, doubtless, 
 experienced unusual difficulty in gaining a liveli- 
 hood, but the difficulty was greatly increased, 
 if it was not entirely produced, by the influx of 
 strangers from the country, and it is among the 
 latter that the scenes just alluded to have gene- 
 rally occurred. A large proportion of the miserable 
 denizens of the parks are country girls, brought 
 up to town by their seducers, and then turned 
 adrift ; and the rest are chiefly foreign refugees 
 and other strangers. Out of the thousands ad- 
 mitted into the asylums for the houseless poor, 
 not more than a few hundreds belong to 
 parishes in London, the remainder being labourers 
 
 * Letter from rector of Whitechapel, Times, Nov. 30th, 
 1843. 
 
OF TOWN LABOURERS. 59 
 
 and others from the provinces, who, being thrown 
 out of employment at home, have wandered up to 
 the capital, in hopes of meeting with better fortune 
 there. Most of the disappointed applicants for 
 employment in the docks are expressly said to be 
 emigrants from the country, and from Ireland. 
 The presence of these hapless wanderers in London 
 merely shows how desperate must have been their 
 condition in their native districts, and proves 
 nothing with respect to labourers long resident in 
 London. Among the latter, though cases of indi- 
 vidual distress are not wanting, it is certainly rare 
 to find a man of good character, and in good health, 
 who is prevented from obtaining a decent subsis- 
 tence by inability to procure employment. 
 
 In large provincial towns, the facility of obtain- 
 ing employment is probably much the same as in 
 London, but the remuneration of unskilled labour 
 is generally rather lower. In Manchester, for 
 example, a common day labourer, though some- 
 times earning 15s. a week, is perhaps as frequently 
 obliged to content himself with 10s. This last 
 sum would not go farther towards the support of 
 a family in a town than in the country ; but a town 
 labourer, if married, has a considerable advantage 
 in the earnings of his wife, who can often gain 
 a much larger sum in various ways than she could 
 possibly do in farm labour. A woman's wages, 
 however, though a material accession to her hus- 
 band's income, would seldom, unless she were 
 regularly employed in a factory, suffice to main- 
 tain her if she lived alone ; and women having no 
 
60 ORDINARY CONDITION 
 
 male associate and entirely self-dependent, .are. 
 consequently liable to great privation. London 
 contains many such. Several melancholy ex- 
 amples have lately been brought to light, of 
 wretched females working eighteen hours daily 
 at shirtmaking or other similar occupations, and 
 earning only 4s. a week ; but these examples, dis- 
 tressing as they are, are unimportant as symptoms 
 of excessive population, the only purpose for which 
 they can properly be cited here. Wherever men 
 are able to earn something more than their own 
 subsistence, a bare subsistence at least may gene- 
 rally be obtained by all who can undertake the 
 same employment, and the destitution of females 
 must proceed less from inability to obtain work 
 than from inability to perform it less from the 
 excess of their numbers than from the defect of 
 their strength. The occupations suitable for 
 women may be overstocked and consequently ill 
 paid ; but there are other employments not unduly 
 crowded, in which, if women could work like men, 
 they might gain a livelihood. It is not indispens- 
 able to the well-being of society that women in 
 general should be able to maintain themselves in 
 comfort by their own unassisted exertions. This 
 it is not in their power to do at any stage in the 
 progress of society. The female frame is not 
 adapted to severe exertion, and the occupations for 
 which it is suited are not very extensive, so that 
 women are obviously intended by nature to be 
 partly dependent for support on the other sex. 
 All that is requisite is, that a woman's earnings, 
 
OF TOWN LABOURERS. 61 
 
 together with those of her husband or other male 
 relative, should be sufficient for the maintenance 
 of an average family, and this seems to be the case 
 in most English towns. 
 
 Similar observations are suggested by the condi- 
 tion of part of the children engaged in the various 
 manual occupations carried on in this country. 
 The tender and sometimes literally infantine age at 
 which they are set to work, the prolonged toil they 
 are generally made to undergo, and the cruelty 
 they are often exposed to, all lead to the conclusion 
 that nothing but stern necessity, or the most heart- 
 less selfishness, could induce their parents to con- 
 sign them to so miserable a doom. At the same 
 time, the insignificant trifle which the little sufferers 
 earn by their premature exertions, is frequently 
 insufficient to purchase even the merest necessaries 
 of life. In the workshops of Birmingham and 
 Wolverhampton, in the potteries of Staffordshire, 
 and among the lace-makers every where, there are 
 numerous instances of boys and girls under ten 
 years of age, working ten, twelve, nay even sixteen 
 or eighteen hours a day, yet clothed in rags, with- 
 out shoes or stockings, even in winter, and com- 
 plaining that they "never get meat," that they 
 " seldom get bread," that "potatoes and salt" are 
 their usual food, that they often go without a 
 dinner, that they "never get enough to eat."* 
 Here is a foul ulcer, that cannot be neglected with- 
 out danger to the whole body politic ; here is a 
 
 * Appendix to Second Report of Children's Employment 
 Commission. 
 
62 EXTENT OF 
 
 picture of woe, to stimulate the philanthropist's 
 ardour, and to dash with bitterness the cup of the 
 rich man's enjoyment ; yet even here is no certain 
 sign of excessive population. That, unless the 
 children are orphans, their parents have either 
 larger families than their own earnings can main- 
 tain, or are more brutally indifferent than wild 
 beasts to the welfare of their offspring, is evident 
 enough ; and it is likewise manifest that the chil- 
 dren are unable to earn a competent livelihood for 
 themselves. But there is no proof that the parents 
 have not wages sufficient for the support of an 
 average family, or that the children would not be 
 able to procure their own subsistence, if they had 
 the strength of adults. There may be abundant 
 employment for able-bodied labourers, and the 
 destitution of these children, like that of the females 
 mentioned in a preceding paragraph, may proceed, 
 not from their excessive number; but from their 
 physical weakness. 
 
 The particulars stated in this chapter are, as the 
 writer is well aware, exceedingly few and meagre, 
 and much more likely to excite than to gratify 
 curiosity respecting the condition of the labouring 
 class. They may perhaps, however, be regarded as 
 sufficient for the special purpose for which they are 
 adduced ; and it seems unnecessary to fatigue the 
 reader with farther details of the same kind. The 
 general conclusion to be drawn from them is, that 
 although almost every where throughout the coun- 
 try population presses hard on its proper limits, 
 and has even overstepped them in many places, it 
 
VEK-POPULATION. 3 
 
 has not exceeded them very considerably, except in 
 a few districts. Seven or eight shillings a week are 
 certainly not sufficient for the proper maintenance 
 of an average * family, and where, as in some of the 
 rural districts of Wales, Somersetshire, Wiltshire, 
 and Dorsetshire, these are a man's usual earnings, 
 it is evident that people who suffer so much from 
 mutual competition must be too numerous; But 
 in most English counties the joint wages of an. 
 agricultural couple are seldom less than 12s. a week. 
 They are, as has been seen, a good deal higher in 
 many places, and a considerable accession of income 
 may be derived from a garden or allotment of land r 
 the keep of a pig, &c. Now, though the bare sum 
 of twelve shillings a week would be a feeble barrier 
 against want, fourteen might perhaps suffice to 
 procure every thing absolutely necessary for a mar- 
 ried couple with the average number of helpless 
 dependents. The food supplied to paupers in some 
 rural workhouses, though abundantly sufficient for 
 health and strength, as any one who has seen the 
 consumers will allow, and very superior, both in 
 quality and quantity, to what most independent 
 labourers use, does not, on an average of men y 
 women, and children, cost more than 2s. Qd. a head 
 weekly. Provisions for workhouses being obtained 
 in large quantities, and by contract, from the lowest 
 bidder, are from 20 to 30 per cent, cheaper than 
 
 * By an average family, is meant such a family as was 
 described on page 9., consisting of a man, his wife, and 1J 
 helpless dependents. Children able to earn their own liveli- 
 hood are not included. 
 
64 EXTENT OF 
 
 they would otherwise be; but after allowing for 
 this difference, 105. a week should still apparently 
 suffice to purchase wholesome food for 3J per- 
 sons, leaving 4s. a week to pay for rent, clothes, 
 fuel, and sundries. If there be no comfort here, 
 yet neither is there a manifest deficiency of the 
 positive necessaries of life ; and where these are so 
 nearly within every one's reach, over-population 
 may have commenced, but cannot have made much 
 progress. It is true that the weekly pittance just 
 mentioned would scarcely procure even necessaries, 
 without better management than is often seen in a 
 labourer's cottage, and that, however judiciously 
 expended, it could only give the cottager and his 
 family the same fare as the inmates of a well-regu- 
 lated workhouse. This, though it would generally 
 be an important step in advance, would not be 
 improvement enough to satisfy a philanthropist. 
 One would wish that the poorest man should be 
 able to indulge occasionally in inexpensive luxuries; 
 that he should be able to attend a little to appear- 
 ance in his dress and dwelling ; that he should have 
 leisure both for self-culture and for recreation; and 
 above all, that his own earnings should suffice for 
 the support of his wife and young children, so that 
 the former might generally remain at home to look 
 after domestic affairs, and the latter go to school, 
 instead of spending the day in field-labour for the 
 sake of a few halfpence. But the consideration of 
 the means by which the cottager's position may be 
 thus far elevated, belongs more properly to a sub- 
 sequent chapter. At present it is sufficient to have 
 shown his actual condition. 
 
OVER-POPULATION. 6 5 
 
 The misery existing in towns is greater, both in 
 amount and degree, than that which the country 
 can exhibit ; but the excessive populousness which 
 it indicates does not properly belong altogether to 
 the towns in which it is found. Misery is not in- 
 deed a sign of over-population at all, unless it pro- 
 ceed from the scanty remuneration of labour. The 
 inhabitants of a town are not necessarily too nume- 
 rous, that is to say, there are not necessarily more 
 of them than can obtain employment, merely be- 
 cause many live in underground cellars or close 
 rooms in narrow courts, amid heaps of filth and 
 pestilential exhalations. It is not impossible that 
 the dwellers in such places may be earning high 
 wages, or might be doing so if they did not prefer 
 a life of thieving or prostitution to one of honest 
 industry. But if their vocation require them to 
 live in a town, they must needs live in such lodg- 
 ings as the town affords, and must put up with the 
 best they can obtain, even though they may be rich 
 enough to pay for better in other situations. If 
 the only ones they can procure are ill-ventilated, 
 undrained, unprovided with water, where cleanli- 
 ness is impossible, they must perforce live in dirt, 
 and they will soon be able to do so without repug- 
 nance, for there seems to be nothing to which one 
 becomes so quickly accustomed. Their filthy, dis- 
 gusting habits and modes of life may prove, then, 
 not that the town is over-peopled, but only that it 
 is ill-planned, ill -built, and ill-provided with accom- 
 modation for its poorer inhabitants. Unquestion- 
 ably there is in most considerable towns a vast deal 
 
 F 
 
66 EXTENT OF 
 
 of misery not attributable to this cause. Hundreds 
 of able-bodied men are commonly to be found in 
 some of them, vainly striving to earn a competent 
 subsistence by their labour. A large proportion of 
 that very numerous class, the hand-loom weavers, 
 are in this predicament. The sufferings of these 
 particular operatives, indeed, may be in some 
 measure self-inflicted, since they cling to the occu- 
 pation in which they have been brought up, when 
 they might apparently earn rather higher wages by 
 doing the work of common out-door labourers. 
 But, as the latter are in general not at all too 
 highly paid, increased competition would reduce 
 their wages below the amount required for a decent 
 subsistence. Hand-loom weavers, therefore, could 
 not maintain themselves properly, although they 
 might somewhat improve their condition, by en- 
 gaging in unskilled labour ; and, as this is always 
 the last resource, their distress may be pronounced 
 to be a perfectly unequivocal symptom of over- 
 population. The same remark applies to one or 
 two other classes of manufacturing operatives, 
 whose occupation, like that of the hand-loom 
 weavers, has been partially superseded, owing to 
 the adoption of machinery, changes of fashion, or 
 other causes. Such operatives are, however, con- 
 fined to certain localities ; and in towns in which 
 they are not present, there are seldom any able- 
 bodied men of known good character unable to 
 procure a tolerable livelihood. Few remain long 
 out of work, except strangers from the country or 
 from Ireland, who certainly have often to endure 
 
OVER-POPULATION. 6 7 
 
 very cruel privations. But it is obvious that these 
 cannot be immediately included among the resi- 
 dents of a place which they have merely visited in 
 quest of employment, and their destitution only 
 demonstrates the extreme redundance of popula- 
 tion in the districts from which they have mi- 
 grated. 
 
 It would serve no useful purpose to attempt to 
 estimate the numerical amount of the excessive 
 population of England. Nothing more than con- 
 jecture is possible on such a point ; and, even if 
 certainty could be attained, the idea conveyed to 
 the mind of the intensity of the evil would not be 
 so clear as that which may be formed from an 
 examination of its effects upon the condition of the 
 people. It must be observed, however, that in 
 countries in which there is a legal provision for 
 the relief of the destitute, the social condition of 
 the labouring class cannot always be inferred with 
 perfect accuracy merely from the average rate of a 
 labourer's earnings, for this rate may then be 
 prevented from falling so low as it would otherwise 
 be reduced by competition. A labourer, who, in 
 default of every other resource, is secure of a com- 
 fortable subsistence from the poor's rate, may ven- 
 ture to refuse to work for wages which he does not 
 consider adequate, and the earnings of all those 
 who work may be tolerably high, while a consider- 
 able number of able-bodied men are out of em- 
 ployment, and supported by public charity. It is 
 evident that these men should be added to what- 
 ever might be supposed on other grounds to be the 
 
 r <2 
 
68 EXTENT OF 
 
 excess of population, and it is of importance there- 
 fore that their number should be ascertained. The 
 whole number of paupers, in-door and out-door, 
 relieved in 585 Unions in England and Wales, in 
 the year ending with Lady-day, 1844, was, of in- 
 door, 195,220 ; and of out-door, 1,054,462 : alto- 
 gether, 1,249,682 ; of whom, 431,484 were what 
 are called " able-bodied" adults of both sexes, and 
 one half of this last number, or 215,742, may be 
 presumed to have been male adults. But we 
 should form a very exaggerated notion of the 
 extent of pauperism, if we supposed that these 
 numbers were constantly in the receipt of relief. 
 The whole amount expended upon paupers, during 
 the year, was 4,370, 17 11. ; from which, about 
 938,467. must be deducted for the expenses of 
 establishments, salaries, &c. ; leaving 3,431,704/. 
 for the purchase of food and clothing.* The 
 average cost of these articles for* an inmate of a 
 workhouse is about 25. 6d. a week, or 6/. 10s. a 
 year; so that 3,431,704/. sterling would suffice for 
 the constant maintenance, during a year, of only 
 527,954 ; of whom, according to the proportions 
 stated above, considerably less than one-fifth, or 
 about ninety thousand, might be adult males. 
 When it is considered that the workhouse test is 
 applied to only a small portion of the whole number 
 of applicants for relief, and that other paupers are 
 permitted to remain in their own homes without 
 being subjected to any peculiarly distasteful con- 
 
 * App. B. to Eleventh Annual Report of Poor Law Commis- 
 sioners. 
 
OVER-POPULATION. 69 
 
 ditions, it may be inferred pretty confidently that 
 few abstained from demanding parochial assistance 
 who stood very urgently in need of it, and that the 
 amount of relief administered yearly corresponds 
 pretty closely with the amount of absolute desti- 
 tution. 
 
 If this destitution, and the other symptoms of a 
 redundant population in England, are less extensive 
 than previously to inquiry might have been sup- 
 posed, there is so far reason for congratulation, but 
 none for apathy, or continued neglect of a disease 
 which is wholly incompatible with national pros- 
 perity. It is only in the early stages that over- 
 population can be treated with very sanguine hopes 
 of success. After it has been suffered to make 
 much progress, it is, if not incurable, yet, of all 
 political disorders, the one most difficult of cure. 
 There is none, either, which, in circumstances 
 favourable to its growth, advances with such rapid 
 strides towards a crisis. Little more than one 
 generation has been required to make Ireland what 
 she is; and as short a period might probably, in 
 similar circumstances, suffice to convert England 
 into an Ireland of human misery and degradation. 
 
70 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EVIDENCES OF OVER-POPULATION IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. 
 
 Small Amount of official Pauperism in Scotland. Thriving 
 Condition of the Peasantry of the Lowlands. Destitution 
 and Distress in the Highlands in Sutherland on the 
 Western Coast in the Hebrides. Munificence of the late 
 Duchess of Sutherland and others. General Neglect of their 
 Tenantry by Highland Proprietors. Privations of High- 
 land Immigrants in Glasgow. General Condition of the 
 labouring Classes in Scotch Towns. Partial Character of 
 Over -population in Scotland. Ireland. Importance of the 
 Information obtained at the last Census. Striking Contrast 
 in the Distribution of the Population in Great Britain and in 
 Ireland. Notoriety of the Misery of the latter Island. 
 Description of it by Irish Railway Commissioners. Com- 
 parative Prosperity of Ulster. Insufficiency f Employ- 
 ment in that Province. Wretchedness of Donegal. 
 Little Demand for Labour in Leinster. Desperate Ex- 
 pedients for a Livelihood resorted to by the People. 
 Particulars of the Sufferings endured by them. Similar 
 Particulars respecting Munster. Unparalleled Misery of 
 Connaught. Condition of Labourers in Irish Towns. 
 Small Alleviation of Irish Misery effected by the Establish- 
 ment of a Poor Law. 
 
 IF the published returns of what has been called 
 official pauperism furnished any clue to the general 
 condition of the Scottish people, the inference 
 thence deducible would not be unpleasing. In the 
 years 1835, 1836, and 1837, the average annual 
 number of paupers in Scotland, permanently or 
 
PAUPERISM IN SCOTLAND. 71 
 
 occasionally assisted by the parish authorities, was 
 79,429, or about 3J per cent, of the whole popula- 
 tion, and the average sum annually expended on 
 their relief was only 155, 12 1/., which, at the rate of 
 2s. 6d. weekly per head, would suffice for the con- 
 stant maintenance of only 23,864 persons, or less 
 than one per cent, of the population.* In England 
 the paupers annually relieved are, on an average, 
 rather more than 9 per cent, of the population, and 
 the sum annually expended upon their subsistence 
 would suffice for the constant maintenance of nearly 
 4 per cent, of the population. But if even in Eng- 
 land, where every native who really requires parish 
 relief is able to obtain it on application, there is 
 yet a considerable amount of unrelieved distress, 
 still more "it may be thought must this be the case 
 in the northern part of the island, where relief 
 cannot be legally demanded, except by the aged 
 and impotent, and where it is rarely extended to 
 the able-bodied, except in sickness. Even for the 
 former class, the provision made is almost every 
 where inadequate, and in many places only nominal. 
 The law, or at any rate the practice in Scotland, 
 does not require parishes to be assessed for the 
 support of their poor, but only authorises an assess- 
 ment when sufficient funds are not forthcoming 
 from other sources, the collections made in the 
 churches being chiefly depended upon. Up to the 
 middle of the last century, these and other volun- 
 tary contributions were found sufficient for the 
 
 * Rep. of Committee of General Assembly on Management 
 of Poor in Scotland. 
 
 F 4 
 
72 HAPPINESS OF 
 
 maintenance of the poor throughout Scotland; and 
 though assessments have since become pretty com- 
 mon, they are still unknown in nearly three-fourths 
 of the whole number of parishes, containing more 
 than one-half of the whole population of the coun- 
 try. They are least used where they are most 
 required, viz. in the Highlands, where the congre- 
 gations are so poor that little is collected in the 
 churches, and where frequently not more than 5/. 
 or 6. are contributed annually for distribution 
 among fifty or sixty paupers. 
 
 In reality, there is a great deal of distress in 
 Scotland, not less perhaps in proportion to the po- 
 pulation than in England, but it is more confined 
 to particular localities, and is unfelt in a large por- 
 tion of the country. It exists chiefly in the High- 
 lands and Islands, and in towns. In the Low- 
 lands agricultural labourers are in general better 
 off than the same class amongst us. Such as are 
 engaged by the day, indeed, very seldom receive 
 more than 12s. a- week, and more commonly only 
 9s. or 10s., but the number of those who are entirely 
 dependent on their wages is not great. Day-la- 
 bourers have almost always gardens or kailyards 
 attached to their cottages, and are often permitted 
 to raise a few potatoes for their own use on the 
 lands of the neighbouring farmers. Several of 
 them too, though the number has greatly diminished 
 of late years, are crofters, or occupants of small 
 farms of three or four acres, and these enjoy a large 
 share of comfort. The great body of farm servants, 
 however, are hired by the year, and if unmarried, 
 
LOWLAND PEASANTRY. 73 
 
 are lodged and boarded by their masters, and re- 
 ceive besides from WL to 161. a-year, with which 
 they have only to find their clothes. Formerly 
 they resided in the farm-house, and this is still the 
 prevailing custom ; but of late years they have, in 
 many instances, been removed to a bothy or out- 
 house adjoining, where, though the cost of their 
 maintenance may be the same, they are excluded 
 from the methodical arrangements and humanising 
 influences which contribute to their welfare when 
 they are admitted into their master's family. Whe- 
 ther in the bothy or the farm-house, their diet con- 
 sists principally of meal, potatoes, fish, milk, cheese, 
 and butter, but they are occasionally treated with 
 butcher's meat, and many unconsidered trifles, 
 " crumbs" from their master's table, frequently fall 
 to their share simply because they are on the spot 
 to receive them. Yearly labourers, when married, 
 live rent-free in houses on the farm, which have usu- 
 ally small gardens attached to them : a cow is kept 
 for them, or an allowance in milk or money is made 
 instead, and their wages are about 8/. or 101. a-year, 
 besides six or seven bolls of .oatmeal, and a quan- 
 tity of potatoes and fuel. With these means, thrift 
 and foresight enable them to live happily enough, 
 and the ingle still burns as brightly in their humble 
 dwellings, and the Saturday night passes as cheer- 
 fully, as in the time of Ferguson and Burns. * Farm- 
 servants engaged by the year are less exposed than 
 they otherwise would be to be thrown out of 
 
 * Poor Law Inquiry (Scotland) 1844, Appendices 2. 4. Mr. 
 Symons' Report on Hand-Loom Weavers, pp. 17, 18. 
 
74 MISERY 
 
 employment, and even day-labourers are seldom in 
 want of work, except for a short time in the depth 
 of winter. 
 
 This description of the peasantry of the Low- 
 lands may not be altogether inapplicable to those 
 of most Highland districts south of the Caledonian 
 canal, but it bears no resemblance to the condition 
 of the people in any of the more northern counties, 
 with the single exception of Caithness. In all but 
 the one last mentioned, hinds engaged by the year 
 are seldom paid more than two-thirds of what they 
 would receive in the south, and few of them are 
 fortunate enough to obtain regular employment. 
 Farm servants, however, form only a small propor- 
 tion of the peasantry, a much greater number being 
 crofters, or tenants of small pieces of ground, from 
 which they derive almost their whole subsistence. 
 Most of them live very miserably.. The soil is so 
 poor, and rents in some instances so exorbitant, 
 that occupiers of four or five acres can do little 
 more than maintain themselves, yet it is their aid 
 alone that saves their still poorer brethren from 
 starvation. This is true even of Sutherland, which 
 is commonly represented as a highly improved 
 county, and in which a signal change for the better 
 is said to have taken place in the character and 
 habits of the people.* Recent inquiry has disco- 
 vered that even there, in districts once famous for 
 fine men and gallant soldiers, the inhabitants have 
 degenerated into a meagre and stunted race. In 
 the healthiest situations, on hill sides fronting the 
 * Macculloch, Stat. Acct. of British Empire, vol. i. p. 315. 
 
IN THE HIGHLANDS. 75 
 
 sea, the faces of their famished children are as thin 
 and pale as they could be in the foul atmosphere 
 of a London alley.* Still more deplorable are the 
 scenes exhibited in the western Highlands, especi- 
 ally on the coasts and in the adjoining islands. A 
 large population has there been assembled, so ill 
 provided with any means of support, that during 
 part of almost every year from 45,000 to 80,000 f 
 of them are in a state of destitution, and entirely 
 dependent upon charity. Many of the heads of 
 families hold crofts from four to seven acres in 
 extent, but these, notwithstanding their small size, 
 and the extreme barrenness of the soil, have often 
 two, three, and sometimes even four families upon 
 them. One estate in the Hebrides, the nominal 
 rent of which is only 5200/. a-year, is divided into 
 1108 crofts, and is supposed to have more than 
 8300 persons living upon it. In another instance 
 a rental of 1814/. is payable (for little is really paid) 
 by 365 crofters, and the whole population of the 
 estate is estimated at more than 2300. J In Cro- 
 marty 1500 persons are settled upon an estate let 
 nominally for 750/., but paying not more than half 
 that sum. The island of Kum is at present occu- 
 pied by a single tenant, whose family and servants, 
 altogether about fifty persons, are now the only in- 
 habitants besides himself, and are living very com- 
 fortably; but in order to enable them to do so, it 
 
 * Times Newspaper, June 7th, 1845. 
 
 f Report of Highland Emigration Committee, 1841. 
 
 J Id., Mr. Bowie's Evidence. 
 
 Id., Mr. Scott's Evidence. 
 
76 MISEEY 
 
 was thought necessary that a former population of 
 about 500 should emigrate. It is supposed that 
 one half of the population might with advantage 
 be spared from the island of Skye, two-fifths from 
 Tyree, and 17 or 18 per cent, from Mull. 
 
 Some few persons in these parts may obtain 
 occasional and short-lived employment in the kelp 
 manufacture or in fishing, and some of the crofters 
 keep a cow or one or two sheep, where there is 
 common land for pasture. Otherwise, they have 
 no certain resource but their plots of ground, the 
 present produce of which, even if held rent-free, 
 would often be insuificient for their subsistence. 
 
 Of course, they live most wretchedly. Potatoes 
 are the usual food, for oatmeal is considered a 
 luxury, to be reserved for high days and holidays, 
 but even potatoes are not raised in sufficient abun 
 dance. The year's stock is generally exhausted 
 before the succeeding crop is ripe, and the poor 
 are then often in a most desperate condition, for 
 the Poor Law is a dead letter in the north of Scot- 
 land, and the want of a legal provision for the 
 necessitous is but ill supplied by the spontaneous 
 contributions of the landowners. Among the latter 
 are to be found a few, distinguished by liberality 
 to their distressed tenantry. The late Duchess- 
 Countess, and proprietress-general, of Sutherland, 
 was in the habit of distributing many thousands of 
 pounds every winter among the poor of that coun- 
 ty. Sir George Sinclair, of Caithness, among 
 many other acts of benevolence, distributes 130 
 pecks of meal monthly among as many poor people 
 
IN THE HIGHLANDS. 77 
 
 of the parish in which he resides. In 1837, Lord 
 Macdonald sent supplies to the famished inhabit- 
 ants of Skye, to the value of 2,000/., though the 
 rents of his estates in that island were, at the same 
 time so much in arrear, as scarcely in some dis- 
 tricts to pay the salaries of the clergy, and other 
 public expenses. Two years before, Mr. Hay 
 Mackenzie, a landowner in Cromarty, distributed 
 about 2 GO/, worth of oatmeal among the tenantry 
 of an estate from which he was receiving less than 
 480/. of rent. The Highland lairds, in general, 
 however, are not remarkable for their generosity to 
 their inferiors, and the principal part of the assist- 
 ance which the poor receive, is derived from per- 
 sons almost as poor as themselves. * In spite of 
 every aid, there are cases every year of families 
 living for a time almost entirely on shellfish picked 
 up on the shore, with a little water-gruel at night, 
 without either bread, or potatoes, or meal of any 
 kind, except the little of which their gruel is 
 made. 
 
 Further evidence of the over-population of these 
 districts can scarcely be required, or it might be 
 sought in the large towns to which, in Scotland, 
 as in England, emigrants are always nocking 
 from the country, in the hope of bettering their 
 condition. In Glasgow, there are nearly 30,000 
 poor Highlanders, most of them living in a state 
 of misery, which shows how dreadful must have 
 been the privations to which such misery is pre- 
 
 * Report of Highland Emigration Committee, Mr. Scott's 
 Evidence. 
 
78 MISERY 
 
 ferred. Such of them as are able-bodied obtain 
 employment without much difficulty*, and may 
 not perhaps, have much reason to complain of de- 
 ficiency of the first requisities of life; but the 
 quarter they inhabit is described f as inclosing a 
 larger amount of filth, crime, misery, and disease, 
 than could have been supposed to exist in one 
 spot in any civilised country. It consists of long 
 lanes, called " wynds," so narrow, that a cart could 
 scarcely pass through them, opening upon " closes," 
 or courts, about 15 or 20 feet square, round which 
 the houses, mostly three stories high, are built, 
 and in the centre of which is a dunghill. The 
 houses are occupied indiscriminately by labourers 
 of the lowest class, thieves, and prostitutes, and 
 every apartment is filled with a promiscuous crowd 
 of men and women, all in the most revolting state 
 of filth. Amid such scenes and such companions 
 as these, thousands of the most intelligent of the 
 Highlanders are content to take refuge, for it is 
 precisely those who are best educated and best 
 informed that are most impatient of the penury 
 they have to endure at home. 
 
 The inhabitants of the Glasgow wynds and closes 
 may be likened to those of the Liverpool cellars, or 
 to those of the worst parts of Leeds, and of St. 
 Giles' and Bethnal Green in London; and every 
 other class of the Scottish urban labouring popula- 
 tion may likewise be delineated with the same 
 
 * Report of Highland Emigration Committee, Evidence of 
 Rev. Dr. Macleod. 
 
 f Mr. Symons' Report to Hand-loom Weavers' Commission. 
 
IN SCOTCH TOWNS. 79 
 
 touches (more darkened, however,) which have 
 been used in describing the corresponding class in 
 English towns. Manufacturing operatives are in 
 pretty much the same position in both countries. 
 Those of Scotland shared even more largely than 
 their southern brethren in the distress of 1840 2, 
 when Paisley in particular exhibited scenes of woe 
 far surpassing any thing that has been related of 
 Bolton or Stockport. In ordinary times, however, 
 they are generally highly paid, the only consider- 
 able exception being the hand-loom weavers in cot- 
 ton, comprising probably not less than 30,000 fami- 
 lies, among whom the average wages of a male 
 adult are certainly under 7s. a-week. Artisans are 
 paid highly, though not quite so highly as in Eng- 
 land, and with wages ranging from 165. to 265. 
 a-week, ought to be able to live in comfort, and to 
 guard against distress arising from sickness or tem- 
 porary loss of work. The wages of day-labourers 
 are from 10s. to 12s. a-week. They are kept down 
 by the Irish and Highlanders, with whom the large 
 towns, particularly those near the western coast, 
 are crowded ; but it does not appear that the influx 
 of these immigrants very much exceeds the demand 
 for them. In Glasgow, at least, where they are 
 most numerous, they are said to arrive nearly in 
 proportion as they are wanted, and seldom to remain 
 long without employment. The most severe dis- 
 tress experienced in the Scottish towns is probably 
 that of desolate women, and of orphans or children, 
 whose parents are only anxious to rid themselves 
 of an useless burden, and force them to pick up a 
 
80 
 
 RESULTS OF THE 
 
 living as they can. In Glasgow especially, the suf- 
 ferings of these poor creatures are such as cannot 
 be paralleled elsewhere in Great Britain ; but, dread- 
 ful as they are, they cannot, for reasons already 
 stated, be regarded as signs of over-population. 
 Other causes of human wretchedness are rife in 
 Scottish towns, but this particular evil, though it 
 certainly exists, does not seem to have reached to 
 a very great height in any of them, or to have 
 spread greatly beyond the districts and islands in 
 the north and west, which we have lately been 
 considering. We must now proceed to a country 
 where this description must be reversed, where 
 over-population is the almost universal rule, and 
 where a small tract with developed resources duly 
 proportioned to the number of its inhabitants is a 
 rare exception. 
 
 
 Total 
 Area. 
 
 li i 
 
 111! 
 
 Culti- 
 vated 
 Land. 
 
 Site of 
 Towns. 
 
 Unculti- 
 vated 
 Land. 
 
 Water. 
 
 Total 
 Area. 
 
 Rural 
 Popula- 
 
 Civic 
 Popula- 
 
 Total 
 Popula- 
 
 ill 
 
 
 5 
 
 > ^3 ^5 o3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 tion. 
 
 tion. 
 
 tion. 
 
 "5 e3"o 
 
 
 3- 
 
 **M j3 -*J 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ||| 
 
 
 
 3-s ^ 
 
 Acres. 
 
 
 
 
 
 ENGLAND.... 
 
 50,387 
 
 40,050 
 
 25,632,000 
 
 T3 'eS . 
 
 6,615,680 
 
 7 , 
 
 32,2 1 7,680 
 
 6,120,094 
 
 8,875,044 
 
 14,995,138 
 
 297 
 
 WALES 
 
 7,425 
 
 4,870 
 
 3,117,000 
 
 OJ >-C 
 
 If] 
 
 1,635,000 
 
 5 
 
 4,752,000 
 
 453,872 
 
 457,731 
 
 911,603 
 
 122 
 
 SCOTLAND.... 
 
 29,600 
 
 7,880 
 
 5,043,450 
 
 
 13,900,550 
 
 t 
 
 18,944,000 
 
 764,687 
 
 1,855,497 
 
 2,620,184 
 
 88 
 
 Leinster ... 
 
 7,619 
 
 6,370 
 
 4,077,132 
 
 15,569 
 
 731,886 
 
 51,624 
 
 4,876,211 
 
 1,531,106 
 
 442,625 
 
 1,973,731 
 
 259 
 
 Munster ... 
 
 9,475 
 
 6,257 
 
 4, 05,028 
 
 14,693 1,893,477 151.381 
 
 6,064,579 2,009,220 
 
 386,941 
 
 2,396.161 
 
 253 
 
 Ulster 
 Connaught . 
 
 8,555 
 6,862 
 
 5,448 
 3,545 
 
 3,487,322 
 2,269,300 
 
 8,790 1,764,370 214,956 
 3,877 1,906,002 212,864 
 
 5,475,438 ( 2,1 60,698 
 4,392,0431,338,635 
 
 225,675 
 80,224 
 
 2,38h,373| 27!) 
 1,418,859 207 
 
 IRELAND 
 
 32,512 
 
 21,623 
 
 13,838,782 
 
 42,929. 6,295,735 630,fc25 
 
 20,808,271 
 
 7,039,659 | 1,135,465 8,175,124 
 
 251 
 
 * Included in the space reckoned as uncultivated land, 
 t Omitted from the calculation. 
 
 
IRISH CENSUS. 
 
 81 
 
 The difficulties of an inquiry into the state of 
 the labouring classes in Ireland have of late been 
 very greatly lessened by the Commissioners em- 
 ployed to take the Irish census in 1841. The 
 extraordinary pains and minuteness with which 
 these gentlemen executed their task, render their 
 Report the most successful attempt that has ever 
 been made at the classification of an entire nation ; 
 and some of the results obtained by them are so 
 important, and bear so strongly on the subject 
 before us, that it will be useful to exhibit them in 
 this place in a tabular form, accompanied, for the 
 sake of comparison, by some corresponding parti- 
 culars respecting the other divisions of the United 
 Kingdom. 
 
 A glance at this Table will be sufficient to show 
 how strikingly, in many respects, the condition of 
 
 1 Population per 
 gg S3 \ Square Mile of 
 3 ***| CultivatediLand. 
 
 Rural Population 
 per Sq. Mile of 
 Cultivated Land.) 
 
 J. of Families 
 efly employed 
 Agriculture. | 
 
 No. of Families 
 chiefly employed 
 in Manufacture 
 and Trade. 
 
 No. of Families 
 otherwise em- 
 ployed. 
 
 Total Number 
 of Families. 
 
 No. of Farms 
 above One Acre. 
 
 No. of Farms 
 between One and 
 Five Acres. 
 
 No. of Farms 
 between Oneand 
 Fifteen Acres. 
 
 Total No. of 
 Male* Adults 
 engaged in 
 Agriculture. 
 
 Farmers 
 and 
 Graziers. 
 
 Ploughmen, 
 Herdsmen, 
 Agricultural 
 Servants, & 
 Labourers. 
 
 Total Number 
 of Male Adults. 
 
 fc-g-S 
 
 * Male Adults. 
 
 152 
 93 
 97 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 919,221 
 79,254 
 160,282 
 
 194,596 
 31,807 
 50,732 
 
 724,625 
 47,447 
 109,550 
 
 3,893,748 
 233,427 
 630,328 
 
 581,944 
 699,211 
 661,028 
 39Q.712 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 214,046 
 292,983 
 267,799 
 199,360 
 
 92,692 
 78,989 
 141,801 
 38,534 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 310 
 383 
 438 
 400 
 
 240 
 321 
 396 
 377 
 
 55,396 
 43,182 
 30,205 
 17,800 
 
 362,134 
 415,154 
 
 439,805 
 255,694 
 
 133.220 
 162,386 
 234,499 
 155,204 
 
 49,152 
 57,028 
 100,817 
 99,918 
 
 94,747 
 118,348 
 199,809 
 145,139 
 
 344,243 
 492,308 
 424,202 
 318,247 
 
 80,761 
 125, 159 
 167,046 
 80,130 
 
 263,565 
 367.159 
 257,175 
 238,151 
 
 378 
 
 325 
 
 974,188 
 
 352,016 
 
 146,5831,472,787 
 
 685,309 
 
 306,915 
 
 558,043 
 
 1,579,000 
 
 453,096 
 
 1,156,050 
 
 2,341,895 
 
 * It is necessary to mention, that in this Table the limit of age assigned to adults engaged in agriculture, is 
 lot the same for Great Britain as for Ireland ; all persons fifteen years old or upwards being included in the 
 alter case, while in the former only those of twenty or upwards are reckoned as adults. 
 
82 GENERAL CONDITION 
 
 Ireland contrasts with that of Great Britain, and 
 particularly of England. Contrary perhaps to the 
 common opinion, population is somewhat less dense 
 than in England ; that is to say, the number of 
 persons to the square mile is smaller ; but although 
 less dense, it is very much more redundant. Over- 
 population, as has been already shown, depends on 
 the proportion which the inhabitants of a country 
 bear, not to the quantity of food which that country 
 produces, or is capable of producing, but to the 
 amount of employment which it affords, or to the 
 means possessed by labourers of purchasing or 
 otherwise procuring food. But it is only in rural 
 districts, where the inhabitants are chiefly employed 
 in agriculture, that the amount of employment has 
 any connexion with the extent of surface. In 
 towns it is quite independent of this circumstance. 
 Now, in Ireland, rural districts are much more 
 thickly peopled than in England. *The rural inha- 
 bitants are there nearly seven-eighths of the whole 
 population, instead of considerably less than one- 
 half, as in England ; the families chiefly employed 
 in agriculture are more than five-eighths of the whole 
 number, instead of about one-fourth part, and the 
 male adults employed as farmers or as labourers in 
 husbandry, are more than two-thirds of the whole 
 number, instead of less than one-fourth. Nor is it 
 only these relative proportions that are greater ; the 
 absolute numbers of country residents, and of per- 
 sons and families engaged in agriculture, are like- 
 wise larger in Ireland than in England. Yet the 
 quantity of arable land is not very much less than 
 
OF IRISH PEASANTRY. 83 
 
 twice as great in the latter country as in the former; 
 and it might be suspected that while in the one 
 only about 760,000* were engaged in the tillage of 
 25,632,000 acres, 13,838,782 acres in the other 
 could not afford sufficient employment for 974,188 
 families. Such a suspicion would not indeed be 
 necessarily correct. English agriculture would be 
 exceedingly benefited by the application to it of at 
 least double the actual quantity of labour, and the 
 agricultural population of Ireland is not at all 
 beyond what is absolutely requisite for the tillage, 
 in the completest and most productive manner, of 
 the portion of that island actually under cultivation. 
 In order, however, to afford full employment and a 
 competent livelihood to the multitude of husband- 
 men settled upon it, the cultivated land of Ireland 
 ought either to be divided pretty equally amongst 
 them all, so as to make every family occupiers of a 
 portion of ground sufficient for their maintenance, 
 or such as occupied more than their shares ought 
 to be men of capital and enterprise, able and willing 
 to make the best use of their land. Neither of 
 these positions is the real one. It is true that in 
 Ireland land is in general very much subdivided, so 
 that out of a total number of 685,309 farmsf, 
 
 * At the census of 1831, the number of families in England 
 chiefly employed in agriculture was computed to be 761,348. 
 The Census Commissioners of 1841 contented themselves with 
 ascertaining the number of persons in Great Britain, without 
 attempting, like the Irish Commissioners, to divide them into 
 families. 
 
 f Exclusive of holdings of less than one acre. 
 
 C! 2 
 
84 GENERAL CONDITION 
 
 nearly one-half are between one and five acres in 
 extent, and nearly five-sixths are between one and 
 fifteen acres. But, great as is the number of small 
 occupiers, the labourers without any land at all, or 
 with nothing but small garden plots, are far more 
 numerous. 
 
 Besides, not only can few or none of the occu- 
 piers of less than fifteen acres have any occasion to 
 hire labourers, but most of them, after tilling their 
 own fields, have a good deal of spare time, in which 
 they would be very glad to be hired themselves. 
 Of larger farmers there are only 127,266, and 
 these, with few exceptions, are too poor to hire 
 more assistance than is absolutely necessary to 
 prevent their fields from lying waste, and too 
 ignorant and spiritless to adopt a better style of 
 culture if they had the means. It may be inferred, 
 from a knowledge of these circumstances, that there 
 cannot be any thing like regular employment for 
 so many as a million and a half of agricultural 
 labourers (the number of male adults wholly or in 
 part dependent upon wages), and that most of them 
 must be generally out of work, and exceedingly ill 
 paid when employed. It may be further suspected, 
 that their wretchedness is not confined to them- 
 selves ; but that, if they cannot obtain work, they 
 endeavour to obtain land, and that their competi- 
 tion, by extravagantly raising the rent of land, re- 
 duces the petty farmers nearly to a level with 
 themselves. It may likewise seem probable that 
 they flock in multitudes into the towns, and prevent 
 the price of labour there, when not protected by 
 
OF IRISH PEASANTRY. 85 
 
 the combination of the workmen, from rising much, 
 if at all, higher than in the country* These con- 
 clusions might suggest themselves to any one who 
 was aware of the proportions in which the Irish 
 nation is divided into its various classes, and of 
 the small amount of capital invested in agriculture. 
 Of their perfect correctness the proofs are mani- 
 fold ; but it would be almost a mockery to set 
 about formally proving the truth of what every 
 body knows perfectly well. Both the misery of 
 Ireland, and the over-population which it indicates, 
 are universally acknowledged ; and if any evidence 
 on the subject is now brought forward, it is in- 
 tended rather to give some idea of the extent than 
 to demonstrate the existence of such notorious evils. 
 
 The following sketch of the general condition of 
 the peasantry is extracted from the Second Report 
 of the Irish Railway Commissioners, whose state- 
 ments, though not free from inaccuracy, are well 
 deserving of attention : 
 
 " Population is most crowded and numerous in 
 the counties of Armagh, Monaghan, and in parts of 
 the counties of Antrim and Down. Diminishing 
 in density, but still furnishing a large proportion 
 to the square mile, the population extends over the 
 counties of Longford, Westmeath, King's, Queen's, 
 Kilkenny, Carlow, and Wexford ; and thence a 
 large mass, second only to the northern portion, 
 spreads over the southern counties of Tipperary, 
 Limerick, and parts of Cork and Waterford. Be- 
 yond the Shannon lies a district very thickly 
 peopled, and the parts of Roscommon, Leitrim, 
 
 G 3 
 
86 GENERAL CONDITION 
 
 &c., adjacent to the river, have nearly the same 
 proportion of inhabitants. These four divisions 
 of the population differ in social condition, in 
 habits, character, and even in personal appearance, 
 more than the narrow limits of their location within 
 the same country would lead us to expect. The 
 northern portion are better lodged, clothed, and 
 fed than the others : the wages of labour are higher, 
 being on an average about one shilling a day, and 
 their food consists chiefly of meal, potatoes, arid 
 milk. They are a frugal, industrious, and intel- 
 ligent race, inhabiting a district for the most part 
 inferior in natural fertility to the southern portion 
 of Ireland ; but cultivating it better, and paying 
 higher rents in proportion to the quality of the 
 land, notwithstanding the higher rate of wages. 
 
 " In the southern districts we find a population 
 whose condition is in every respect inferior to that 
 of the northern ; their habitations are worse ; their 
 food inferior, consisting at best of potatoes and 
 milk, without meal ; the wages of labour are found 
 reduced from Is. to 8c. a day ; yet the peasantry 
 are a robust, active, and athletic race, capable of 
 great exertion, often exposed to great privations, 
 ignorant, but eager for 'instruction, and readily 
 trained under judicious management to habits of 
 order and steady industry. 
 
 " The population of the midland districts does 
 not differ materially in condition from that of the 
 south ; but the inhabitants of the western districts 
 are decidedly inferior to both in condition and ap- 
 pearance. Their food consists of the potato alone, 
 
OF IRISH PEASANTRY. 87 
 
 without meal, and in most cases without milk; 
 their cabins are wretched hovels ; their beds straw; 
 the wages of labour are reduced to the lowest 
 point upon an average not more than 6d. per 
 day. Poverty and misery have deprived them of 
 all energy ; labour brings no adequate return ; and 
 every motive to exertion is destroyed. Agriculture 
 is in the rudest and lowest state. The substantial 
 farmer, employing labourers, and cultivating his 
 land according to the improved modes of modern 
 husbandry, is rarely to be found amongst them. 
 The country is covered with small occupiers, and 
 swarms with an indigent and wretched population. 
 It is true that some landed proprietors have made 
 great exertions to introduce a better system of 
 agriculture, and to improve the condition of their 
 immediate tenants, and a few of the lesser pro- 
 prietors have made humble attempts to imitate 
 them; but the great mass of the population ex- 
 hibits a state of poverty bordering on destitution. 
 
 " These distinctions as to the usual diet of agri- 
 cultural labourers in the different parts of Ireland 
 are strictly applicable to those only who have re- 
 gular employment. When they are out of work, 
 which is the case in many places during three or 
 four months of the year, the line is not so easily 
 perceived. Then a reduction in the quantity as 
 well as in the quality of their food takes place ; but 
 still, though on a diminished scale, their relative 
 local degrees of comfort or of plenty are maintained 
 nearly according to the above classification. In 
 no extremity of privation or distress have the 
 
 G 4 
 
88 PEASANTRY 
 
 peasantry of the northern counties approached to 
 a level with those of the west ; while Leinster and 
 the greater part of the south, though sometimes 
 reduced to the lowest condition, retain generally, 
 even in the most calamitous periods, a shade of 
 superiority. There are districts, indeed, in every 
 quarter of the land, where, through peculiarities of 
 situation or other causes, distress falls with an 
 equal pressure upon all ; but such exceptions are 
 rare, and so limited in extent as scarcely to qualify 
 the foregoing observations." * 
 
 It is very remarkable that the northern province 
 of Ulster, in which the peasantry are here correctly 
 represented as being so much better off than in the 
 rest of Ireland, is nevertheless much the most 
 thickly peopled of the four great divisions of the 
 island ; and has likewise the largest rural popula- 
 tion, both absolutely, and relatively to the extent 
 of arable land. It also contains a greater number 
 of agricultural families than any other province, 
 except Munster ; and, although more than half of 
 the cultivators are occupiers of land, the class of 
 mere labourers is likewise more numerous than in 
 Connaught, and almost as numerous as in Leinster. 
 The explanation of this anomaly is to be found 
 partly in the difference in the tenure of land, and 
 partly in the fact that, of the rural population, a 
 large portion is engaged in manufactures (particu- 
 larly in the linen manufacture), which are diffused 
 over the face of the country, and carried, on in the 
 
 * Irish Railway Comra. 2d Report, pp. 5, 6. 
 
OF ULSTER. 89 
 
 cottages of the peasantry ; and that most of the so- 
 called agricultural families are partially employed 
 in the same manner. There is thus more employ- 
 ment for the people in proportion to their number 
 in Ulster than in other parts of Ireland, and popu- 
 lation, though more dense, is less excessive. 
 
 The prosperity of Ulster, however, is only com- 
 parative ; and even there employment is deficient 
 and population redundant. In its most flourishing 
 counties, Armagh, Down, and Antrim, where the 
 traveller from the south or west is most struck 
 with the improved appearance of the cottages and 
 their inhabitants, the agricultural labourer in many 
 places cannot earn his shilling a day oftener than 
 three days in the week on an average throughout 
 the year. In winter, from December to March, he 
 has scarcely any thing to do ; but at that season, 
 nevertheless, he is often best provided with food, 
 as it is not unusual for him to rent a bit of potato 
 land from a farmer, which he pays for with labour, 
 and the produce of which maintains him in the 
 winter months. His hardest time is in summer, 
 from May or June till August, when he is again 
 out of work, and has, besides, pretty well exhausted 
 his stock of potatoes ; and then, unless he migrates 
 to England or Scotland for the harvest, his only 
 resource is the mendicancy of his wife and children ; 
 for he himself can seldom be compelled to beg by 
 the cruellest privations. These remarks apply 
 with increased force to the remaining counties of 
 Ulster, in some of which the peasantry are also 
 suffering in consequence of the gradual retirement 
 
90 PEASANTRY 
 
 of the linen manufacture from the country to the 
 towns. This, among other causes, has contributed 
 to the depression of the rural inhabitants in Mo- 
 naghan and Londonderry ; but the most wretched 
 county of the whole province is Donegal. " No- 
 thing can exceed," says Mr. Nicholls, " the miser- 
 able appearance of the cottages there, always teem- 
 ing with an excessive population." The people are 
 intelligent enough to perceive the sources of their 
 distress. They admit that they are too numerous, 
 " too thick upon the land;" that they are " eating 
 each others' heads off." But what can they do ? 
 They can only "live on," subsisting on shell-fish 
 or weeds when their potatoes fail, and begging 
 when no more shell-fish or weeds can be found, 
 always hoping u that times may mend, and that 
 their landlords, sooner or later, will do something 
 for them."* 
 
 Throughout Leinster, agricultural labourers 
 have scarcely any work, except in the spring and 
 autumn quarters ; during the other six months of 
 the year, the greater part of them are thrown al- 
 most completely out of employment. This state- 
 ment was made at almost every place entered by 
 the Commissioners appointed in 1834 to inquire 
 into the condition of the poor in Ireland, although 
 one parish in every barony in each of the counties 
 of Carlo w, Kildare, Longford, Westmeath, and 
 Wexford was visited. At one place in Carlow, at 
 
 * Poor Inquiry (Ireland) App. A. to First Report, pp. 455 
 474. ; also, Mr. Nicholls' Second Report on Establishment of a 
 Poor Law for Ireland, pp. 81, 82. 
 
OF LEINSTER. 91 
 
 least 500 men were said to be out of work, of 
 whom " many did not get two days of it in a 
 month." At another, out of fifty who applied to 
 the parish priest for recommendations, only ten suc- 
 ceeded in getting work. In Kildare, said one witness, 
 " if you are not noted as a good labourer, in the 
 busiest time of the year you may be left in the 
 streets for a month together without any one ask- 
 ing what brought you there." In a parish in 
 Longford, it was declared that there was not em- 
 ployment for a fourth part of the labourers be- 
 tween the months of September and March, and 
 again from the beginning of June to the middle or 
 end of August. In a parish in Westmeath, it was 
 agreed on all hands that one half of the labourers 
 were out of work great part of the year, and the 
 witnesses only differed as to whether it was for 
 two, three, or six months. As wages in Leinster 
 are never more than 1 Od. a day in the busiest sea- 
 son, it is evident that a labourer can lay by nothing 
 for the time when he will be out of work, and it 
 may naturally be asked how he then contrives to 
 live. In winter he is comparatively comfortable, 
 for he has just dug up his crop of potatoes. He 
 has usually a bit of land of about a rood in extent, 
 which he sometimes holds on condition of manur- 
 ing it, but for which he is much more frequently 
 obliged to pay a most extravagant rent, seldom at 
 a lower rate than 3/., and generally, if the land be 
 let to him manured, as high as 11. per acre. From 
 this conacre, as it is called, he may get nine barrels, 
 each containing forty-two stone of potatoes, on 
 
92 PEASANTRY 
 
 which he may make shift to maintain himself till 
 spring, when employment begins. But in May or 
 June he is again out of work ; his potatoes have 
 been long since eaten, and melancholy are the ex- 
 pedients to which he is then reduced. Perhaps he 
 may get some food on credit from the farmers, and 
 although he always has to pay 20 or.30 per cent, 
 for it above the market price, he thinks himself 
 lucky, because he hopes that his creditor will em- 
 ploy him in order to ensure payment of his debt. 
 But credit is now much less easily obtained than 
 formerly. " Faith," said a man at Rathangan, in 
 Kildare, " there's but little chance of our paying it 
 back." Sometimes the women and children beg, 
 but seldom in their own neighbourhood, for the 
 sense of shame is most acute, in spite of all their 
 wretchedness. Sometimes the children linger near 
 the better sort of dwellings, not begging, but 
 " with hunger in their looks, and evidently wait- 
 ing to be asked." Their mute appeal is often suc- 
 cessful, and sometimes obtains a few potatoes, even 
 from persons who keep none back for themselves. 
 But this resource is very precarious, and when it 
 fails, or when a family disdains to resort to it, they 
 gather " pressagh," a weed something like Scotch 
 kale, which grows amidst the corn, and upon this 
 and boiled nettles they frequently live for days 
 together. Pressagh is exceedingly unwholesome, 
 and is observed to give a yellow colour, some- 
 thing like its own, to those who eat it ; but neces- 
 sity has no law, and when the poor creatures are 
 warned of the hurtful nature of their food, they 
 
OF MUNSTER. 93 
 
 ask, " What can we do ? can we starve ? If this 
 would kill us, we should have been dead long since, 
 for many's the time we have put up with worse." 
 When weeds disgust or are unobtainable, the starv- 
 ing poor try to " kill the hunger with water," or 
 to " stifle " it by lying in bed all day. Throughout 
 the evidence collected by the Commissioners are 
 instances of persons who had repeatedly remained 
 without food for twenty- four or forty-eight hours ; 
 and it is mentioned, that when in the idle season a 
 man is fortunate enough to get a job, it is common 
 for the farmer to give him his wages in the morn- 
 ing, in order that he may buy food for breakfast, 
 and so gain strength to do his work. Men with 
 less powers x of endurance than the rest sometimes 
 eat up their seed potatoes, and with them their 
 only means of subsistence during the ensuing win- 
 ter, or they grub up the young roots in June or 
 July, when they are no bigger than marbles, and as 
 unfit for food from their quality as their size.* 
 
 This description of Leinster only requires that 
 some of its features should be a little heightened, 
 in order to make it equally applicable to Munster. 
 The agricultural population is considerably larger 
 in the latter province, and competition is keener 
 both for employment and land. The smallest 
 cabin lets for 30s, a year, and the rent of conacre 
 land ranges from 4/. to 101. an acre. This term, it 
 may be proper to repeat, is given to the slips of 
 land which in most parts of Ireland are hired by 
 
 * First Report of Irish Poor Inquiry Commissioners, App. 
 A., pp. 393415. 
 
94 PEASANTEY 
 
 agricultural labourers, for the purpose of being 
 planted with potatoes. They are commonly held 
 under one of the larger farmers, that is to say, a 
 farmer occupying upwards of forty acres, and the 
 same piece of land is seldom underlet in this man- 
 ner for more than one season at a time. The con- 
 ditions of tenure are various. Sometimes, as was 
 mentioned in the account of Leinster, the labourer 
 pays the rent in manure. When a man's family is 
 able to collect a heap of manure, any farmer will 
 " turn it out " upon as much of his land as it will 
 cover, taking care to spread it very thickly, and will 
 permit the labourer to take from it a crop of pota- 
 toes. The quantity of land manured in this way 
 varies from less than one-eighth to three-eighths of 
 an acre, scarcely any labourer being able to manure 
 half an acre. Sometimes, the conacre is paid for 
 in labour. A farmer with more than forty acres 
 of land must have at least one labourer permanently 
 in his service. The man's nominal wages are about 
 $d. or 6^d. a day, but he seldom really receives 
 any money. He obtains from the farmer a cabin 
 for which he is charged 27. or 30s. a year, an acre 
 or an acre and a quarter of manured land, at about 
 41. an acre, and generally grass for one sheep, valued 
 at 10s. It takes him about 250 days to work out 
 these sums at the stipulated rate, and then, if he is 
 lucky enough to get a job, he may earn a few 
 shillings for himself. Otherwise his crop of pota- 
 toes, the wool of his sheep, and his pig and fowls 
 if he happen to keep any, are his sole means of 
 support. A man living in this way, under a farmer 
 
OF MUNSTEK. 95 
 
 that has good land, is supposed to be sure of having 
 potatoes enough for the whole year; but if the land 
 be poor, he has not enough, and is always in want 
 when summer comes round. Most farmers are 
 poor, and unable to manure the land. Of course, 
 very few labourers are so fortunate as to have a 
 permanent engagement of this kind, and if they 
 neither have it, nor yet are owners of a dungheap, 
 they must pay for their conacre (if they hire one) 
 in hard cash, and at the extravagant rate already 
 mentioned. Competition is so keen, that almost 
 any rent that is asked will be offered, and lest the 
 tenant should be unable to pay it, he is not suffered 
 to remove his crop until he has either paid or given 
 security for payment. THis chief means of raising 
 the requisite sum are the sale of his pig, and the 
 wages he can pick up by migrating at harvest time 
 to the neighbouring counties, or to England, or by 
 occasional jobs at home. The last, however, is 
 a most precarious and scanty resource : in two 
 parishes in the county of Cork, one containing 250 
 and the other 240 labourers^ dependent on occa- 
 sional employment, exclusive of labourers in perma- 
 nent employment, it was found upon inquiry that 
 the average quantity of work afforded to each man 
 was only sufficient for three months in the year in 
 the former place, and for four months in the latter. 
 How then do these men live ? They dig up their 
 potatoes long before they are ripe, eat pressagh or 
 corn kale, and lie in bed all day " for the hunger," 
 like their brethren of Leinster, and have it seems 
 somewhat less compunction in sending out their 
 
96 PEASANTRY 
 
 wives and children to beg. Want of food impairs 
 their strength and shortens their lives, so that a 
 man becomes unfit for work before sixty, and starv- 
 ation sometimes kills them outright. 
 
 People who have scarcely ever enough to eat 
 cannot be expected to have much money to spare 
 for clothes. The most fortunate Munster labourer 
 scarcely ever buys two articles of dress in the 
 same year. He gets a hat one year, a coat the next, 
 a pair of breeches the next, and a hat has been 
 known to last a man twelve years. The clothes 
 become rags long before their term of service is 
 expired, and their owner is not only ashamed to 
 attend chapel, but in severe weather is sometimes 
 obliged to leave his work because he can no longer 
 bear the cold, half-naked. Some of the witnesses 
 examined by the " Poor Inquiry " Commissioners, 
 described their tattered appearance with that 
 strange humour that always sparkles through an 
 Irishman's misery. One man speaking of his 
 children said, " They have so many wings and 
 flutter about so, that if they go out on a windy 
 day, a smart blast would hoist them over the ditch." 
 The dwellings of the Munster peasantry are as bad 
 as their clothes. An ordinary cabin is about twenty 
 feet long and twelve broad, with walls of stone or 
 mud, and is sometimes divided into two apartments, 
 but never contains a second story. The floor is 
 simply the ground upon which the cabin is built 
 made tolerably level, the roof is of straw and often 
 lets in the rain, and there is no ceiling nor any 
 covering on the rafters in the inside except soot. 
 
OF MUNSTEE. 9? 
 
 Every cabin has a rude chimney, and many have a 
 pane or two of glass to let in light, but some have 
 only a square hole, which is stuffed with straw at 
 night and in cold weather. Half of the cabins con- 
 tain no bedstead, but their inmates lie on straw 
 spread out on the ground, without blankets or any 
 other covering except the clothes they wear in the 
 day-time. 
 
 Notwithstanding their deplorable condition, the 
 Munster peasantry meet with little compassion 
 from the gentry. The Kerry landlords, indeed, ac- 
 cording to the evidence of a most respectable wit- 
 ness, say, the poor are " damned well off." It will 
 be only poetical justice if hereafter they become 
 similarly well off themselves. The landlords are 
 not even content with doing nothing for the relief 
 of the poor ; they aggravate their distress by their 
 short-sighted rapacity. Taking advantage of the 
 competition for land, they raise rents nearly twice as 
 high as they ought to be ; and though the farmer 
 does not and cannot pay all that he promises, so 
 much is extorted from him that he is left in a con- 
 dition little better than that of the common labourer. 
 Tenants of considerable farms are obliged to work 
 themselves, and to make their sons help them, instead 
 of hiring men ; or, if they do hire labourers, are 
 obliged to screw down their wages as low as possible. 
 They sometimes leave their potatoes undug for a 
 long while for want of money to pay for labourers. 
 Few can bear the expense of properly cultivating 
 their land, or can either manure it sufficiently or 
 observe a due rotation of crops. They are driven 
 
 ii 
 
98 PEASANTRY 
 
 into over-cropping, anxious only to obtain the 
 largest return during the current season, and quite 
 regardless of permanent improvements. The soil 
 is thus every year deteriorated, fences are broken 
 down, and houses allowed to fall into a state of 
 dilapidation. An anecdote related by the Poor 
 Inquiry Commissioners is very significant of the 
 depressed condition of the farmers. A labouring 
 man, who was complaining that it was not worth 
 while to sell his pig on account of the low price at 
 the time, was asked why he did not kill it. He re- 
 plied with a smile, " The farmer I live with holds 
 forty acres of land, and he has not killed a pig these 
 three years." When such is the state of the larger 
 landholders, it need scarcely be said that the mere 
 cottiers, the tenants of from one to ten acres, are in 
 a most desperate plight. In fact, they are only 
 nominally superior to the labourers, and they are 
 continually falling into the exact position of the 
 latter, when, as happens to numbers of them every 
 year, they are dispossessed of their little holdings. * 
 It may be thought that in Munster misery must 
 have reached its extreme, and that it is impossible 
 for the peasantry to be worse off anywhere : but 
 whoever really entertains this opinion has evidently 
 not extended his observation to Connaught. Still 
 more melancholy scenes await him there. It 
 should, however, be observed, that the descriptions 
 here given of the four Irish provinces are only in- 
 
 * Irish Poor Inquiry, App. A. to First Report, pp.415 
 455. 
 
OF CONNAUGHT. 99 
 
 tended to represent their general condition, and 
 must not be understood as denying that withiir the 
 limits of each exist considerable districts, of which 
 a much more pleasing picture might be drawn. 
 In every province there are counties which may be 
 favourably contrasted with the rest. In Leinster, 
 for example, Louth will bear a comparison with the 
 best parts of Ulster, and in Munster the aspect of 
 Limerick and Tipperary is a shade less dark than 
 that of Cork or Kerry. So also in Connaught there 
 are varieties of wretchedness. Eoscommon, Sligo, 
 and Galway are not perhaps in a much worse state 
 than the worst parts of Munster, while the whole 
 world can scarcely furnish a parallel to the despe- 
 rate condition of Mayo. The cultivated land of 
 this county swarms with an agricultural population, 
 of which the portion entirely dependent on the 
 wages of labour may almost be said to be without 
 any resource whatever. Land is so minutely 
 divided, that out of about 46,000 farms 44,000 are 
 under fifteen acres, and are held by men too poor 
 to employ any hands but their own. Nevertheless, 
 there are 67,000 males of fifteen years and up- 
 wards calling themselves labourers in husbandry, 
 by which they mean that they are ready to take 
 work if any one will give it, though few among 
 them are lucky enough to get employment one day 
 in four. In some extensive parishes there is lite- 
 rally no demand for labour whatever ; every tenant 
 tilling his own ground without assistance, and men 
 who have no ground trusting to Providence. Most 
 of the labourers, however, have a small piece of 
 
 H 2 
 
100 PEASANTRY 
 
 ground, which they commonly hire from the small 
 farmers, sometimes, though rarely, on condition of 
 working a certain number of days, or of placing on 
 the land a certain quantity of manure, and some- 
 times on condition of paying a money rent. If they 
 cannot obtain land in this way, they take possession 
 of part of the waste, which constitutes nearly two- 
 thirds of the county of Mayo, and this they are al- 
 lowed to hold rent free for a year or two, or until, by 
 reclaiming it, they have made it worth paying rent 
 for. As soon as they have planted their potatoes, 
 they leave their own village, and either alone, or in 
 company with their wives and children, roam 
 through the surrounding country. As soon as they 
 get a few miles from home they begin to beg, for it 
 is only in their own neighbourhood and among 
 their own acquaintances that they are ashamed 
 to do so, and thus an interchange of beggars takes 
 place among the different parishes! Some of them 
 cross over to England for the harvest ; but com- 
 paratively few of the mere labourers are able to do 
 this, for want of the few shillings required for the 
 expenses of the journey. Even those who reach 
 our island often fail to obtain work, and return as 
 poor as they went, after suffering severe hardships, 
 and frequently destroying their health by sleeping 
 in the open air at night and in all weathers. If, 
 however, by any means they can contrive to scrape 
 together money enough to redeem their potatoes, 
 that is to say, to pay the rent of the land, if any 
 be due, and also the price of the seed, which is 
 generally obtained on credit, they return home in 
 
OF CONNAUGHT. 101 
 
 the autumn, and subsist during the winter upon 
 the produce of their slip of land ; otherwise the 
 crop is seized by their creditors, and their only re- 
 source during the winter is to beg from people 
 almost as poor as themselves. The labourers, 
 however, are scarcely so much to be pitied as some 
 of the class immediately above them, the farmers of 
 from one to five acres. These men are reduced 
 nearly to the same shifts as the labourers in order 
 to pay their rent, and migrate like them, during the 
 summer, to other parts of Ireland or to England. 
 If they fail in their object, and are obliged to 
 abandon their crops to the landlords, they are ren- 
 dered as completely destitute as the labourers, and 
 will not stoop to the same means to relieve their 
 distress. They are, for the most part, too proud to 
 beg from their neighbours ; and if the latter, sus- 
 pecting their wants, did not voluntarily assist them, 
 they might perish with hunger. The Irish pea- 
 santry are indeed ever ready to help each other : 
 the few who have enough for themselves, seldom 
 eat without sending something to their famishing 
 friends ; and a man who did not offer part of his 
 meal to the neighbour that happened to come in 
 when the potatoes were boiled, would be scouted as 
 a churl. Still this mutual generosity, where all are 
 so poor, can at best only relieve distress by extend- 
 ing it, and must leave a vast amount of distress 
 untouched. There is no season of the year in 
 which the Connaught peasantry are properly sup- 
 plied with food. It has been already mentioned, 
 that their ordinary diet differs from that in use in 
 
 H 3 
 
102 PEASANTRY 
 
 other parts of Ireland by consisting only of pota- 
 toes without the addition either of meal or milk ; 
 but even the potatoes are generally of inferior 
 quality. Those most commonly planted in Con- 
 naught are called " lumpers," which require less 
 manure and produce more abundantly than other 
 sorts, but furnish a soft, watery food, equally un- 
 palatable and unwholesome, upon which even pigs 
 do not thrive. The texture, in fact, is more that of 
 a turnip than of a potato. Where " lumpers " 
 are the only food in plentiful seasons, it need 
 scarcely be said, that in times of scarcity the 
 potatoes which ought to be reserved for seed are 
 eaten, even by farmers ; that potatoes are dug up 
 while still " so small that only hunger could see 
 them ; " that noxious weeds are also used as food, 
 and that, in short, resort is had to all the reckless 
 expedients spoken of in the account of Leinster 
 and Munster. A practice peculiar to Connaught is 
 that of bleeding the cows, of which the landholders, 
 having a range of mountainous waste, generally 
 possess one. The owners of cows must be far re- 
 moved above the level of the poorest, yet even they 
 consent thus seriously to injure the animals which 
 form the most valuable part of their property, for 
 the sake of the scanty nourishment contained in the 
 blood. But far more desperate means are some- 
 times adopted to allay the pangs of hunger. In 
 1831 a cargo of potatoes arrived at a sea-port in 
 Mayo, which, when the hatches were opened, were 
 found to be so much decayed, and to give out such 
 a stench, that they were thrown overboard as unfit 
 
OF CONNAUGHT. 103 
 
 for use. Upon this the people crowded to the 
 beach and plunged up to the middle in the water 
 to gather them, although the rottenness might be 
 seen oozing through the bags in which they were 
 carried away. Numbers became sick from using 
 them, and many, even of the fowls that eat them, 
 died. In summer, when dearth both of employ- 
 ment and provisions is always greatest, men may 
 be seen " lying in the ditches with weakness, and I 
 have seen them," said one of the witnesses examined 
 by the Poor Inquiry Commissioners, " working on 
 the bog, when they could not throw the third sod 
 from mere hunger and weakness." " If," said 
 another, " you were taking your notes here in 
 summer, you would ask us no questions ; you would 
 tell by the lankness of a man's jaws how much food 
 he had in his house." It may seem as needless as 
 it is painful to accumulate evidences of the misery 
 of these poor creatures. " A fountain of ink," to 
 use the words of one of themselves, "would be 
 spent before all the tale would be written." Yet 
 the picture would be incomplete without some 
 notice of their habitations and clothing, as well as 
 of their food. The former cannot be better de- 
 scribed than in the words of an intelligent foreigner, 
 who thus expresses his astonishment at the first 
 sight of some Connaught cabins : 
 
 " In the west of Ireland there are districts where 
 a man may imagine himself in a wilderness aban- 
 doned by mankind, where nothing is to be seen 
 but rocks, bogs, and brushwood, and where wild 
 beasts alone may be supposed capable of housing. 
 
 H 4 
 
104 PEASANTRY 
 
 All at once, however, on closer inspection, little 
 green patches like potato fields are seen scattered 
 here and there amid the rocks, and a stranger is 
 tempted to go nearer and examine them. Let him 
 look where he is going, however, or he may make a 
 false step ; the earth may give way under his feet 
 and he may fall into what ? into an abyss, a 
 cavern, a bog ? No, into a hut, into a human 
 dwelling-place, whose existence he had overlooked, 
 because the roof on one side was level with the 
 ground, and nearly of the same consistency. If 
 the traveller draw back his foot in time, and look 
 around, he will find the place filled with a multi : 
 tude of similar huts, all swarming with life. I 
 remember," says the same writer in another place, 
 " when I saw the poor Lettes in Livonia, I used to 
 pity them for having to live in huts built of the 
 unhewn logs of trees, the crevices being stopped 
 up with moss. I pitied them on account of their 
 low doors, and their diminutive windows ; and 
 gladly would I have arranged their chimneys for 
 them in a more suitable manner. Well, Heaven 
 pardon my ignorance! A wooden house, with 
 moss to stop up the crevices, would be a palace in the 
 wild regions of Ireland. Paddy's cabin is built of 
 earth one shovel-full over the other, with a few 
 stones mingled here and there, till the wall is high 
 enough. But perhaps the roof is thatched, or 
 covered with bark ? Ay, indeed ! A few sods of 
 grass cut from a neighbouring bog are his only 
 thatch. Well, but a window or two at least, 
 if it be only a pane of glass fixed in the wall ? or 
 
OF OONNAUGHT. 105 
 
 the bladder of some animal, or a piece of talc, as 
 may often be seen in a Wallachian hut. What 
 idle luxury were this ! There are thousands of 
 cabins in which not a trace of a window is to be 
 seen ; nothing but a little square hole in front, 
 which doubles the duty of door, window, and 
 chimney : light, smoke, pigs, and children, all must 
 pass in and out by the same aperture."* 
 
 The furniture of these cabins is quite in keep- 
 ing with their external appearance. Kohl says, 
 that when the coach stopped, he used to get down 
 to inspect the inside of the houses, but he could 
 Often see enough without leaving his seat, for at 
 times he could " study the interior economy of the 
 establishment through the holes in the roof the 
 broken plates in the kitchen, the potato kettle on 
 the hearth, the heap of damp straw for a bed in one 
 corner, and the pigsty in another." 
 
 In a parish containing a population of 10,553, 
 it was found by the Roman Catholic clergyman of 
 the place, on a careful examination, that there were 
 altogether 400 beds, so that, allowing three per- 
 sons on an average to each bed, 9553 must have 
 lain on straw at the best ; and from a similar cal- 
 culation of the number of bedsteads, it further ap- 
 peared that 7070 persons were lying on the floors of 
 damp cabins. In a village within the same parish, 
 of 45 families, comprising 206 persons, there were 
 ascertained to be just 39 blankets. In another 
 parish, containing 1648 families, there were found 
 to be 388 families with two blankets each, 1011 
 * Ireland, by J. G. Kohl. 
 
106 PEASANTRY 
 
 with one blanket each, and 299 with no blankets 
 at all. What is called a blanket is, moreover, fre- 
 quently nothing more than a bundle of rags, for 
 the same article has been known to last a family 
 for seventeen years, and is generally in constant 
 use both night and day, many a mother having 
 little other clothing. When beds and bed clothes 
 are wanting, straw is the most usual substitute for 
 both, but even straw must be carefully husbanded. 
 " The straw we lie on," said one of the Mayo cot- 
 tiers, " was given us by some neighbours in charity; 
 we do not change it ; we do not part with it all ; 
 but as it wastes away, the neighbours give us a 
 wisp to add to it." When straw cannot be pro- 
 cured, the poor " pull the rushes that grow on 
 the sandbanks by the roots, and spread them as a 
 bed for themselves, just as they would do for pigs." 
 With respect to dress, the poorest of the Con- 
 naught peasantry remain for years together with- 
 out buying an article of it. In one parish there 
 were found to be more than 3000 persons who had 
 bought nothing worth speaking of for five years. 
 The men make desperate efforts to procure " a 
 breeches," and, chiefly by the help of other people's 
 cast-off rags, they do generally contrive to screen 
 not to cover their nakedness ; but their wives 
 would not be decent enough to go out begging 
 without wrapping an old sheet or blanket round 
 them, and the children are often without even this 
 apology for clothing. " There's a son of mine," 
 said a man, pointing to a half-naked boy about 
 twelve years old, in a man's coat all rags, dangling 
 
. 
 Olf CONNAUGHT. 107 
 
 and trailing about him ; "he never wore a trousers, 
 he never had one ; it's a borrowed coat he has on 
 him now ; you see he has nothing else but a shirt : 
 that shirt is the only stitch of clothing he has of 
 his own. In cold weather, he must keep close to 
 the house unless he runs from one house to an- 
 other ; or as he gets a borrowed coat, or a sheet to 
 roll about him, he may run from village to village." 
 This plan of borrowing is not of course confined to 
 the children. The labourers who appeared to give 
 evidence before the Commissioners were without 
 shoes or stockings, and their other clothes were 
 mere rags, leaving them every where open to the 
 weather. Yet, even of these rags part were bor- 
 rowed for the occasion. One of the men declared, 
 that the shapeless piece of felt which he wore in- 
 stead of a hat was not his own, and that for three 
 weeks he had been unable to work for want of 
 some protection against the cold. Small land- 
 holders paying 3/., 4., or 5/. rent, are sometimes 
 so destitute of clothes, that they cannot go to 
 market without borrowing a coat from one person, 
 a waistcoat from another, and a pair of trousers 
 from a third. A farmer of eight acres, who was 
 present when this last statement was made, said 
 " I lent my coat yesterday to a neighbour, taking 
 his sack of oats to Westport." When people go to 
 confess, the man who is first discharged by the 
 priest lends his coat to his neighbour, that the 
 latter may go in also : and the women do the like, 
 and change not only their cloak but their gown.* 
 
 * App. A. to First Report of Poor Inquiry Commission, 
 pp. 355 393. 
 
108 IRISH TOWNS. 
 
 The points of distinction between the rural and 
 urban inhabitants of Ireland are observable only 
 among a small portion of the latter. With the 
 exception of the capital, and five or six other sea- 
 ports, and of the few places which depend chiefly 
 on manufactures, Irish towns in general have rather 
 the appearance of overgrown villages. Little trade 
 of any kind is carried on in them, and the mass of 
 the labourers are agricultural, differing from their 
 rural brethren only in the place of their residence. 
 Wages may be a trifle higher than in the country, 
 owing to the somewhat superior condition of the 
 employers of labour in towns, which renders them 
 more ashamed to drive too hard a bargain with 
 their servants ; but this is an advantage by which 
 few are benefited. The supply of labourers is so 
 much beyond the demand, that numbers of them 
 may almost always be seen standing idle in the 
 streets, waiting for the chance of being hired ; and 
 it often happens, that out of a hundred collected in 
 this manner in the morning, not more than ten are 
 missing by sunset. Several of the little inland 
 towns have been well described in a few words by 
 that cleverest of sketchers, Mr. Thackeray. At 
 Kilkullen, near Naas, " few people were to be seen, 
 except a crowd round a meal shop, where meal is 
 distributed once a- week by the neighbouring gen- 
 try." It was market day when he passed through 
 Carlo w, but the " parcel of wretched rags and 
 trifles exposed for sale," only reminded him of the 
 primitive articles which, as travellers tell us, " change 
 hands in a town of African huts and traders on the 
 
IRISH TOWNS. 109 
 
 banks of the Quorra." At a posting-place called 
 Bally hale, in Kilkenny, " a dirty, old, contented, 
 decrepit idler was lolling in the sun, and hundreds 
 of the population of the dirty, old, decrepit, con- 
 tented place, were employed in the like way." At 
 Bandonbridge he " looked along one side of the 
 houses in the long street through which he went, to 
 see if there was a window without a broken pane 
 of glass," but declares on his conscience, that every 
 single window had three broken panes. It was 
 market day there too, and " in a little, miserable, 
 old market-house, a few women were selling butter- 
 milk, bullocks' hearts, liver, and such-like scraps of 
 meat." At Ban try, " the main street was thronged 
 as usual with blue-cloaked women carrying on their 
 eager trade of butter-milk and green apples, but 
 with the exception of this street and the quay, with 
 their white-washed and slated houses, it is a town 
 of cabins. The wretchedness of some of them is 
 quite curious. As for drawing them, it was in vain 
 to try ; one might as well make a sketch of a 
 bundle of rags. An ordinary pig-sty in England is 
 really more comfortable. Most of them were not 
 six feet long or five feet high, built of stones 
 huddled together, a hole being left for the people 
 to creep in at a ruined thatch to keep out some 
 little portion of the rain. A Hottentot kraal has 
 more comforts in it: even to write of the place 
 makes one unhappy, and the words more slow." * 
 Some of the manufacturing towns, most of which 
 
 * Irish Sketch Book. 
 
110 IRISH TOWNS. 
 
 are situated in the province of Ulster, are the only 
 ones in which the mass of the inhabitants can be 
 said to exist in any thing like comfort. By far the 
 most considerable of these is Belfast, which con- 
 tains twenty mills for spinning linen yarn, employ- 
 ing nearly 7000 persons, and several factories for 
 the weaving of linen cloth, employing about 1000 
 persons, besides numerous manufactories of articles 
 of minor importance. The operatives are in gene- 
 ral pretty well paid ; spinners get about a pound 
 a- week, and linen weavers, whose business has suf- 
 fered little from the invasion of power-looms, from 
 85. to 12s. a- week. The wages of mechanics are 
 nearly as high as in England, and common day- 
 labourers earn on an average 75. 6d. a-week. These 
 last wages would certainly not suffice for the decent 
 maintenance of a family in England ; and although 
 provisions are much cheaper in Ireland, it is proba- 
 bly only in accordance with Irish ideas that the diet 
 of Belfast labourers is said to be " good, and their 
 dress and demeanour respectable." There is pretty 
 constant employment for able-bodied men of all 
 classes throughout the year.* Some considerable 
 
 manufactures were formerlv carried on in Dublin, 
 
 j 
 
 but these have now in a great measure disappeared, 
 and there is far from sufficient employment for the 
 indigent crowds ever flocking into the capital. The 
 poorest quarters of the city consequently present a 
 
 * Appendix C. to First Report of Irish Poor Inquiry Com- 
 missioners ; Appendix N. to Second Report of Children's Em- 
 ployment Commission ; also, M'Culloch's Geograph. Diet., art. 
 Belfast." 
 
IRISH TOWNS. Ill 
 
 most melancholy appearance, and their inhabitants 
 are evidently engaged in a constant struggle for 
 existence. The wretchedness of Dublin is, however, 
 greatly surpassed in one or two other sea-ports. 
 In Cork, although the rate of wages for common 
 labourers is a shilling a-day, the scarcity of em- 
 ployment is such that few or none earn more than 
 five or six shillings a-week. It is supposed that 
 about 20,000 persons of both sexes and all ages 
 live from hand to mouth, having only casual em- 
 ployment, and that 6000 more may be termed 
 destitute in the strictest sense of the word. In 
 Limerick, with a smaller population, there is a 
 larger amount of destitution : ten thousand of the 
 inhabitants are supposed to be dependent on acci- 
 dent for subsistence. The sufferings of these poor 
 people, so far as they consist of want of food and 
 clothing, are altogether the effects of their poverty ; 
 but that part of their wretchedness which is pro- 
 duced by deficient house accommodation is shared 
 almost equally by highly-paid handicraftsmen and 
 artisans. The Ghetto, or vile quarter, that assem- 
 blage of narrow, dark, noisome lanes and courts, in 
 which, though crime makes its den, honest industry 
 must often make its home for want of shelter else- 
 where, is not likely to be wanting in Irish towns, 
 when there is scarcely a considerable town in Great 
 Britain in which it may not be discovered lying 
 unsuspectedly close beside the haunts of wealth 
 and pleasure. The lower classes of the urban 
 population of Ireland are lodged still worse, if pos- 
 sible, than the occupants of the cellars of Liverpool 
 
IRISH TOWNS. 
 
 and the closes of Glasgow. In the old town of 
 Limerick families of eight or nine persons inhabit 
 single rooms not more than four yards square, into 
 which the rain pours through the roof, and the 
 wind rushes through the broken windows. * One 
 sixth of the population are thus lodged. In Cork, 
 says Mr. Thackeray, after 'mentioning the loneli- 
 ness of the "respectable" portion of the city, 
 " there are quarters swarming with life, but of such 
 a frightful kind as no pen need care to describe ; 
 alleys where the odours and rags and darkness are 
 so hideous, that one runs frightened away from 
 them. In some of them, they say, not the police- 
 man, only the priest, can penetrate." f As, how- 
 ever, the defective house accommodation of the 
 lower classes does not always proceed altogether 
 from their poverty, it is unnecessary to dilate upon 
 the subject at present, further than to mention a 
 remarkable fact, ascertained at the last census, viz. 
 that above a million of families, not much less than 
 five-sixths of the whole nation, are living either in 
 mud huts or in single rooms of larger houses. In- 
 dependently of this, sufficient specimens of other 
 kinds of misery have been given to serve as illus- 
 trations of the extent to which over-population has 
 proceeded in Ireland. J 
 
 * Appendix C. to Third Report of Irish Poor Inquiry Com- 
 mission, part i. p. 87. 
 
 f Irish Sketch Book, vol. i. p. 136. 
 
 ^ Report of Irish Census Commissioners, p. 16. 
 
IRISH POOR-LAW. 113 
 
 Part of the evidence from which the preceding 
 particulars have been taken was collected in the 
 year 1835, when there was no legal provision for 
 the Irish poor. Since then a poor law has been 
 applied to Ireland; the whole country has been 
 divided into Unions, and 112 workhouses have been 
 built, into which 71,217 paupers were admitted in 
 the course of the year 1844. It is not probable, 
 however, that these measures can have sensibly 
 diminished the immense mass of destitution exist- 
 ing beyond the walls of the workhouses : indeed, 
 we have the positive testimony of recent tourists, 
 that they have not done so*, arid at any rate they 
 cannot have diminished the over-population which 
 that misery indicated, for the necessity of relieving 
 destitution by charity is as unequivocal a sign of 
 over-population as destitution itself. The inference 
 drawn from the evidence in question is therefore 
 as applicable to the present as to any former period. f 
 
 * In 1842, Mr. Thackeray, passing through the county of 
 Cork, found many of the potato gardens half dug up in the 
 first week of August, nearly three months before the potato is 
 ripe or at full growth, and while winter was still three months 
 away. Irish Sketch Book, vol. i. p, 175. 
 
 f In explanation of the absence of quotations from the 
 evidence collected by the Irish Land Commissioners of 1844, 
 it may be proper to mention, that this, chapter was written some 
 months before that evidence was published. It would certainly 
 have been desirable to appeal to the latest authorities on Irish 
 wretchedness ; but the omission to do so is of the less conse- 
 quence, as the description given by the Commissioners of 1835, 
 which has been chiefly followed in the text, is amply corrobo- 
 rated by all their successors. 
 
114 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CAUSES OF OVER-POPULATION IN GENERAL. 
 
 Decrease in the Demand for Labour. Excessive Augmenta- 
 tion of the Numbers of a Community. Propensity of 
 Mankind to multiply too rapidly. Motives for restraining 
 this Propensity. Influence of such Motives upon People in 
 
 - easy Circumstances. Their utter Inefficacy among the very 
 poor. Tendency of Misery to promote Population. Illus- 
 trations of the Theory proposed. Structure of Society among 
 pastoral Nations. Gradual Conversion of the Poor of such 
 Communities into agricultural Serfs. Physical well-being 
 of Serfs. Transformation of them into free Peasant Pro- 
 prietors. Prosperity of the Peasantry of Germany. Es- 
 thonia. Holland. Belgium. Sketch of the Progress of 
 Society in the Netherlands. State of the Norwegian and 
 Swiss Peasantry. Causes and Antiquity of their Prosperity. 
 Explanation of the Pauperism existing in Continental 
 Towns. Past and present Condition of the People in 
 Poland and France. Wretchedness of the labouring Class 
 in Southern Italy. Happiness of the Peasantry in Tuscany 
 and Lombardy. 
 
 A PERMANENT deficiency of employment for the 
 labouring class, which has been shown to be the 
 state of things indicated by the term Over -popula- 
 tion, does not always proceed from an increase in 
 the number of labourers, but may also originate in 
 a diminished demand for labour. If an important 
 part of the business carried on in any country be 
 abandoned, or contracted within narrower limits, 
 
CAUSES OF OVER-POPULATION. 115 
 
 or removed to a foreign soil, or even to a new 
 situation within the same territory, or if machinery 
 be largely substituted for human labour, a number 
 of persons may be thrown out of work who may 
 possibly never again be able to obtain adequate 
 occupation. Such a country will have become over- 
 peopled in consequence merely of the diminution of 
 employment. The population which formerly was 
 not too large to maintain itself in comfort will 
 have become excessive, although it may not have 
 increased in the smallest degree. 
 
 Some few places in Great Britain have been ren- 
 dered too populous in this manner, the manufac- 
 tures formerly carried on in them having been 
 removed to a distance, or old industrial processes 
 having been superseded by improved methods. 
 Although, however, this has been the case in some 
 few instances, it has by no means been so generally 
 throughout the country, in which, when we con- 
 sider the vast extension of agriculture, as well as 
 of manufactures, of late years, we cannot doubt, that 
 in spite of the adoption of machinery in almost 
 every branch of industry, there must be a greater 
 aggregate demand for human labour at this than 
 at any previous period. As therefore the total 
 amount of employment has increased, its deficiency 
 could not have been constantly becoming more 
 manifest, unless the number of work-people had 
 increased still more than the quantity of work, so 
 that in order to account for the over-population of 
 this island, it will be principally necessary to dis- 
 
 i 2 
 
116 CAUSES 
 
 cover the causes of the excessive increase of the 
 people. 
 
 If in the wantonness of disputation the most 
 obvious truths were not sometimes stoutly con- 
 tested, it would be superfluous to demonstrate that 
 mankind, like all other animals, have both the 
 power of increasing beyond the means of comfort- 
 able subsistence, and also a strong propensity to 
 exercise that power. If the means of subsistence 
 could be supplied in unlimited abundance, and pro- 
 vided no cause of extraordinary mortality were in 
 operation, a community could evidently double 
 itself in a short period, (repeated experience has 
 shown that twenty-five years at most would suffice 
 for the purpose,) and unless the people were deaf 
 to the dictates of nature, it is certain that their 
 numbers would be doubled accordingly. They 
 would also continue to all eternity to be doubled at 
 intervals of the same length, if the means of sub- 
 sistence continued to increase in the same propor- 
 tion : population, in short, would go on for ever 
 increasing by geometrical progression if sufficient 
 means of subsistence were procurable. But the 
 means of subsistence are far from unlimited. Those 
 of the whole human race cannot at most exceed 
 what the whole earth is capable of yielding, and 
 those of every community are in like manner 
 bounded by the limits of the territory which it 
 inhabits, or with which it has intercourse. In 
 reality, they are much more closely contracted, for, 
 owing to the unequal division of land, to vicious 
 legislation, want of agricultural skill, and other 
 
OF OVER-POPULATION. 117 
 
 causes, no country is ever permitted to yield a 
 tithe of the annual produce which might be drawn 
 from its soil, and even in the quantity which is 
 actually obtained, persons with no other property 
 than their labour must not hope to share, unless they 
 can get employment. The means of subsistence 
 of this class of persons are consequently only pro- 
 portionate to the amount of employment for them, 
 and are subject to limits which, though capable of 
 very great expansion, are reached at a very early stage 
 of society, and begin to press as soon as they are 
 reached. But although the means of subsistence be 
 thus limited, the people dependent upon them may 
 still continue for a while to increase in number ; 
 and it is clear that they will continue to increase 
 up to the utmost number that can possibly be kept 
 alive, unless they either restrain their natural in- 
 clination to marriage, or practise vices or habits 
 unfavourable to the growth of population, or unless 
 they are kept down by the frequent occurrence of 
 war, sickness, or some other destructive agency. 
 Unless one or other of these causes operates with 
 sufficient force, population must advance until 
 many members of the society are unable to procure 
 a sufficiency of the necessaries of life, and until 
 want, or the diseases engendered by want, produce 
 a mortality which prevents it from advancing fur- 
 ther. These propositions, which, except in the 
 mode of expression, are almost identical with the 
 first principles of Malthus's theory, are so self- 
 evident, that notwithstanding the prevalent fashion 
 to oppose every opinion maintained by that writer, 
 
 i 3 
 
118 CAUSES 
 
 it seems sufficient to state them simply without 
 adding a syllable in their support. 
 
 But in order to account for the over-populousness 
 of any particular place or region, it is not sufficient 
 to show that population has everywhere a tendency 
 to become excessive unless the propensity by which 
 it is impelled be restrained or counteracted. Strong 
 as the propensity is, there must be some influence 
 strong enough to control it, or, in spite of the 
 ravages of war, pestilence, and infanticide, the 
 earth would long ago have been over-peopled, and 
 all the inhabitants of almost every country would 
 be suffering from want. This is really the con- 
 dition of the labouring class in some parts of the 
 world, but it is so of the labouring class only, and 
 even that class is in most countries more or less 
 raised above want, while in some it is abundantly 
 supplied with all necessaries. This plenty, how- 
 ever, would evidently not be lasting, if the people 
 exerted unrestrainedly their powers of self-multi- 
 plication ; and it is necessary to ascertain what 
 motive prevents their indulging their natural incli- 
 nation to marriage, and why the same motive is 
 not equally effectual everywhere. 
 
 Among people possessing freedom of action, the 
 motive can be no other than fear of the conse- 
 quences frequently resulting from an imprudent 
 match. It is foreseen that the care of a family 
 may require the sacrifice of some habitual com- 
 forts ; or may render it impossible to retain, after 
 marriage, the same social position as was previously 
 occupied. This last consideration is perhaps the 
 
OF OVER-POPULATION. 119 
 
 strongest of all : at least, it acts where others are 
 little felt. Lovers, who have no anxiety about the 
 welfare of children that may never be born, and 
 who would be content to make some sacrifice for 
 the sake of enjoying each other's company, may be 
 unwilling to disqualify themselves for associating 
 with their present equals. Even if their means be 
 sufficient to procure for them in abundance every 
 necessary and substantial comfort, they may yet 
 hesitate to marry, unless they can keep up the out- 
 ward appearance required in the circle in which 
 they are accustomed to move. These dissuasives 
 from marriage are so powerful among the higher 
 classes, that, as has been well remarked, if the world 
 were inhabited only by people of property, it would 
 probably soon become depopulated by natural failure 
 of the species. They have somewhat less influence 
 in inferior conditions of life, not so much because 
 they are less felt (for a peasant is probably as 
 anxious as a lord to retain the respect of his 
 acquaintance, and whatever other advantages he 
 may possess), as because, in the middle and lower 
 ranks, social advantages are less irrecoverably for- 
 feited by an imprudent match. A duke's son, who 
 marries with only a younger son's portion, can 
 scarcely hope ever again to be able to live in the 
 style in which he has been brought up ; but the 
 son of a merchant or a farmer, though his means 
 be at present small, may not unreasonably expect 
 to be one day as well off as his father. Though 
 weakened, however, the prudential considerations 
 just alluded to are still very effectual in every con- 
 
 i 4 
 
120 CAUSES 
 
 dition of life, except in those which are so low that 
 it is impossible to sink much beneath them. In 
 these they are absolutely inoperative. A half- 
 starved wretch, who has only rags to wear, and a 
 ruined mud-hovel to sleep in, knows that he cannot 
 be more despised, though he may be more pitied, if 
 the holes in his cheeks and coat, and in the roof 
 of his shed, become twice as wide as at present. 
 Neither is the absence of shame on account of his 
 outward appearance supplied, as might be expected, 
 by increased dread of the more real ills of poverty. 
 On the contrary, it seems that the more wretched 
 a man is, the more heedless he is about increasing 
 his misery. If he were in easy circumstances, he 
 would be reluctant to risk any of his comforts ; but 
 a very poor man may have no comforts to lose. If 
 his means be barely sufficient to appease the cravings 
 of nature, without affording him any positive grati- 
 fication, he may think that, being already so badly 
 off, he cannot become much worse ; and that it is 
 not worth while to practise present self-denial, from 
 the dread of a slight increase of future privation.* 
 He might possibly be disposed to postpone the 
 indulgence of his inclinations, if there were a 
 chance of his condition improving ; but, if he have 
 no such hope, the present opportunity may seem as 
 unobjectionable as any that is ever likely to occur. 
 He may even persuade himself that it will be for 
 
 * This argument has been briefly summed up in one of Dr. 
 Johnson's memorable sayings : "A man is poor he thinks, 
 I cannot be worse, so I'll e'en take Peggy." Croker's Boswell, 
 vol. ii. p. 103. 
 

 
 OF OVER-POPULATION. 121 
 
 his advantage to marry early, that his sons may be 
 able to assist him in his old age, when he would 
 otherwise be altogether destitute. He may reason 
 in this manner, if he think at all ; but it is more 
 likely that his misfortunes will have rendered him 
 inconsiderate and reckless. With so gloomy a 
 prospect before him, he may prefer to close his 
 eyes upon the future, and, caring only for the 
 present moment, he may snatch at any means of 
 alleviating his sorrows, without calculating the 
 cost. Be this as it may, it is certain that the pru- 
 dential considerations which constitute th& only 
 voluntary restraint on marriage, and which some- 
 times exercise even an excessive influence amongst 
 the rich, are absolutely powerless amongst the very 
 poor. It has been frequently observed, that very 
 wealthy families seldom attain a great antiquity, but 
 generally become extinct in a few generations * : 
 whereas, when the lower classes of a community 
 are subject to severe permanent distress, their 
 numbers almost invariably increase to the utmost 
 extent which the means of subsistence will permit. 
 Misery, the inevitable effect and symptom of 
 over-population, thus seems to be likewise its prin- 
 cipal promoter. It seems, indeed, to be the only 
 circumstance which occasions an excessive increase 
 in the numbers of a community, except when people 
 are placed in situations in which, being unable to 
 estimate correctly the amount of employment, they 
 over-rate their means of subsistence ; or, when 
 
 * See examples of this, cited in support of a very different 
 theory, in Mr. Doubleday's work on Population. 
 
122 PROGRESS 
 
 some political arrangement, such as a charitable 
 provision for the poor, encourages them to get 
 families around them which they cannot themselves 
 maintain. With these exceptions it will, I think, 
 be found that, wherever population has received an 
 undue impulse, the people have first been rendered 
 reckless by privation. A few illustrations shall 
 now be offered in support of this opinion, and an 
 attempt shall be made to show, by examples, first, 
 that when a people are placed in possession of 
 plenty, they generally continue to enjoy it until 
 something occurs to occasion an absolute diminu- 
 tion of the total amount of their resources ; and, 
 secondly, that when by any cause they are reduced 
 to want, their want is almost invariably aggravated 
 by the increase of their numbers. 
 
 Among wandering, at least among pastoral tribes, 
 war, epidemic diseases, the frequent barrenness of 
 women, and the extraordinary mortality of chil- 
 dren, seem to keep down the numbers of the people 
 suificiently, without requiring them to place any 
 restraint on their connubial inclinations. All tra- 
 vellers agree that these inclinations are freely in- 
 dulged, and their statements respecting the honour 
 in which marriage is held, and the general desire for 
 children, are confirmed by the evidence of Scripture 
 with respect to the primitive Israelites, and that of 
 Tacitus with respect to the ancient Germans. Yet 
 it seems probable that the numbers of a pastoral 
 tribe are scarcely ever more than duly propor- 
 tionate to the average means of subsistence. They 
 are indeed, at times grievously thinned by famine, 
 
OF SOCIETY. 123 
 
 but this seems to be the effect of accidental and 
 temporary causes, such as drought, or the loss of 
 cattle by disease or depredation, or the improvidence 
 of the people, which prevents them from properly 
 husbanding their resources. It is clear that they 
 do not suffer habitually from scarcity of food, or 
 slavery would not be so common amongst them, 
 but the poorer freemen would hire themselves out 
 to the rich. Neither would there be any necessity 
 for a lover to purchase his bride from her parents, 
 according to the present practice. A father would 
 be glad to get his daughter off his hands if she 
 were merely a burthen to him ; but he sets a price 
 upon her, because, in providing her suitor with a 
 wife, he is at the same time depriving himself of a 
 valuable servant. 
 
 But although over-population be an evil unknown 
 to pastoral nations, it will be very useful to inquire 
 into the condition of the lower classes in such com- 
 munities ; for most civilised nations are descended 
 from pastoral ancestors, and many of them still feel 
 the effects of the social relations which existed 
 among their rude progenitors. There can be little 
 doubt that shepherds or herdsmen were the first 
 occupiers of almost every country, for independently 
 of other arguments in favour of that opinion, the 
 rapid migrations of vast multitudes from one side 
 of the globe to the other, which are known to have 
 taken place in early times, could only have been 
 effected by people who possessed in their cattle 
 perambulatory magazines of provisions. Now the 
 structure of society among pastoral nations depends 
 
124 PROGRESS 
 
 very greatly on the natural features of the terri- 
 tories they inhabit. If these be of very small 
 extent, very barren, or much divided by mountains, 
 large rivers, or other barriers, the tribes, or col- 
 lections of families living together, must necessarily 
 be small for want of pasture, and the same cause 
 will prevent any individual from acquiring very 
 great numbers of cattle, and from very greatly sur- 
 passing his companions in wealth or power. There 
 can be no great inequality of rank, but every free- 
 man, when emancipated from parental control, 
 will acknowledge no authority save that of the 
 assembled heads of the community. The chief will 
 hold a merely honorary office ; he will be unable to 
 do anything in peace or war without the consent of 
 the other heads of families, for the latter, by com- 
 bining amongst themselves, could easily resist his 
 commands. Such appears to be the state of society 
 in the deserts of Arabia, and in some nearly equally 
 sterile tracts inhabited by Turcomans, to the east 
 of the Caspian Sea. If on the other hand there be 
 abundance of good pasture, a tribe may attain a 
 very considerable size, and the cattle of a single 
 proprietor may be counted by thousands and tens 
 of thousands. Such an one may be raised by a 
 concurrence of fortunate circumstances far above 
 his neighbours in wealth and power, and may be- 
 come their chief in reality as well as in name. 
 Successful wars with other tribes may extend his 
 dominion, and increase the disparity between him- 
 self and his subjects, until his authority becomes 
 altogether absolute. Such is the history of Gen- 
 
OF SOCIETY. 125 
 
 ghisKhan, Tamerlane, and other potentates who have 
 succeeded in reducing all the wandering hordes of 
 Tartary under their sway. Even if no individual 
 be able to exalt himself in this manner, and if there 
 be a considerable body of rich herdsmen, pretty 
 nearly on a level, the existence of such an aris- 
 tocracy is equally fatal to the liberty of their 
 inferiors. Every rich man must maintain a number 
 of dependents, captives taken in war, or poor clans- 
 men of his own, to look after his cattle. These 
 retainers have no law but their master's will, and 
 they are ever ready to assist him in any act of 
 oppression. A man of small property has there- 
 fore no security, except in the protection of some 
 superior, to whom he yields an obedience more or 
 less implicit, according to the disparity in their 
 respective means. 
 
 Experience shows, in opposition to the fashionable 
 theory, that there is no necessary transition from a 
 pastoral to an - agricultural life, and that some 
 peculiar causes are required to produce a change of 
 this kind. If, however, a wandering tribe does 
 become stationary, a wealthy herdsman preserves 
 his supremacy over all the land on which the cattle 
 of himself and his followers have been accustomed 
 to graze. Part of the land is appropriated by such 
 of his dependents as possess flocks of their own, 
 but these continue to acknowledge their allegiance 
 to their lord, and become in fact his vassals. As 
 for his more immediate retainers, the servants fed 
 and clothed by his bounty, they are placed on the 
 domains which he takes into his own possession, 
 
126 PROGRESS 
 
 and generally till their master's ground, as they 
 formerly tended his flocks. Their subjection to 
 him becomes if possible still more complete than 
 before, for their distribution over the land, and 
 consequent separation from each other, and their 
 attachment to the soil, deprive them of the mutual 
 support, and of the facilities for escape, which they 
 possessed when dwelling in a camp. It was in this 
 manner that the mass of the wandering Goths and 
 Scythians of antiquity degenerated into Russian 
 and German serfs, as completely at their master's 
 disposal as the rest of his live stock. Such pro- 
 bably was already the condition of the peasantry of 
 Gaul and Spain, when those countries were annexed 
 to the Roman Empire ; and if it underwent any 
 change during the period of Roman domination, it 
 was certainly restored by the barbarians who over- 
 ran the Roman provinces. 
 
 Although, however, a serf may hold both life 
 and property by no other tenure than the per- 
 mission of his lord, and may be altogether without 
 protection from any outrage which the latter may 
 choose to offer, he may not suffer from a scarcity 
 of the necessaries of life, but, as far as his mere 
 bodily wants are concerned, may be in a very 
 tolerable, and even comfortable situation. His 
 lord may, if he please, deprive him entirely of the 
 fruits of his labour ; but, in a thinly-peopled coun- 
 try, in which manufactures have made little pro- 
 gress, and foreign commerce is unknown, a great 
 landholder would be only encumbered by larger 
 contributions of raw produce than his household 
 
OF SOCIETY. 127 
 
 could consume. The quantity lie requires may be 
 much less than the whole produce of his estate, 
 and when the cultivators have supplied sufficient 
 for his wants, they will probably be allowed to 
 retain the remainder of their crops for their own 
 use, and may be enabled both to feed and clothe 
 themselves well. If the country remain in an un- 
 civilised state, the rents of the peasantry may con- 
 tinue for ages without any sensible augmentation, 
 and the same families may be left undisturbed in 
 the possession of their respective holdings, from 
 the absence of any motive for ejecting them. In 
 process of time, customs become confounded with 
 rights, so that at length it would be looked upon 
 as a piece of injustice to demand increased contri- 
 butions from a serf, or to oust him from his land, 
 as long as the old rate was punctually paid. If, 
 while this was the state of feeling, an influential 
 middle class were to grow up, or if the Crown 
 should be desirous of curbing the power of the 
 nobles, the rights of the peasantry would be more 
 boldly asserted, and more generally recognised, 
 until at length they were formally established by 
 law. Several examples of this have taken place 
 within the last half-century, during which the 
 peasantry of Austria, Prussia, and the Russian 
 provinces on the Baltic, have been raised from 
 prsedial slavery to the condition of freemen and 
 proprietors of the lands occupied by their an- 
 cestors, on condition of annually paying to the 
 lord of the manor certain fixed amounts of labour 
 or produce. The present position of these en- 
 
128 PEASANTRY OF 
 
 franchisee! serfs is, in general, a very enviable one. 
 Before their emancipation, they were well supplied 
 with all necessaries, not less abundantly, it may 
 be presumed, than the serfs of the present day on 
 large estates in Russia, who are lodged in substan- 
 tial, roomy, well- warmed huts, are clothed in thick 
 dresses of sheep -skin, drugget and flannel, have 
 as much rye-bread, eggs, salt-fish, lard, bacon, and 
 green vegetables as they can eat, and feast on fresh 
 meat on every holiday. The fear of losing these 
 good things, probably sufficed to prevent them 
 from marrying without ample security for their 
 continued enjoyment, or the authority of the land- 
 lord, naturally indisposed to permit his estate to be 
 over-run with beggars, may possibly have been in- 
 terposed to check improvident matches. By one 
 cause or other population Avas confined within 
 moderate bounds, so that, at the abolition of serfdom, 
 every peasant was placed in possession of a piece of 
 land, always sufficient for his maintenance, and 
 often of considerable extent. The prudence arising 
 from the possession of property then became 
 strengthened, and produced proportionate effects. 
 Population has certainly advanced, but less rapidly 
 than the means of subsistence, and the condition 
 of the peasantry has been decidedly ameliorated 
 since they were freed from their feudal chains. 
 
 Thus, throughout Germany, the peasantry are 
 exceedingly industrious ; they labour busily early 
 and late, but they feel that they are labouring for 
 themselves, and their toil is rewarded by the sub- 
 stantial comforts they enjoy. They have, it is 
 
GERMANY AND ESTONIA. 129 
 
 true, little refinement in their notions or habits. 
 The women are often set upon the hardest tasks, 
 while the men sit at their ease smoking, and the 
 dirt and odours of their habitations are intolerable 
 to eyes and ears of any delicacy ; but these evils 
 are borne only because they are unfelt : such wants 
 as the people are sensible of are all abundantly sa- 
 tisfied. " Every man has his house, his orchard, his 
 road-side trees, so hung with fruit that he is obliged 
 to prop them all ways, or they would be torn to 
 pieces. He has his corn-plot, his plot for mangel- 
 wurzel, for hemp and so on," his cattle, sheep, and 
 swine. His house is strong and well built, generally 
 of stone, and though gloomy and slovenly within, 
 made warm and comfortable by a large iron stove : 
 it is, moreover, furnished with all needful utensils, 
 and is particularly well stocked with bedding and 
 homespun clothing. The peasant's dress is com- 
 monly a long coat, and cocked or hollow-sided hat, 
 and in winter he wraps himself in a huge blue 
 cloak with a fur collar, and a cape reaching to his 
 middle. His usual fare is coarse but nourishing ; 
 he indulges freely in the cheap luxuries of beer and 
 tobacco, and on Sundays and holydays he feasts at 
 a pic-nic or a public-house, and whirls away his 
 care in a gay waltz.* 
 
 The enfranchised serfs of Estonia, whose eman- 
 cipation dates only from 1828, possess the elements 
 of happiness in greater abundance than their Ger- 
 man brethren, but do not understand so well how 
 
 * Hewitt's Rural and Domestic Life of Germany, pp. 40 56. 
 
 K 
 
1 30 PEASANTRY 
 
 to turn them to account. They occupy farms, fre- 
 quently as much as twenty or twenty-five acres in 
 extent, for which they pay rent " in the shape of 
 so many days' labour, man and horse, per week, 
 upon the lord's fields," besides " certain contribu- 
 tions of corn, and of a calf, a goose, so many fowls 
 or eggs, and so many bundles of flax." After satis- 
 fying the landlord's claim, by far the greater part 
 of the produce remains for the farmer, who has no 
 one to blame but himself if all his bodily wants are 
 not plentifully supplied. The nature of his diet 
 may be in some measure inferred from the list of 
 articles which make up his rent. He dresses him- 
 self in sheep skins, or in a long coat coming down 
 to his heels, made of undyed wool, and wears on 
 his feet sandals of untanned cow's hide ; but to 
 show that it is not poverty that prevents his 
 getting better clothes, he displays rows of silver 
 buttons down the breast of his holyday suit. 
 His house is commonly a one-storied erection, built 
 of roughly squared logs, and occupying as much 
 space as an English old-fashioned farm-house, with 
 a double wall on the entrance side, separated by a 
 passage of about six feet wide, which greatly tends 
 both to warmth in winter, and coolness in summer. 
 This passage is shared by pigs with the farmer's 
 children, and horses and cattle also dwell under the 
 same roof; but the apartments especially appro- 
 priated to the family, though dark and smoky, offer 
 nothing to disgust even the fastidious eyes of an 
 English lady, and are furnished with a stove and 
 
OF THE NETHERLANDS. 131 
 
 other necessary furniture.* Finally, scarcely any 
 Estonian is so poor as not to keep at least one horse 
 to draw his sledge. 
 
 The Germans and Estonians are descendants of 
 serfs, but there are three or four countries in 
 Europe whose inhabitants have inherited equal ad- 
 vantages from ancestors who never lost their free- 
 dom. The peasantry of the Netherlands, for in- 
 stance, are in general at least as well off as those of 
 Germany. In the kingdom of Holland, indeed, the 
 class of small proprietors is less numerous. The 
 farms there are generally of considerable size, 
 seldom less than 50 acres in extent, and often very 
 much larger, and are cultivated in a great measure 
 by hired labourers. These are paid at the rate of 
 about 20d. a day, if without food, but farm servants 
 generally board and lodge with their master, and 
 eat at the same table with his family. In that 
 case their food consists chiefly of wheat and rye 
 bread, potatoes, turnips, French beans, bacon, fresh 
 and salt beef, and pancakes of buck-wheat flour 
 and bacon: the money wages which they receive 
 in addition range from 5/. to 121. 10s. a year. Such 
 earnings, even in a country next to England in 
 dearness, are sufficient to show that the labour 
 market is not overstocked, and all travellers agree 
 in bearing witness to the apparent comfort of the 
 lower classes of the Dutch people. The neatness 
 and cleanliness of their dwellings, and the super- 
 abundance of their clothing, are proverbial. Not 
 
 * Letters from the Baltic, Letter 9. 
 K 2 
 
1 32 PEASANTRY 
 
 a house nor a fence is to be seen out of repair, nor 
 a garden that is not carefully cultivated. One 
 meets with no ragged or dirty persons, nor with 
 any drunken men, and the sight of a beggar is 
 equally rare.* In Belgium the money wages of 
 agricultural labourers are not perhaps more than 
 half as high as in Holland f, but the difference is 
 compensated by the greater cheapness of all neces- 
 saries, and cannot be of much consequence to ser- 
 vants who board with their masters, as almost all 
 of them do. Those in the employment of the 
 better class of Flemish farmers, u dine in a plen- 
 tiful and orderly manner with the farmer and his 
 family at the same table, which is covered with a 
 clean cloth, and well supplied with spoons, four- 
 pronged forks, and every other convenient article. 
 A standing dish is soup, composed of buttermilk 
 boiled and thickened with flour or rye bread. Pota- 
 toes, salt pork, salt fish, various vegetables, and eggs 
 are the articles of daily consumption, with occa- 
 sionally fresh meat and fresh fish, and always 
 abundance of butter or rendered lard. All these 
 provisions are made palatable by tolerable cooking. 
 The potatoes are always peeled, and generally stewed 
 in milk. A kind of kidney beans, sliced and stewed 
 in milk, is a constant dish. No respectable farmer 
 
 * Mr. Nicholls' Three Reports on Poor Laws for Ireland, 
 pp. 153,4. 
 
 f They vary a good deal, however. In some parts of Bel- 
 gium a day labourer earns as much as fifteen or sixteen-pence a 
 day. See Mr. Symons' very interesting Report to Hand-loom 
 Weavers' Commissioners. 
 
OF THE NETHERLANDS. 133 
 
 is without a well- cultivated garden, full of the best 
 culinary vegetables, and apples, all of which appear 
 at his own table." * 
 
 The employment of hired labourers in husbandry 
 is not, however, very common in Belgium, most of 
 the farms being so small that the farmer needs no 
 other aid than that of his own family. There are 
 some few farms of more than 100 acres, but most 
 are under fifty, and the most usual size is between 
 five and ten acres. These small holdings lie so 
 thickly together in the north and west of the king- 
 dom, as to give the country the appearance of one 
 continued village, and a most flourishing village it 
 seems to be. Every " cottage is built substantially, 
 with an upper floor for sleeping, and is kept in good 
 repair : it has always a small cellarage for the dairy, 
 a store-room for the grain, an oven, an outhouse for 
 potatoes, a roomy cattle-stall, a piggery, and a loft 
 for the poultry. The premises are kept extremely 
 neat, and an air of comfort pervades the whole 
 establishment.''! These appearances are not de- 
 ceitful. All the wealth upon these small farms 
 belongs absolutely to the farmers, who are almost 
 always their own landlords, and having no rent to 
 pay, can apply all their produce to their own use. 
 The proprietor of fifteen acres " brings up his 
 family in decent independence, and in the course of 
 his life accumulates sufficient means to put them in 
 possession of a little farm of their own." If he 
 
 * Ratcliffs Agricultural Survey of Belgium, apud Macculloch's 
 Geographical Dictionary, art. "Belgium." 
 f Nicholls' Three Reports, p. 165. 
 
 K 3 
 
134 PEASANTRY 
 
 have only five or six acres, he can still contrive to 
 keep a couple of cows, besides calves, pigs, and 
 goats, and some poultry. He has plenty of rye 
 bread and milk, and dines off mashed potatoes and 
 onions, flavoured occasionally with slices of bacon. 
 His dwelling is decently furnished, " the bedding 
 amply sufficient," and no member of his family is 
 ever seen ragged or slovenly, but all are decently 
 clothed, though perhaps with the coarsest mate- 
 rials.* In short, the condition of the petty pro- 
 prietors who constitute the bulk of the Belgian 
 peasantry, leaves little to be desired. Their happi- 
 ness is not of recent origin, but dates from the 
 dawn of civilisation in many of the surrounding 
 countries, and is the result of very singular causes. 
 Eighteen hundred years ago Europe did not con- 
 tain a more dreary region than these same Nether- 
 lands. The rich pastures of Holland, the garden- 
 like surface of Zealand and Flanders, which cannot 
 now be matched for fertility on this side the Alps, 
 were then literally a series of sandy plains and salt 
 marshes. The only provinces that offered any 
 attractions to colonists were those to the eastward, 
 which are now the least valuable, Namur, Lim- 
 burg, Liege, and Luxemburg. These, amidst the 
 mountains, moors, and swamps of which they are 
 chiefly composed, are interspersed with extensive 
 forests and meadows, affording pasturage sufficient 
 for numerous herds of cattle. As in these natural 
 features they resembled the neighbouring parts of 
 
 * Nicholls, ut supra. See also Chambers' Tour in Holland 
 and Belgium. 
 
OF THE NETHERLANDS. 135 
 
 Germany, so also was their political condition for a 
 while the same : their first inhabitants were herds- 
 men, who were succeeded by an abject race of serfs. 
 In the maritime provinces, on the contrary, it is 
 probable that serfdom was never very general, if 
 indeed it existed at all. These districts must have 
 remained for a very long time very scantily peopled, 
 the tribes must have been small, and individuals 
 poor, and nearly on the same level with respect to 
 wealth, power, and rank. The distribution of the 
 land, therefore, whenever it took place, was probably 
 effected with considerable regard to equality, and a 
 share was most likely allotted in full property and 
 unconditionally to every family. On a soil so ste- 
 rile, and subject, moreover, to be devastated by 
 inundations of the sea and rivers, people could not 
 exist without the utmost industry and foresight, 
 and these qualities were doubtless still further en- 
 couraged by the labourer's knowledge that he 
 worked for himself, and not for a master. Still, 
 unceasing toil could at best only enable the inha- 
 bitants to live. It may be true, that where nature 
 does most, man generally does least, but something 
 else is necessary besides poorness of soil to make a 
 nation or a country rich. The Dutch and Flemings 
 might have persevered in cultivating their fields, 
 and have dug and redug the ground with unwearied 
 assiduity, without ever sensibly improving its qua- 
 lity: at the end of hundreds of years the sand 
 would have been sand still. In rendering it what 
 it is, wealth as well as labour has been expended, 
 and wealth far greater than the Netherlands them- 
 
 K 4 
 
136 PEASANTRY 
 
 selves could have produced, and which can only 
 have come from abroad. Very powerful reasons 
 must, no doubt, have been required to induce 
 wealthy foreigners to migrate to so ill-favoured a 
 region, and to expend their capital in fertilising 
 such an ungrateful soil ; but it is not impossible to 
 conjecture adequate motives for their conduct. The 
 civilisers of the Netherlands were not improbably 
 citizens of Gaul and Spain, who, when those coun- 
 tries were overwhelmed by barbarian invaders, took 
 refuge in their ships, and sailed in search of an 
 asylum elsewhere. The very dreariness of the 
 Dutch and Belgian coasts, which in other circum- 
 stances would have been so repulsive, may now 
 have been most welcome, for it was only where the 
 natives were too few to molest them, that the wan- 
 derers could hope for security. We know that 
 considerations of this kind induced the fugitive 
 citizens of Aquileia to choose the muddy islets at 
 the mouth of the Brenta, whereon to lay the found- 
 ations of Venice. Like the Venetians, too, the 
 colonists of the Low Countries must at first have 
 devoted themselves entirely to foreign commerce, 
 from sheer inability to practise any other business: 
 t hey could not gain a livelihood except by becoming 
 the carriers of northern Europe. The example of 
 Venice, again, shows how great wealth may be ac- 
 quired in this way : wealth supplied the means of 
 establishing manufactures, and manufactures and 
 commerce procured from abroad the means of sub- 
 sistence for a large population. Where large bodies 
 of men are gathered together, the materials for 
 fertilising land are procurable in abundance. The 
 
OF THE NETHERLANDS. 137 
 
 new settlers had brought with them a knowledge 
 of agriculture, and found in the native inhabitants 
 apt and diligent scholars, so that round all the 
 towns in the western Netherlands belts of rich 
 land began to appear, which, rapidly widening till 
 they met, gave the whole country its present cha- 
 racter. If the conjecture be well founded, that the 
 peasantry of these provinces have always been free, 
 no further explanation of their progress can be 
 needed. Even if they were ever serfs, it is easily 
 understood that the growing influence of the cities, 
 by curtailing the power of the barons, must very 
 soon have loosened their bonds, and have permitted 
 them to rise early to a height of social comfort 
 from which they have never since descended. The 
 same influence extended, but more gradually and 
 less effectually, into the inland provinces, and there 
 also put an end to praedial slavery, and converted 
 the serfs into yeomen, although in some districts 
 the traces of ancient feudal privileges were not en- 
 tirely effaced until the French Revolution, and the 
 consequent annexation of Belgium to France. Cen- 
 turies ago, however, the peasantry very generally 
 possessed, in the ownership of portions of fertile 
 land, abundant means of livelihood. Population 
 has ever since retained pretty much the same pro- 
 portion to subsistence, and the people of this gene- 
 ration are consequently as well off as their ancestors. 
 Their inheritance seems likely also to be transmitted 
 unbroken to a distant posterity; for it is acknow- 
 ledged, even by those who look upon small farms as 
 the great promoters of pauperism, that they produce 
 
138 SWISS AND NOEWEGiAN 
 
 very different effects among the Flemings. " The too. 
 rapid increase of population," is observed to be 
 " checked by the universal desire to marry only 
 when the subsistence for a family can be readily 
 and honestly obtained by industry."* What is it 
 that disposes the Netherlander thus to control 
 their inclinations ? What but that, having been 
 always used to plentiful food, warm clothing, and 
 commodious dwellings, they duly appreciate domes- 
 tic comfort, and are not disposed wilfully to forfeit 
 such advantages. 
 
 Two other countries, in which the peasantry are 
 eminently happy, and have been so ever since they 
 became civilised, are Switzerland and Norway. 
 Both are countries of small proprietors. In Swit- 
 zerland, except in the canton of Tessin, the Em- 
 men thai, and a few other districts, it is rare to 
 find a person possessing an estate of more than 
 150 or 200 acres, or worth more than WQL a year; 
 and frequently the properties are too small to 
 afford full employment to a family. Almost every 
 family, however, has at least a patch of ground of 
 its own, 011 which it resides, and from which it 
 derives the greater part of its subsistence. The 
 little domain is cultivated chiefly with the spade, 
 and so carefully that every separate plant often 
 seems to have had a share of attention devoted 
 exclusively to itself, t Much of the produce serves 
 as winter provender for the cows, of which most 
 
 * Chambers' Tour, p. 81. See also Mr. Nicholls' Three Re- 
 ports, &c., p. 167. 
 
 f Inglis's Switzerland, p. 25. Laing's Notes of a Traveller. 
 
PEASANTRY. 139 
 
 / 
 
 Swiss peasants have at least one, besides a few 
 goats or sheep, and which in the summer graze on 
 the "Alp," or mountainous pasture belonging in 
 common to the parish. The produce of a farm is 
 commonly abundant enough to place the owner at 
 his ease ; and -the traveller in Switzerland cannot 
 fail to remark the healthy looks and comfort of the 
 people, and the neatness of their dwellings and 
 plots of ground. The Swiss peasantry are not, 
 however, entirely dependent upon agriculture. 
 When confined within doors by winter or bad 
 weather, they employ themselves in some sort of 
 manufacture; and their earnings at this work, 
 though trifling in themselves, are important as an 
 addition to their income from other sources. It 
 has been calculated that a Swiss artisan-peasant, 
 having a wife and three children to support, lives 
 in a way which would require 30s. a week in 
 England*; and Mr. Macculloch, who calls this a 
 very exaggerated statement, and thinks that agricul- 
 tural labourers in most parts of Great Britain have 
 no cause to envy those of Switzerland, admits in 
 substance that the latter are much better lodged 
 and fed. They use, he says, the same articles of 
 food as the English, and in addition much more 
 porridge, milk, and cheese, and wine instead of 
 beer ; their houses, he adds, though mostly of wood, 
 are capacious, and furnished with all the articles 
 required for daily use. This is really an acknow- 
 ledgment of the superiority claimed for the Swiss. 
 
 * Report of J. C. Symons, Esq., to Hand-loom Weavers' 
 Commissioners, p. 109. 
 
140 SWISS AND NOKWEGIAN 
 
 In Norway, estates are larger than in Switzer- 
 land ; few, perhaps, are under forty acres, and they 
 are very often above 300 acres, independently of 
 an extensive tract of upland waste, called the 
 " seater," belonging to every farm, which furnishes 
 summer pasture for the cattle. To supply the 
 latter with winter provender, two-thirds of the 
 cleared land about a farm are generally left under 
 natural grass, and only one-third is reserved for 
 corn, potatoes, and other such crops; but there 
 must, nevertheless, be plenty of work for hired 
 labourers. Of these, however, there is no great 
 number. In the year 1835 there were 72,624 
 proprietors in Norway, living on their own estates, 
 and 30,568 tenants of farms. At the same time, 
 the whole male population of the country was 
 585,381, of which 309,000 persons were connected 
 with agriculture, either as proprietors, farmers, or 
 servants, so that on an average there could not be 
 more than two male labourers, including boys, to a 
 farm. They are, as might be expected, exceedingly 
 well paid. If unmarried, they are lodged in an 
 outhouse adjoining the farmer's dwelling, which it 
 resembles in appearance, neatness, and comfort; 
 they are allowed four meals a-day, consisting of 
 oat or bean-meal, rye-bread, potatoes, fresh river 
 and salt fish, cheese, butter, and milk; and once 
 or twice a week they have meat, sometimes fresh, 
 but more frequently in the shape of salt beef, or 
 black puddings. At one of their meals they have 
 also beer, or a glass of potato-spirits. Their money 
 wages, iii addition to all this, are about 4^d. a day. 
 
PEASANTRY. 141 
 
 A married labourer lives on the outskirts of the 
 farm, in a cottage of his own, generally a " good 
 log-house of four rooms, with glass windows," which 
 is held on lease for the lives of his wife and himself, 
 together with a piece of land large enough for the 
 keep of two cows, or a corresponding number of 
 sheep and goats, and for the sowing of six bushels 
 of corn, and three quarters of potatoes. The usual 
 rent of these tenements is from four to six dollars, 
 and is commonly paid for by work on the main 
 farm, each day's work being valued at a fixed rate 
 of three-pence or thereabouts. After the labourer 
 has paid his rent, he is allowed his food as well as 
 the usual money payment for every additional day's 
 work. It need scarcely be said, that a houseman, 
 as a married labourer of this kind is called, is in a 
 very comfortable situation : in fact he wants few, 
 if any, of the comforts which his master possesses ; 
 his house, though smaller, is as well built ; his food 
 and dress are of the same materials. The peasant 
 proprietors, like their servants, are satisfied with 
 enjoyments of home growth, and are little desirous 
 of foreign luxuries. They build their own houses, 
 make their own chairs, tables, ploughs, carts, and 
 harness, spin their own flax and wool, and weave 
 their own linen and woollen cloth; almost every thing 
 they use is the produce of their own farms, except 
 glass, pottery, and ironware, sugar, coffee, spices, 
 and tobacco. Nevertheless, it would be difficult to 
 find anywhere a happier race ; they enjoy plenty, 
 without having to work so hard for it as the Swiss 
 and Belgians of the same class ; they care little for 
 
142 SWISS AND NORWEGIAN 
 
 outward show, and are consequently exempt from 
 the painful desire to outvie their neighbours, and 
 to rise" above their station. Almost the only thing 
 in their condition which is much to be regretted, is 
 the deficiency of mental culture, which prevents 
 their turning their leisure to the best account, and 
 heightening their material enjoyments with intel- 
 lectual pleasures.* 
 
 It has been said that the happiness of the Swiss 
 and Norwegian peasantry dates from a very early 
 period : it seems indeed to have resulted from the 
 characters of their respective countries. A glance 
 at the map of Switzerland will show, that in a 
 territory so curiously intersected by mountains, 
 lakes, and rivers, there can be few if any exten- 
 sive tracts of good land, and that the first settlers 
 must consequently have been both too much 
 scattered and too poor to allow of their being 
 generally divided into the classes of masters and 
 slaves. In Norway, it is quite certain that serf- 
 dom never existed. The Scandinavian peninsula, 
 of which that country forms part, is only access- 
 ible by land at the northern extremity, where the 
 rigour of the climate is only endurable by rein- 
 deer and Laplanders. Its Gothic colonists must 
 therefore have approached it by sea. But a pas- 
 toral people could not effect an extensive migra- 
 tion in boats, without leaving most of their cattle 
 behind them, and if they waited till the winter, 
 when the Gulf of Bothnia is frozen over and may 
 
 * Laing's Norway, passim. 
 
PEASANTRY. 143 
 
 be crossed on foot, their cattle would have perished 
 from exposure and want of food. Most probably, 
 therefore, the emigrants were not numerous tribes 
 ranged in regular subordination under their chiefs, 
 but little bands of adventurers, all poor,, and nearly 
 equal in rank ; and this equality would long remain 
 undisturbed in their new territories. Great part 
 of Norway is merely a narrow slip of land between 
 a chain of mountains and the sea, and the whole 
 is traversed laterally, not only by numerous offsets 
 from the main ridge, but also by a succession of 
 inlets of the sea, which run for many miles inland. 
 The soil too, even of the valleys, is for the most 
 part sandy and poor, so that altogether there 
 was as little room as in Switzerland for the in- 
 crease of flocks and herds, or for the growth of 
 great differences of wealth among their owners. 
 Moreover, the need of substantial habitations for 
 themselves and for their cattle, which in so cold 
 a climate must be housed in winter, must very 
 soon have compelled the herdsmen in both coun- 
 tries to lay aside their wandering habits, and to pro- 
 vide themselves with permanent abodes. The ap- 
 propriation and distribution of the soil must there- 
 fore have taken place while all the inhabitants 
 were still free, and entitled to demand their shares, 
 and every family probably obtained an allotment 
 sufficient for its maintenance. Thus, almost imme- 
 diately after the settlement of either country, the 
 peasantry were placed in a position which only 
 required the improvements gradually introduced 
 by increasing civilisation to become that which they 
 still occupy. 
 
144 
 
 PAUPERISM IN 
 
 The inference intended to be drawn from this 
 brief sketch of the history of society in the several 
 countries mentioned, is, that the originally happy 
 condition of the peasantry has been the cause of 
 its own continuance : that the people are comfort- 
 able now because they have never been otherwise, 
 and because the wish to retain their advantages 
 has prevented them from increasing beyond the 
 number that could be adequately provided for. 
 Yet it must not be concealed, that in most, if 
 not all of these countries, a certain amount of 
 pauperism exists, which may seem at first sight 
 opposed to such a conclusion. In Berlin, a city 
 of 300,000 inhabitants, exclusive of expenses of 
 hospitals and of a house of correction for beggars, 
 and exclusive also of aid afforded to sick poor 
 at their own homes, about 20,000/. is annually 
 expended in the relief of outdoor poor, which, 
 at the rate of 2s. 6d. weekly per head, would 
 suifice for the constant maintenance of about 
 3,000 persons, or about one per cent, of the whole 
 population. * In the Netherlands, the number 
 of persons accepting charitable relief of one kind 
 or another, is 14 or 15 per cent. a very 
 much larger proportion than in any other Euro- 
 pean country, not even excepting England. This 
 must not however be mistaken for a proof of 
 extraordinary distress ; it merely shows, that 
 wherever subsistence can be obtained gratuitously, 
 plenty of people will be found ready to accept it. 
 
 * Laing's Notes of a Traveller, p. 255. 
 
CONTINENTAL TOWNS. 145 
 
 Both Holland and Belgium are almost unrivalled for 
 their numerous well-endowed charitable institutions, 
 which, together with many proper objects of com- 
 passion, maintain in idleness a multitude of per- 
 sons who might support themselves by their own 
 exertions. Excluding the inmates of these institu- 
 tions, the number of poor is so small, that the 
 annual sum raised for their support by compulsory 
 taxation does not exceed 150,000/. in Holland, 
 or 30,000/. in Belgium.* In Switzerland the 
 parishes generally possess funds destined for the 
 relief of the poor, which it is sometimes necessary 
 to augment by means of a poor's rate, but the 
 latter is always of inconsiderable amount, and if 
 we may judge from the practice in the canton 
 of Zurich, where it is likely to be as high as any 
 where, does not exact more than 2^J. annually 
 from each individual, f In Norway, the only 
 burthen resembling a poor's rate to which even 
 a considerable landholder is subject, seems to be 
 the obligation to maintain for a few days in the 
 course of the year perhaps one old man ; but it is 
 probable that poverty is somewhat less rare in the 
 towns. J 
 
 It has been already shown that the destitution 
 of the aged or infirm, or of idle vagabonds, is not 
 a sign of over-population, and much of the small 
 amount of pauperism just alluded to may be that 
 of persons of these descriptions. It need not be 
 
 * Laing's Notes of a Traveller. Macculloch's Geog. Diet, 
 f Symons' Report on Hand-loom Weavers. 
 J Laing's Norway. 
 
 L 
 
146 PAUPERISM IN 
 
 denied, however, that there may still remain some 
 able-bodied poor whose distress arises really from 
 their inability to procure work, and it may be 
 thought that this would not be the case in such 
 countries as Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzer- 
 land, if the possession of the comforts of life were 
 as effectual in restraining over-population as it has 
 been described. To this objection it may be re- 
 plied, that many circumstances may occasion a 
 diminution of employment in particular districts, 
 when there is no general deficiency of it, and that 
 the prudential considerations which have been sup- 
 posed capable of checking the progress of popula- 
 tion do not act with unerring precision, but admit 
 of fluctuations, which sometimes raise the numbers 
 of a community a little above, and sometimes sink 
 them a little below, the proper limit. However 
 careful every person may be to postpone marriage 
 until he is able to maintain a family, still, as all 
 marriages are not equally fruitful, population will 
 not always bear the same proportion to the means 
 of subsistence, and a greater number of persons than 
 can be adequately provided for will sometimes be 
 brought into the world. In rural districts, where 
 the bulk of the people are well off, this evil seldom 
 becomes very great, or lasts very long. A few 
 agricultural labourers in excess of the exact num- 
 ber required, can generally make themselves useful 
 enough to be able to earn at least their own liveli- 
 hood, until by the death of some of their com- 
 panions they succeed to more regular and better- 
 paid employment. Till then they are not likely 
 
CONTINENTAL TOWNS. 147 
 
 to think of marrying. The nature of agriculture 
 enables them to estimate pretty accurately the 
 exact quantity of work to be done in their neigh- 
 bourhood, and to see distinctly whether the share 
 which each will be able to obtain will suffice for the 
 support of a family ; and a couple, who are living 
 in comfort singly, will scarcely, however deeply 
 enamoured, plunge into matrimony with a perfect 
 certainty that it must render them miserable. It 
 would be in vain for a man to attempt to supplant 
 another in a better situation than his own by offer- 
 ing to take his place with lower wages. Such an 
 offer might be greedily accepted by a farmer, whose 
 landlord extorted from him every penny beyond 
 the mere expenses of cultivation ; but thriving 
 peasant proprietors, having all their own wants 
 abundantly supplied, would be ashamed to lower 
 the condition of their servants for the sake of a 
 paltry saving. Thus, in districts purely agricul- 
 tural, where the inhabitants in general are well off, 
 the surplus labourers must wait quietly until the 
 class to which they belong is again restored by 
 natural causes to its just dimensions, and thus 
 every appearance of excessive population gradually 
 vanishes. If, however, a considerable town be 
 near, most of the surplus labourers will resort to it 
 in the hope of obtaining employment in some of the 
 numerous businesses carried on there. Where so 
 many occupations are concentrated in one spot, it is 
 impossible to ascertain exactly the total quantity of 
 work afforded by them, and the amount, being in- 
 definite, is apt to be over- rated, and often fails to 
 
148 PEASANTRY OF 
 
 satisfy all the applicants. It consequently happens, 
 that a large town is scarcely e \ r er entirely free from 
 unemployed labourers, and if destitution prevail at 
 all in the surrounding country, the town is inva- 
 riably the focus in which it chiefly collects itself, 
 and becomes most glaringly visible. There is 
 reason to believe that permanent destitution among 
 the able-bodied inhabitants of towns is seldom pro- 
 duced by any other cause than emigration from the 
 country, and that the urban population is never 
 rendered excessive by natural increase alone. 
 Whether it be that prudential restraints are sufficient 
 in themselves, or that the facility with which licen- 
 tiousness may be indulged acts as an additional 
 dissuasive from marriage, certain it is, that in towns 
 holding out no attractions to immigrants, popula- 
 tion generally remains stationary. In large and 
 rapidly growing towns, where marriages are most 
 encouraged, the mortality of children is so great, 
 that the proportion of births to deaths would not 
 always suffice to prevent depopulation, and never 
 contributes more than a very small fraction of the 
 addition annually made to the number of inhabitants. 
 There are two European countries in which the 
 condition of the people, although at present on 
 the whole satisfactory, was, until lately, decidedly 
 'the reverse. These are Poland and France. In 
 the former, serfdom was mitigated in 1791, and 
 totally abolished in 1807, when the peasants were 
 converted into proprietors of the lands occupied by 
 them, on condition of working a specified number 
 of days in each week for their former lords, and 
 
POLAND AND FRANCE. 14.9 
 
 paying them in addition certain fixed quantities of 
 poultry, eggs, yarn, &c. The extent of land which 
 thus came into the hands of the peasantry was very 
 considerable, and the portion belonging to a family 
 is generally from thirty to forty acres, for which 
 about two days' work in the week, with a pair of 
 oxen, seems to be the usual rent.* The owners of 
 farms of this size have evidently the means of mak- 
 ing themselves very comfortable, and considerable 
 improvement has in fact taken place of late years 
 in their condition. They are reported to be very 
 filthy in their persons and dwellings, but the latter, 
 even in the early part of the present century, were 
 substantially built of timber, and large enough to 
 contain at least two or three rooms, in every one of 
 which a bed was generally found. Their diet for- 
 merly consisted entirely of vegetable substances, 
 such as pease, black bread, and soup or gruel, washed 
 down with quantities of cheap spirits ; but in addi- 
 tion to these articles, milk, butter, cheese, and occa- 
 sionally a little meat, are now probably supplied by 
 the cows and oxen which every peasant keeps, to 
 cultivate his own and his master's land. If the 
 Polish peasantry have hitherto derived less benefit 
 than might have been expected from their abundant 
 resources, the reason must be sought for in the in- 
 dolent and improvident habits engendered by ages 
 of oppression, which are not easily to be got rid of. 
 While Poland remained independent, all power and 
 influence were monopolised by the nobles ; the king 
 
 * Jacob's Report on the Agriculture of Northern Europe, 
 1826, p. 26. 
 
 L 3 
 
150 PEASANTRY OF 
 
 was their creature, owing his office to their election, 
 and quite unable to cope with them ; and the dis- 
 tractions of the country prevented the growth of a 
 considerable middle class. The authority of the 
 nobles over their serfs consequently continued with- 
 out diminution. They could not only exact from 
 them an unlimited amount of work, and seize upon 
 whatever wealth they had accumulated : they could 
 also sell them like cattle, and even kill them with 
 impunity. The introduction of foreign commerce, 
 which elsewhere facilitated the enfranchisement of 
 the peasantry, here only rendered their servitude 
 more intolerable. By offering to the nobles ex- 
 tended markets for their produce, and new commo- 
 dities in exchange for their previously useless 
 wealth, it gave them a motive for rapacity, and for 
 extorting the utmost they could obtain from their 
 wretched tenantry. The latter accordingly, except 
 on the estates of a few proprietors less unfeeling 
 than the rest, were reduced to a state which all 
 contemporary travellers agree in describing as most 
 deplorable. 
 
 In France, previously to the Revolution, the 
 state of the peasantry was equally melancholy. 
 The nobility had indeed been early shorn of politi- 
 cal power, and the serfs, at least nominally, eman- 
 cipated ; but what the nobles lost was gained almost 
 entirely by the Crown, which, confident in its own 
 strength, and needing not the support of the infe- 
 rior classes, oppressed the peasantry quite as cruelly 
 as their lords could have done. The French serfs, 
 after their enfranchisement, either never possessed 
 
POLAND AND FRANCE. 151 
 
 proprietary rights in the soil, or very soon lost 
 them, and had then no other means of gaining a 
 livelihood but by cultivating lands hired from the 
 rich. As however, they were, for the most part, 
 destitute of capital, it was necessary that the land- 
 lords should provide them with farming-stock, cat- 
 tle, seed, tools, &c., in return for which, and for 
 the use of the land, they were bound to give a 
 certain proportion, generally a half, of the yearly 
 produce. There does not seem to be any thing in 
 these conditions which would necessarily prevent 
 farmers from prospering, but in France, under the 
 old government, a metayer, as a person in this situ- 
 ation is called, was exposed to so many taxes and 
 exactions of various kinds, not only exceedingly 
 grievous in themselves, but liable to be increased 
 arbitrarily in proportion to his apparent ability to 
 bear them, that he lost even the desire to acquire 
 wealth which was sure to be taken from him. He 
 was satisfied if he obtained the means of subsist- 
 ence, and never aimed at any thing further. The 
 consequence was, that the whole body of husband- 
 men were reduced to the most extreme poverty. 
 Marshal Vauban, in 1698, calculated that, of the 
 whole French population, one-tenth were in a state 
 of mendicancy, and five-ninths of the remainder 
 very little above it; and Arthur Young, ninety 
 years after, did not discover improvement enough 
 to require this assertion to be much modified. It 
 is scarcely possible to open any English book of 
 travels in France, written during the last century, 
 without finding the author exulting in a comparison 
 
 L 4 
 
152 PEASANTRY OF 
 
 between the ragged, half-starved French peasantry 
 and the stout, sturdy, well-clad, and well-fed yeo- 
 manry of his native land. 
 
 A mighty change for the better in the condition 
 of the lower orders of the French people was 
 wrought by the revolution of 1789. Not only did 
 all arbitrary exactions and all feudal privileges 
 cease, but the division of extensive tracts of com- 
 mon land, and the confiscation and sale, at a very 
 low price, of the vast estates of the nobility and 
 clergy, enabled almost every cultivator to become 
 a proprietor. At this moment one seventh of the 
 whole nation are landholders, a much larger pro- 
 portion probably than in any other part of the 
 world. Most of the properties are of course very 
 small ; but, cultivated as they are with the minute 
 and assiduous attention which are never bestowed 
 except by small occupiers, they are sufficient to 
 furnish their owners in general with a comfortable 
 maintenance, or at least to contribute very mate- 
 rially towards it. That the French people in 
 general are at present very well off, is remarked 
 by every one who passes through the country ; and 
 it is of importance to observe, that their happiness 
 is partly the effect of very recent improvements. 
 In order to perceive that great progress has been 
 made, it is not necessary to go back to the last 
 century : so lately as twenty or thirty years ago, 
 the Due de la Rochefoucault, M. Lafitte, and others, 
 could descant on the misery endured by multi- 
 tudes of their countrymen, whom they described 
 as clothed in rags, and subsisting entirely on coarse 
 
POLAND AND FRANCE. 153 
 
 roots.* Whether faithful or not at the time it was 
 drawn, this picture is certainly exceedingly inac- 
 curate now. The French peasantry enjoy great 
 abundance and variety of vegetable food, of which, 
 with the aid of plentiful supplies of milk, eggs, &c. 
 they compose savoury dishes, such as it never 
 occurred to an English ploughman to imagine ; 
 and the increased and increasing cheapness of all 
 articles of clothing also enables them to dress much 
 better than formerly. Their habitations likewise 
 are very good, and are well provided with all needful 
 furniture, particularly bedding, and with utensils 
 of earthenware, pewter, copper, and iron. It is 
 only in some manufacturing districts, particularly 
 in and about the towns of Lyons, Eouen, Lille, 
 Valenciennes, and Cambrai, that destitution is at 
 all prevalent ; and there it has been produced by 
 causes not unlike those from which it has sprung 
 in similar situations in Great Britain, viz. the decay 
 of branches of industry, which, after collecting 
 large masses of people on one spot, are now un- 
 able to afford them adequate employment. In 
 Lyons, whose silk manufactures were long the 
 most flourishing in the world, the weavers have 
 now to withstand the keen, and, in many respects, 
 unequal competition of English and Swiss rivals. 
 In the northern towns, where the cotton manufac- 
 ture is chiefly carried on, great numbers of hand- 
 loom weavers are to be found, whose once ample 
 wages are now reduced to an amount barely 
 
 * Smith's Wealth of Nations, Macculloch's edit. vol. iv. pp. 
 46771. 
 
154 PEASANTRY OF 
 
 sufficient for their subsistence. Many of these 
 operatives dwell not in the towns, but in the 
 districts immediately adjoining ; and their fore- 
 runners of a preceding generation probably pos- 
 sessed at one time, like other peasants, a piece 
 of ground large enough for the maintenance of 
 a family. While their manufacturing business 
 continued prosperous, they probably looked upon 
 it as an ample resource, and neglected the cultiva- 
 tion of their land; so that, on a man's death, 
 his children, intending to establish themselves as 
 weavers, and requiring sites for separate dwellings, 
 may have divided his little estate amongst them. 
 This was probably the manner in which the land 
 around some French manufacturing towns has 
 become split into portions too small to produce 
 any considerable quantity of food ; so that the 
 owners, now that their looms no longer enable 
 them to earn a competent livelihood, are reduced 
 to extreme wretchedness. The tendency of misery 
 to perpetuate and extend itself is strikingly illus- 
 trated in these manufacturing districts. While, in 
 other parts of France, the condition of the people 
 is continually improving, thereby showing that 
 population, although increasing as the resources 
 of the country become developed, increases more 
 slowly than the means of subsistence, here, on 
 the contrary, where multitudes are suffering ex- 
 treme privation, the means of subsistence are no 
 sooner increased than a corresponding increase 
 takes place in the number of persons to be sub- 
 sisted ; and every addition to the fund for the 
 
POLAND AND FRANCE. 155 
 
 payment of labour, instead of benefiting the actual 
 dependents on that fund, only calls more of them 
 into an equally wretched existence. In the De- 
 partement du Nord, which contains most of the 
 principal seats both of the French cotton ma- 
 nufacture and of French destitution, population 
 increases at a rate considerably more than double 
 the average rate of the whole kingdom, or about 
 thirteen per cent, in ten years.* It is probable 
 that the greater part of the increase is created by 
 natural causes within the department, considering 
 how little attraction is held out to emigrants from 
 more favoured parts of the country. Other, though 
 less obvious examples of the same tendency, were 
 presented throughout the whole both of France 
 and Poland, previously to the great social revolu- 
 tions which have been mentioned as having taken 
 place in both countries. As long as the exactions 
 of the crown and the nobility left to the common 
 people nothing but a bare subsistence, the numbers 
 of the latter not only did not diminish as they 
 would have done if every one had resolved to keep 
 for his own use what little he possessed, but they 
 even increased as fast as the extension of industry 
 rendered it possible for a greater number to sub- 
 sist. Arthur Young, writing in 1789, did not 
 hesitate to assert that France was then decidedly 
 over-peopled. He had observed everywhere " most 
 unequivocal signs of distress," and had found 
 " numbers dying of diseases arising from insuffi- 
 
 * Laing's Prize Essay on National Distress, part ii. chap. 2. 
 
156 ITALIAN 
 
 cient nourishment;" and he declared himself con- 
 vinced that the kingdom would be " much more 
 powerful, and infinitely more flourishing, with five 
 or six millions less of inhabitants." * It was not 
 till the people became possessed of the means of 
 making themselves comfortable that they began to 
 restrain their inclination to marriage ; but, ever 
 since, sufficient restraint has been exercised to 
 prevent population from advancing even so fast 
 as it might have done, without causing any dete- 
 rioration in the actual condition of the people. 
 
 The wretchedness of the peasantry is very great 
 in many parts of Italy, in the Roman and Nea- 
 politan states, and in the island of Sardinia. In 
 the latter the agriculturists are for the most part 
 either small metayer farmers, or cottiers, paying for 
 their patches of land by work on the proprietor's 
 estate, and are kept in extreme poverty by the 
 shortsighted rapacity of the landlords, and by 
 absurd laws. The estates in the papal dominions 
 are in general very large, and are divided amongst 
 a number of metayer tenants as much depressed as 
 those of Sardinia. As for the continental portion 
 of the Neapolitan kingdom, Ireland itself is scarcely 
 more decidedly over-peopled. The bulk of the 
 lower classes in the towns as well as in the country, 
 are clothed in skins of beasts with the hair on, or 
 in tattered cloaks two or three generations old ; live 
 almost entirely in the open air, without even at 
 night, or in wet weather, better shelter than that 
 
 * Travels in France. 
 
PEASANTRY. 157 
 
 of a mere shed, and are almost as ill fed as clothed 
 and housed, except during the short seasons in 
 which the great demand for rural labour, combined 
 with the extraordinary bounty of nature, enables 
 them to feast for a while upon maccaroni, maize, 
 legumes, fruit, and vegetables. In every respect 
 they are said by one * who has had ample oppor- 
 tunity for comparison, "to be more wretched, and 
 in food, lodging, property, sense of decency in their 
 habits and ways of living, in a lower condition, than 
 the Laplander on the Norwegian fielde. In an 
 earthly paradise the people are not merely in rags 
 and wretchedness; it is difficult even to conceive 
 humanity in so low a condition. The sense of 
 decency is apparently little higher than among irra- 
 tional creatures." It may perhaps be argued, that 
 such social and moral degradation is not in this 
 instance a decisive proof of over-population. If 
 the Neapolitan peasant or lazzarone be destitute of 
 what are elsewhere esteemed necessaries of life, he 
 is also free from the wants which make them neces- 
 saries. In such a delicious climate it is no hard- 
 ship to live almost entirely out of doors : fuel is 
 only requisite for cooking, and very little even for 
 that, where food is to be bought ready cooked in 
 every street ; clothing is not necessary for warmth, 
 and rags will serve well enough to hide one's 
 nakedness. All that a man requires is food, and 
 he must not be called poor merely on account of 
 the fewness of his wants. It must, however, be 
 
 * Laing's Notes of a Traveller, pp. 387. 396. See also Ma- 
 dame Wolfensburger's Letters from Naples, in Tait's Magazine. 
 
158 ITALIAN 
 
 recollected, that Neapolitans of the lower orders do 
 suffer very frequently and severely from scarcity of 
 food, the only want they are capable of feeling ; and 
 it may, moreover, be shown, that the warmth of 
 the climate, though it enables them to dispense 
 with most of the conveniences of life, would not of 
 itself cause the latter to be rejected, nor prevent 
 considerable exertion being made in order to obtain 
 them. The people of Tuscany have almost as much 
 reason as the Neapolitans to boast of the favours 
 of nature : they are no doubt naturally quite as 
 fond of basking in the sun, and would suffer as 
 little by going about half naked, yet a more indus- 
 trious race than the peasant-proprietors of the 
 Val d'Arno can nowhere be found, and the district 
 is not more remarkable for the excellence of its 
 cultivation than for the thriving appearance of the 
 inhabitants. Climate, then, cannot be the sole 
 cause of the idleness of the Neapolitans, nor idle- 
 ness the sole cause of their wretchedness ; they 
 would probably be as industrious as the Tuscans if 
 industry among them had always been equally well 
 rewarded. But having been for ages in a position 
 in which it was impossible for them to procure 
 more than a bare subsistence, they have ceased to 
 aim at an impossibility, and have recklessly bred up 
 to the utmost limit which the means of subsistence 
 would permit. They are wretched now because 
 wretchedness has, during many generations, been 
 the portion of their forefathers. 
 
 The emancipation of the peasantry took place 
 much earlier in the south and south-west of Europe, 
 
PEASANTRY. 159 
 
 than in other parts of the same continent. In 
 Italy, especially, promoted both by the interposi- 
 tion of the Church of Rome, and by the contests 
 between the free cities and the rural barons, it 
 was effected before the serfs had acquired any 
 prescriptive rights over the soil, so that after their 
 enfranchisement they were obliged, as in France, 
 to cultivate the lands of others. Savoy indeed, 
 like other poor mountainous regions, has probably 
 been always inhabited by petty proprietors, and 
 in Tuscany, the persecution which the nobility 
 endured from the democratical governments of the 
 towns, and the frequent confiscation of their estates, 
 soon enabled the farmers to become landowners. 
 But throughout the rest of Italy, the cultivators 
 of the land were, and indeed are still, generally 
 metayers. In Lombardy, and generally in the 
 great northern plain from Susa to the Adriatic, 
 the condition of this class of men has always been 
 at least tolerable, for there the nobility, though 
 not so much depressed as in Tuscany, have always 
 been subject to some control, and landed property 
 has long been a good deal subdivided. But, in 
 the Roman and Neapolitan States, in the former 
 of which, down to the present time, and in the 
 latter, until very recently, the land was for the 
 most part divided among a few noble families 
 retaining every tyrannical feudal privilege not 
 absolutely incompatible with the personal freedom 
 of their tenantry, the latter were from the begin- 
 ning ground down by the heavy burdens imposed 
 upon them; little more than a bare subsistence 
 
160 ITALIAN PEASANTRY. 
 
 was left to them, and their industry was extin- 
 guished by the certainty that it could only expose 
 them to increased exactions. Becoming thus in- 
 ured to misery, they likewise became careless of the 
 future, and laying aside every sort of self-restraint, 
 multiplied to the utmost extent that misery would 
 permit. 
 
 It would be easy to accumulate examples of this 
 kind ; but it will probably be thought that sufficient 
 space has already been devoted to subjects only 
 collaterally connected with the special business 
 of this work. Enough has been said to show that 
 misery is the great promoter of over-population. 
 Keturning therefore from this digression, let us 
 now, by means of the principles which it has been 
 designed to elucidate, endeavour to point out the 
 circumstances to which the present condition of 
 our own countrymen is attributable. 
 
161 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CAUSES OF OVER-POPULATION IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Prosperous Condition of English Labourers in early Times. 
 History of the English Peasantry. Peculiarities of the 
 Saxon Conquest. Structure of Society among the Anglo- 
 Saxons. Establishment of Serfdom or Villenage. Its 
 modified Character and rapid Extinction. Growing Import- 
 ance of Villains after the Norman Conquest. High Wages 
 of agricultural Labourers in the 14th and 15th Centuries. 
 
 Ineffectual Efforts of Parliament to reduce them. 
 Causes of the high Price of Labour at this Period. Dete- 
 rioration of the Condition of the Peasantry after the Accession 
 of Henry VII. Growth of Pauperism and Mendicity 
 during the 16th Century. Explanation of the Change in the 
 Situation of the Peasantry. Temporary Improvement of 
 their Condition in the latter Part of Elizabeth's Reign. Too 
 rapid Progress of Population. Renewed Advance of Pau- 
 perism in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Simultaneous Rise 
 in the Remuneration of Labour. Operation of the Poor- 
 Laws. Formation of Parks. Enclosure of Common Land. 
 Great Distress of the labouring Classes during the six con- 
 cluding Years of the 18th Century. Dearness of the Neces- 
 saries of Life during the first ten Years of the 19th Cen- 
 tury. Severe Privations of agricultural Labourers. 
 Encouragement given to Marriage by the Poor-Laws. 
 Increase of National Wealth. Rapid Progress of Population. 
 
 Improvement in the Condition of the Peasantry in the 
 ten Years ending with 1820. Prodigality of Poor-Law 
 Administration. Unprecedented Advance of Population. 
 Its accelerated Progress in the Period ending with 1830. 
 Unexampled Increase of National Wealth. Reform of the 
 
 M 
 
162 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 Poor-Law in 1834. Beneficial Consequences of the Change. 
 Recurrence of Distress among agricultural Labourers. 
 Deterioration of their Condition since 1836. Results of the 
 Census of 1841. Causes of Over -population in particular 
 Districts. Obstacles to an excessive Increase of Population 
 in Towns from natural Causes. Distress of Town Labourers 
 occasioned by the Withdrawal of their Occupation. Immi- 
 gration from rural Districts. Recapitulation of foregoing 
 Statements. 
 
 WE shall not be able in England, as in one or 
 two of the countries already noticed, to trace over- 
 population back to a very early period. The in- 
 digence which is at once its sign and its most 
 powerful cause, did not in England, as in southern 
 Italy, exist at the first formation of the nation, 
 continuing ever since to propagate and extend 
 itself. On the contrary, when the Anglo-Saxons 
 first became a distinct people, the lowest class were 
 placed in circumstances in which they were abun- 
 dantly supplied with every thing which was then 
 considered a necessary of life ; and the condition 
 of their descendants, several centuries later, not 
 only had not deteriorated, but had improved with 
 the progress of freedom and civilisation, so that the 
 English labourer, duly estimating all his advan- 
 tages, might look down with pity on his fellows 
 in almost every other land. This state of things 
 ought, it may be thought, according to the theory 
 proposed in the last Chapter, to have ensured its 
 own continuance ; and it did so in effect as long as the 
 prudent habits which it was calculated to promote, 
 were sufficient for the purpose. But at length 
 extraneous influences, which the labourers could 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 163 
 
 not control, precipitated them from their high 
 social position ; and other circumstances, at a later 
 period, by offering them temporary protection from 
 the consequences of improvidence, prevented them 
 from again recovering the station they had lost. 
 Prudence was replaced, first by the recklessness 
 arising from extreme poverty, and afterwards by 
 the indifference arising from supposed impunity. 
 Population, being thus freed from the checks which 
 formerly kept it within proper bounds, advanced 
 with too great rapidity ; its progress has perpetuated 
 the indigence by which it was in the first instance 
 promoted, and has produced the distress which is 
 now so prevalent among certain sections of the 
 labouring class. 
 
 Some particulars shall now be stated in order 
 to show the grounds for these assertions. The 
 Saxon subjugation of South Britain was effected 
 in a very different manner, and produced very 
 different effects upon society, from the conquests 
 of the barbarians who overran the continental 
 dominions of Rome. The latter, proceeding from 
 their native territories by land, migrated in entire 
 tribes, in which the distinctions of chiefs and re- 
 tainers, masters and servants, were well marked, 
 and their overwhelming numbers quickly beat 
 down all opposition. After a short contest, the 
 Kornan provincials submitted to the invaders, and 
 permitted them to select lands sufficient for their 
 support. Every freeman, it may be presumed, 
 obtained a portion, but the division was far from 
 being made equally. The chiefs not only appro - 
 
164 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 priated large domains entirely to their own use, 
 but continued to exact from such of their followers 
 as were now converted into small landholders, the 
 same acknowledgment of their supremacy as they 
 had been accustomed to receive in the forests of 
 Germany. Their more immediate dependents, the 
 servants, or slaves, who had been entirely sup- 
 ported by them, remained in the same situation ; or 
 if lands were assigned for their maintenance, the 
 only change that took place in their condition 
 was a change from domestic to predial slavery. 
 The latter continued to be the state of the native 
 peasantry: they had been serfs under the Roman, 
 and they remained serfs under the Gothic domi- 
 nation. 
 
 The insular position of Britain caused its inva- 
 sion to be attended by " circumstances of a very 
 opposite character, for the ocean, which separates 
 it from the Continent, forbade the simultaneous 
 transfer to its shores of entire hostile communities. 
 The first descents were made by mere handfuls of 
 adventurers, Hengist and Horsa, for example, 
 having been captains of a squadron of only three 
 small barks. The insignificant numbers of the 
 invaders encouraged the natives to resist ; and so 
 stout was their defence, that fifty years elapsed 
 before the Saxons could make themselves masters 
 of Kent and Sussex, and a hundred and fifty more 
 before the Heptarchy was completely established. 
 The war that raged without intermission throughout 
 this period was as bloody as it was lasting, parti- 
 cularly in the maritime counties, the conquest of 
 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 165 
 
 which seems not to have been completed until all 
 the original inhabitants were exterminated or 
 expelled. The consequence was, that in the Saxon 
 kingdoms situated on the coasts, which of course 
 were the first formed, the new proprietors of the 
 soil found no ready-made serfs long accustomed 
 to the yoke, and amongst their own countrymen, 
 who had accompanied them from the Continent, 
 there were probably few whom they could compel 
 to supply this want. The first invaders were 
 sea pirates, whose profession, it is obvious, can 
 scarcely be carried on except by freemen, since 
 all engaged in it are, in a great measure, self- 
 dependent. When news of the rich prize dis- 
 covered by these robbers in England reached the 
 opposite shores of the German Ocean, preparations 
 for invasion were made on a somewhat larger 
 scale ; but it is not likely that many men of pro- 
 perty joined in an enterprise, which, whatever 
 prospects it might hold out for the future, required 
 that they should not only abandon their native 
 land, but should likewise leave behind the bulk 
 of their present wealth. 
 
 Such an expedition was more likely to attract 
 needy adventurers, too poor either to have much 
 to leave behind, or to be able to take with them 
 the means of maintaining any companions. The 
 invading bands that crossed over into England 
 consisted then, it may be presumed, for the most 
 part, of freemen, nearly equally poor, and nearly 
 equal also in rank and power. The lands con- 
 quered by such men would be divided pretty 
 
 M 3 
 
166 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 equally amongst them ; but, although every man 
 may have got a share, there are two reasons for 
 supposing that no man's share was very large. 
 First, as the Saxon conquests were made very 
 gradually, the quantity of land to be distributed 
 at any one time must have been proportion ably 
 inconsiderable ; and, secondly, however great the 
 extent of land might have been, a man without 
 servants could have no reason for appropriating 
 a larger portion than he and his family could 
 manage between them. It may therefore be con- 
 cluded, that the Saxons who crossed the sea, 
 and established themselves in England, became 
 small landowners, or what we might now call 
 peasant proprietors or yeomen, and that the bulk 
 of the population in all the settlements formed 
 along the coasts consisted originally of families of 
 ths description. 
 
 These remarks do not apply to the interior of 
 the country. When the Saxons had firmly estab- 
 lished themselves in the maritime districts, they 
 were able to collect forces which the Britons found 
 it useless to oppose. It was no longer a few daring 
 adventurers, who had to fight hard for every acre, 
 but hosts of warriors, who, rushing into the heart of 
 the island, over-ran more territory in one campaign 
 than their fathers could have subdued in twenty. 
 The conquest, too, was effected with comparatively 
 little bloodshed ; the natives were neither expelled 
 nor exterminated, but quietly submitted to the 
 victors, w^ho, dividing among themselves the lands 
 they had seized, became proprietors of large, well- 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 167 
 
 peopled estates. It is particularly recorded, that 
 in the kingdom of Mercia, the last-formed member 
 of the Heptarchy, comprehending what are now the 
 midland counties, the vanquished intermingled with 
 the Saxons. Such of them as had been landowners 
 were probably either entirely deprived of their 
 property, or were only allowed to hold some 
 portions of it on conditions implying degradation 
 and inferiority, and the cultivators of the soil were, 
 no doubt, retained in the state of bondage in which 
 they were found. An aristocracy was thus estab- 
 lished in the central parts of England, similar to 
 what existed at the same time in most Continental 
 countries, and contrasting strongly with the de- 
 mocratic form which society had assumed in the 
 maritime kingdoms of the Heptarchy. But, even 
 in the latter, the peasantry were ere long thrust 
 down from the independent position at first occu- 
 pied by them. The operation of natural causes 
 alone would have sufficed to impair the equality of 
 condition which once subsisted amongst them, to 
 enrich some families, and to impoverish others ; 
 but these effects were powerfully promoted and 
 accelerated by the anarchy, the intestine broils, 
 and foreign invasions, which, with short and partial 
 intermissions, harassed the country as long as the 
 Saxon dynasties endured. In those times of rapine 
 and confusion, many families were utterly extin- 
 guished, and many others were reduced to slavery, 
 not merely predial, but domestic. Even when no 
 foreign enemy was near, the poor man was in al- 
 most equal danger from the tyranny of his powerful 
 
 M 4 
 
168 HISTOKY OF THE 
 
 neighbours, against which his only remedy was to 
 subject himself entirely to some one of his oppres- 
 ^sors, in order to obtain protection against the others. 
 In this manner a species of serfdom was established, 
 even in those parts of England in which it had been 
 previously unknown. It appears from Domesday 
 Book, compiled a few years after the Norman conquest, 
 that in all England, exclusive of Northumberland, 
 Cumberland, Westmoreland, Durham, and part of 
 Lancashire, there were at that time (independently 
 of the great tenants in chief) only about 26,000 
 freeholders, or free occupiers of land, to 184,000 
 villains or predial serfs, and 26,500 domestic slaves ; 
 and whether these numbers refer to the whole po- 
 pulation, or only to the dwellers on the domains of 
 the Crown, they may perhaps be regarded as suffici- 
 ently indicative of the relative proportions of the 
 various classes into which the nation was divided. 
 Yet it must not be supposed, that the English vil- 
 lains had sunk to the level of the serfs of France or 
 Germany. Most of them were, as we have seen, 
 the descendants of freemen ; and although freemen, 
 seeking the protection of a master, may have placed 
 themselves and their property entirely at his dis- 
 posal, the recollection of the proprietary rights they 
 had formerly enjoyed may have prevented the 
 latter from abusing his power, or exacting from 
 them any thing but certain fixed services or other 
 payments in token of his superiority. This, which 
 was at first voluntary moderation on his part, 
 would, if long practised, become a positive restraint 
 upon his power, and render it impossible for him, 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 169 
 
 without incurring the reproach of tyranny, to claim 
 any thing un sanctioned by custom. When the 
 obligations of one set of villains, distinguished from 
 others only by their pedigree, came to be thus 
 limited, a similar limitation would probably be ex- 
 pected by all, howsoever descended, and the serfs 
 of Mercia might be raised to an equality with their 
 brethren nearer the sea. At any rate, and by 
 whatever means the change may have been effected, 
 it seems certain that, towards the close of the 
 Saxon period, the peasantry throughout England 
 had very generally ceased to be in any respect the 
 property of their lords, or to have any thing servile 
 about their condition, except the name. Even 
 theowes, or domestic slaves, had acquired the right, 
 recognised by law, of possessing wealth, and of de- 
 manding their liberty when rich enough to purchase 
 it at the established price. Villains had advanced 
 much farther. From predial serfs, if indeed they 
 could ever have been properly so designated, they 
 had been metamorphosed into perpetual tenants of 
 land at a quit-rent. When they had paid the ac- 
 customed dues, no further claims, either for work 
 or goods, could be legally made upon them by their 
 lord, nor could they be ousted from their land. 
 They were quite as much proprietors as the copy- 
 holders of the present day, and their tenure indeed 
 already differed in only one essential particular 
 from the copyhold tenure by which it was after- 
 wards succeeded. Yillains were attached to the 
 soil, that is to say, they could neither alienate nor 
 otherwise abandon their lands, nor in any way free 
 
170 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 themselves from the obligation to fulfil the condi- 
 tions by which they held them ; but it is obvious 
 that this disability was more nominal than real, 
 and that in those days, when agriculture was al- 
 most the only occupation open to the common 
 people, a legal prohibition was scarcely necessary 
 to prevent a peasant from selling his patrimony, 
 still less from parting with it without an equivalent. 
 At the period at which the villains were most 
 depressed, they must still have been allowed to 
 retain a portion of the fruits of their industry, 
 sufficient at least for their subsistence : when their 
 rents became fixed, any increase that took place in 
 the whole produce of their land was an equal in- 
 crease of the portion which they retained for them- 
 selves. Their holdings, if we may judge from 
 existing copyholds, as well as from the analogy 
 of Continental countries, were often of considerable 
 extent, and capable of producing much more than 
 the owners could consume : nothing, therefore, but 
 markets for their surplus produce, were required 
 to enable them to grow rich, and to surround them- 
 selves with many new comforts. Now, in the three 
 centuries which immediately succeeded the Norman 
 conquest, civilisation made very considerable pro- 
 gress in England ; internal and external trade were 
 greatly extended, foreign commodities introduced 
 in abundance, and native manufactures established 
 and improved. The importance of villain-propri- 
 etors of land increased in proportion. The most 
 considerable of them almost ceased to belong to the 
 class of labourers. What services they were bound 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 171 
 
 by the conditions of their tenure to render, were 
 performed by deputy, and the cultivation of their 
 own farms was also performed chiefly by hired 
 labourers. 
 
 Of these latter, a large body, possessing personal 
 freedom, but destitute of property in land, had 
 sprung up. It is probable that they were originally 
 emancipated slaves, or sons of small freeholders, or 
 of villain occupiers of land; but villain tenants 
 themselves, after performing their bounden services 
 to their lords, were at liberty to serve others for 
 wages, the lords having only a prior claim to such 
 further services from their own bondsmen as they 
 might be willing to pay for.* Having been ac- 
 customed to plentiful living at home, these men 
 could not be induced to enter a stranger's service, 
 except by the assurance of liberal treatment. Mar- 
 ried men, engaged as labourers in husbandry, seem 
 to have been provided with a cottage and a few 
 acres of land to cultivate, for their own profit, in the 
 intervals of their master's work. Some direct pay- 
 ment, either in provisions or money, was also made 
 to them, though it may be difficult to estimate the 
 amount of their receipts from this source. Servants 
 who had no land, if boarded and lodged, as they almost 
 invariably were, by their employers, were, in the 
 latter part of the twelfth century, rated at about a 
 penny a day.f Whether this sum included the cost 
 
 * This important point is established by the language of the 
 Statute of Labourers, 23 Edw. III. cap. 1. 
 
 t Eden, Hist, of the Poor, vol. iii. Appendix, and vol. i. 
 p. 115 note. 
 
172 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 of their victuals, is somewhat doubtful ; but in either 
 case, as a penny would at that time have bought a 
 couple of fowls, or the fifth part of a sheep, we may 
 be pretty sure that they were well fed. Early in 
 the fourteenth century, a day labourer received a 
 penny a day, and his food ; and the daily ration 
 served out to him, at harvest time, seems to have 
 been two herrings and a loaf of bread (of which 
 fifteen were made from a bushel of wheat), besides 
 milk or cheese, and beer. No exception can be 
 taken to the quantity of this allowance, and there 
 can be no doubt that the quality was frequently 
 varied, seeing that in those days a joint of meat 
 might commonly be bought for the price of two 
 loaves.* 
 
 By the year 1349 the wages of agricultural la- 
 bourers had become "excessive" in the opinion of 
 the landholders who had to pay them, and whose 
 representatives in parliament attempted to limit 
 them, by means of the famous Statute of Labourers, 
 passed in that year, which required all servants to 
 accept the same wages as had been customary eight 
 or nine years before. A similar statute f , passed in 
 the following year, tells us more particularly what 
 those wages had been, viz. a penny a-day in hay- 
 making, but five-pence a-day for mowers, and two- 
 pence or three -pence for reapers of corn. Such 
 rates were intended to be applicable only to men 
 not boarded by their masters, for the act forbade 
 the giving any victuals " or other courtesy," in ad- 
 
 * Eden, vol. iii. Appendix, 
 f 25 Edw. in. stat. 1. 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 173 
 
 dition ; but it must be recollected that labourers 
 who had to find their own food were almost always 
 in possession of a few acres of land ; and the Act 
 likewise informs us, that servants were in the habit 
 of refusing to work for less than double or treble 
 the prescribed sums. Thirteen years later, in 1363, 
 another effort was made to put an end to high 
 wages by rendering them useless to the receivers ; 
 and a law * was passed, enjoining carters, plough- 
 men, and all other farm- servants, not to eat or 
 drink " excessively," or to wear any cloth except 
 " blanket and russet wool of twelve-pence." Do- 
 mestic servants, whether of gentlemen or of trades- 
 men or artificers, were at the same time declared 
 to be entitled to only one meal a-day of flesh or 
 fish, and were to content themselves at other meals 
 with "milk, butter, cheese, and other such victuals. "f 
 These ordinances of course failed entirely of their 
 intended effect, as attempts to control the natural 
 laws which regulate the price of labour must always 
 do; but the parliament, little discouraged, proceeded, 
 in 1388, to lay down another tariff of wages J, ac- 
 cording to which a bailiff was to receive 135. 3c., a 
 master-hind, carter, or shepherd, 10s., and a com- 
 mon labourer in husbandry 65. Sd. or 7s. annually. 
 Of course board and lodging were to be allowed in 
 addition, though the law does not mention them. 
 In 1444 these rates were raised to 235. 4^., 205. 
 and 155. respectively, independently of food and of 
 
 * 37 Edw. III. cap. 14. 
 t 37 Edw. III. cap. 8. 
 J 12 Ric. II. cap. 4. 
 
174 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 clothes of a specified value. Day-labourers were 
 to have not more than three-pence a-day, without 
 food, except in harvest, when they might be allowed 
 five-pence or six-pence.* These limitations were, 
 however, as vain as the preceding ones. Wages 
 continued to rise in spite of opposition, and en- 
 abled the working classes to indulge in a degree of 
 luxury which quite scandalised the parliament, and 
 which it was attempted to check by sumptuary 
 laws. Accordingly, by a statute enacted in 1463 f, 
 servants in husbandry were restricted to clothing 
 of materials not worth more than two shillings 
 a-yard, and were forbidden to wear hose of a higher 
 price than fourteen-pence a-pair, or girdles garnished 
 with silver. The price of their wives' coverchief 
 or head-dress was not to exceed twelve-pence. In 
 1482 it was found necessary to loosen these restric- 
 tions, and labourers in husbandry! were permitted 
 to wear hose as dear as eighteen-pence a-pair, while 
 the sum which their wives might legally expend 
 on a covering for the head was raised to twenty- 
 pence. This legislation, considering the fall which 
 has since taken place in the value of money, was 
 really much as if a law should now be necessary 
 to prevent ploughmen from strutting about in vel- 
 vet coats and silk stockings with silver buckles in 
 their shoes, and their wives from trimming their 
 caps with Brussels lace. It exhibits the English 
 peasantry in a condition which was probably never 
 
 * 23 Hen. VI. cap. 13. 
 f 3 Edw. IV. cap. 5. 
 } 22 Edw. IV. cap. 1. 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 175 
 
 attained by the same class in any other age or 
 country, unless perhaps by the emancipated negroes 
 of the British West Indies, and which they could 
 scarcely be believed to have really occupied, upon 
 slighter evidence than has been brought forward. 
 Such evidence is not of a character to require con- 
 firmation, yet it may not be uninteresting to add 
 to it the testimony of Sir John Fortescue, Lord 
 Chief Justice to Henry VI., who thus exultingly 
 contrasts the abundance enjoyed by the lowest class 
 of his own countrymen with the misery of the 
 French peasantry. Of the latter he says, " Their 
 shamewes (smock frocks) are made of hernp much 
 like to sackcloth ; woollen cloth they wear none, 
 except it be very coarse, and that only in their 
 coats, under their said upper garments ; neither use 
 they any hose but from the knee upward : the resi- 
 due of their legs go naked. The women go bare- 
 foot, saving on holydays. Neither men nor women 
 eat any flesh, but only lard of bacon, with a small 
 quantity whereof they fatten their potage and 
 broths. As for roasted or sodden meat of flesh, 
 they taste none, except it be of the inwards some- 
 times and heads of beasts that be killed for gentle- 
 men and merchants." But the English " are rich, 
 having abundance of gold and silver, and other 
 things necessary for the maintenance of man's life. 
 They drink no water, unless it be so that some for 
 devotion, and upon a zeal of penance, do abstain 
 from other drink ; they eat plentifully of all kinds 
 of flesh and fish. They wear fine woollen cloth in 
 all their apparel ; they have also abundance of bed 
 
176 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 coverings in their houses, and of all other woollen 
 stuff. They have great store of all hustlements 
 and implements of household. They are plentifully 
 furnished with all instruments of husbandry, and 
 all other things that are requisite to the accom- 
 plishment of a quiet and wealthy life, according to 
 their estates and degrees." * 
 
 In the face of testimony like this, it has been 
 gravely argued, that the English peasantry of the 
 middle ages were less comfortably situated than 
 their living descendants, because they used barley 
 instead of wheaten bread, ate off wooden platters, 
 never knew the luxury of a cotton shirt or of a 
 cup of tea, and slept on straw pallets within walls 
 of wattled plaster. All the details of this picture 
 are not perhaps perfectly accurate ; at least there 
 are grounds for believing that in very early times 
 wheaten bread was commonly used by people of 
 the "lowest class in many parts of England f ; but 
 
 * Fortescue de Laud. Leg. Anglise, pp. 82 85, and 86. 
 f The Statute of Labourers (25 Edw. III.) ordains that 
 ploughmen, swineherds, and all other servants, shall in the coun- 
 try, " where wheat was wont to be given? take for their wages 
 either money or wheat at the will of the giver. In the " Visions 
 of Piers Ploughman," written in the same reign, it is said that 
 after harvest, 
 
 " Would no beggar eat bread that in it beans were, 
 But of cockit and clemantyne, or else dene whete" 
 
 Long afterwards, when agricultural labourers were fallen from 
 their former high estate, Massinger's Marrall, to express the 
 extremity of Wellborn's poverty, says that he " durst wish but 
 cheese-parings and brown bread on Sundays," as if both were 
 equally eligible articles of diet, and equally unfit for any but 
 beggars. 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 177 
 
 even if the representation be quite faithful, it only 
 shows that certain modern refinements and conve- 
 niences were formerly unknown and uncoveted. 
 But although ruder means were employed to sup- 
 ply the wants of nature, every want was abundantly 
 satisfied, which is far indeed from being the case 
 at present. Many advantages of an advanced 
 civilisation which are now within every one's reach 
 were once equally unthought of by rich and poor. 
 Our Plantagenet kings, as well as their courtiers, 
 were fain to drink beer at every meal, and to drink 
 it too out of wooden bickers : they were as ill 
 provided with under linen as the meanest of their 
 subjects; and so little did they regard what are now 
 considered the most indispensable requisites of do- 
 mestic comfort, that the bedchamber furniture of 
 so magnificent a monarch as Henry the Eighth 
 consisted only of a couple of joint cupboards, a 
 joint stool, two hand irons, a fire fork, a pair of 
 tongs, a fire-pan, and a steel mirror covered with 
 yellow velvet.* At this day little of any grain 
 beside oats is used in many respectable families 
 in Scotland, and many a continental baron, whose 
 domain stretches for miles around his princely cha- 
 teau, seldom eats any but rye bread.f This is 
 
 * Pict. Hist, of Eng. vol. ii. p. 880. The Spaniards who 
 came to England in Queen Mary's time wondered when they 
 saw the large diet used by the inmates of the most homely- 
 looking cottages. " The English," they said, " make their houses 
 of sticks and dirt, but they fare as well as the king." See Ber- 
 nan's Hist, and Art of Warming and Ventilating Rooms, fyc. 
 
 f See the lively description of an Esthonian nobleman's 
 household in Miss Rigby's charming Letters from the Baltic. 
 
 N 
 
178 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 mere matter of taste, and no one would think of 
 mentioning it as a mark of social inferiority ; but it 
 would be quite as reasonable to do so as for the 
 Dorsetshire labourer to look back with pity on his 
 well-clad, beef-fed ancestors, because some of his own 
 rags are made of cotton, and because the baker, of 
 whom he now and then buys a loaf, sells only 
 wheaten bread. 
 
 The scarcity of labourers in England, in propor- 
 tion to the demand for them, during the latter 
 part of the fourteenth and the greater part of the 
 fifteenth century, which was, of course, the imme- 
 diate cause of their astonishing prosperity, was 
 ascribed at the time, and has also been ascribed by 
 succeeding writers, to the dreadful pestilence which 
 visited England, as well as most other countries of 
 Europe, in the year 1349, and, according toDr, Mead, 
 swept away more than one half of the inhabitants. 
 Although this is plainly an extravagant exaggera- 
 tion of its ravages, the epidemic was indisputably 
 exceedingly destructive .-perhaps, as Dr. Mead asserts, 
 the most destructive recorded in modern times. 
 Doubtless it occasioned a corresponding rise of wages; 
 but, that the extraordinary rise which ultimately 
 took place was mainly, or even in any great degree, 
 owing to this cause, is disproved by the single fact, 
 that wages did not reach their maximum until more 
 than a hundred years later. The effects of an un- 
 usual mortality, in diminishing the supply of la- 
 bourers, would be felt most sensibly immediately 
 after the mortality had occurred, and before time 
 had been allowed for the partial repair of its 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 179 
 
 ravages ; but although the " Statute of Labourers," 
 passed in 1349, the very year of the great pestilence, 
 shows that wages immediately rose somewhat above 
 the level of preceding years, subsequent enactments 
 equally show that the advance was at first moderate. 
 In 1363 it was still thought possible to compel 
 farm-servants to dress themselves in stuff like 
 horse-cloths, and it was not till 1463 that their 
 habit of arraying themselves in broad-cloth, as dear 
 probably as 2s. a yard as it might now be at 205., 
 excited the loud indignation of their superiors. It 
 is true, that subsequently to the great pestilence of 
 1349, down almost to the close of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, minor epidemics from time to time occurred, 
 and the land was also frequently devastated by civil 
 war, or drained of its men for foreign expeditions. 
 But experience has shown that a country may an- 
 nually lose a very considerable number of its in- 
 habitants in these ways, without being thereby in 
 any degree depopulated, the offspring of those who 
 are enabled to marry by the removal of their neigh- 
 bours sufficing to fill up the places of the latter. 
 In order to have any permanent effect upon popu- 
 lation, the ravages of war or pestilence must be 
 so prodigious that they cannot possibly be repaired 
 by natural increase within a moderate period ; the 
 diminished body of labourers may then obtain a 
 durable as well as a considerable advance of wages, 
 and becoming accustomed to new conveniences and 
 comforts, may learn to look upon them as necessaries 
 of life, and may abstain from marriages which would 
 require them to be given up. If, however, the great 
 
 N 2 
 
180 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 plague of 1349 failed to produce this effect, still less 
 could it result from the very inferior mortality of 
 subsequent years. As far, indeed, as regards the 
 civil wars which harassed England during the 
 reigns of the Yorkist and Lancastrian kings, if, on 
 the one hand, the slaughter that attended them 
 contracted the supply of labour, yet, on the other, 
 the suspension of industry which they occasioned 
 may have equally diminished the demand for it, 
 and wages or the price of labour may have been 
 little or not at all affected. 
 
 There does not, then, seem to be sufficient ground 
 for supposing that any positive decrease of popula- 
 tion took place during the period under review, and 
 the extraordinary improvement in the condition of 
 the labouring class would, therefore, seem to have 
 proceeded from an opposite cause not from a 
 diminished supply of labour, but from an increased 
 demand for it, consequent upon the extension of 
 commerce, manufactures, arid agriculture. That 
 all these occupations were actually extended very 
 considerably in the latter part of the fourteenth 
 century, and very remarkably in the fifteenth, is 
 unquestionable ; and it is not difficult to conjecture 
 by what circumstances their progress w r as favoured. 
 The increase of foreign trade is sufficiently ex- 
 plained by the flourishing condition, at that time, 
 of some continental countries, particularly of Flan- 
 ders and Italy, whose ships and merchants began 
 to resort, in unprecedented numbers, to the British 
 shores for certain commodities for which this island 
 had long been celebrated. Foreign commerce is 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 181 
 
 often the nurse of domestic industry ; but notwith- 
 standing its aid, the growth of English towns seems 
 to have been long retarded by the difficulty of pro- 
 curing workmen for the various businesses carried 
 on in them. As long as the mass of the people 
 remained attached to the soil, or were retained in 
 the still more galling chains of personal slavery, 
 one chief resource of citizens requiring servants 
 was in runaway bondsmen, who, if they could 
 conceal themselves within the walls of a town for a 
 year and a day, became free by law. Predial 
 slavery, however, which was perhaps at no time 
 very rigid in England, was continually more and 
 more relaxed after the Norman conquest, until at 
 length villains occupying land were, by a process 
 already alluded to, converted into copyholders, and 
 they and their children became in all respects free. 
 Even before this change took place, and while the 
 tenant himself was still attached to the soil, his 
 children, if more numerous than was requisite for 
 the cultivation of the landlord's estate, may fre- 
 quently have had little difficulty in obtaining their 
 manumission from a master to whom they were 
 rather an encumbrance than otherwise. Emanci- 
 pation of slaves was, moreover, strongly recom- 
 mended by the clergy, whose influence over dying 
 sinners often caused hundreds to be set free at 
 once. These various causes long produced their 
 effects, almost imperceptibly ; but there is historical 
 testimony that their operation was exceedingly 
 powerful in the early part of the fifteenth century, 
 when the enfranchisement of the English peasantry, 
 
 N 3 
 
182 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 though not quite complete, advanced with rapid 
 strides towards completion. One of the chief objects 
 in 1381 of Wat Tyler's hundred thousand followers 
 was the extinction of slavery ; whereas Sir Thomas 
 Smith, who wrote about the year 1550, declares, 
 that he had never met with any personal or do- 
 mestic slaves ; and that the villains, or predial 
 slaves, still to be found, were so few as to be scarcely 
 worth mentioning. * No sooner did the bondsmen 
 obtain their liberty, than numbers of them flocked 
 to the towns and applied themselves to handicrafts, 
 or some sort of manufacture or trade. This fact 
 is sufficiently attested by repeated statutes, passed 
 by the influence of the landholders in the House of 
 Commons, two of which in particular ordained 
 the first, that all persons who had been employed 
 in husbandry till the age of twelve should thence- 
 forth abide at the same labour, and be incapable of 
 Being put to any mystery or handicraft f ; and the 
 second, that no person should put his son or 
 daughter, of whatever age, apprentice to any bu- 
 siness within any city or borough, unless he had 
 land or rent of the yearly .value of 20s. at least. { 
 The migration towards the towns indicated by these 
 acts of the legislature occasioned an accession to 
 the urban population, which created an increased 
 demand for all sorts of rural produce, for materials 
 of manufactures as well as for provisions. The 
 demand for wool, in particular, increased amazingly. 
 British wool had been for ages an article in great 
 
 * Eden, vol. i. p. 103. 
 
 t 12 Rich. II. cap. 5. J 7 Henry IV. cap. 17. 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 183 
 
 request, but principally for the purpose of exporta- 
 tion; but about 1537 a colony of Flemings, invited 
 over by Edward the First, established a domestic 
 manufacture, which sixty or seventy years after- 
 wards was able to compete successfully with its 
 foreign rivals, and afforded to the British farmer a 
 nearer, and consequently better, market for his 
 wool. Thus a powerful stimulus was given to 
 every branch of rural industry ; and while part of 
 the agricultural labourers were betaking themselves 
 to other employments, those who remained were 
 sought for with redoubled eagerness, both on ac- 
 count of their diminished numbers, and of the great 
 addition made to the quantity of work to be done. 
 Add to this the necessity which, during the wars of 
 the Koses, every great man felt of keeping in pay 
 as large a number of retainers as possible ; and 
 perhaps no other circumstance need be mentioned, 
 in order to account fully for the extraordinary rise 
 of wages which took place, and continued without 
 interruption during the greater part of the fifteenth 
 century, notwithstanding all the efforts of the 
 legislature to restrain it. 
 
 It is, however, very important to observe, in this 
 place, that the increase of employment, however 
 great it might eventually have become, might not 
 have affected the rate of wages very sensibly, if it 
 had grown up by slow degrees, for the progress of 
 population might then have kept pace with it. The 
 principal effect of a slightly increased demand for 
 labour is generally merely to hasten the marriages 
 of parties who would otherwise have deferred their 
 
 H 4 
 
184 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 union for want of sufficient means of support, and 
 the scarcity of labourers is consequently very soon 
 remedied. But if a considerable augmentation of 
 employment take place suddenly, the benefit which 
 it confers on the labouring class is not only much 
 greater immediately, but is much more likely to be 
 lasting. Additional conveniences are brought within 
 reach of the whole body of labourers, and not- 
 withstanding the temporary encouragement given 
 to marriage, the next generation grows up in the 
 enjoyment of advantages unknown to the preceding 
 one, and regulates its notions of comfort by a higher 
 standard. A high standard of comfort tends, as has 
 been shown, to check the undue frequency of mar- 
 riage, and to prevent the progress of population 
 from reducing the people below whatever point on 
 the social scale they may have attained. It certainly 
 operated in this manner at the time now spoken of. 
 The amelioration of the condition of the common 
 people, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, 
 accelerated the progress of population very little, if 
 at all: the extension of the field of employment 
 proceeded at a much more rapid rate; and the 
 benefit of this extension was felt by the labourers, 
 in the shape of an almost equally rapid rise of 
 wages, which did not cease until it reached its 
 acme about the time of the accession of Henry VII. 
 It will naturally be asked how the high social 
 position which the English labourer had now at- 
 tained came to be abandoned ; how the ease and 
 comfort which he once enjoyed have since been 
 exchanged for difficulties and privations. It has 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 185 
 
 been argued, that the diffusion of the comforts of 
 life among all ranks of a community (a decisive 
 proof that the numbers of the people, as compared 
 with the amount of employment for them, are not 
 disproportionably great) is sufficient to prevent 
 population from increasing more rapidly than the 
 amount of employment. How then has it happened 
 that the numbers of the people are now, and have 
 been throughout the last three hundred and sixty 
 years, in excess of their former proportion to the 
 amount of employment ? For the present degrada- 
 tion of the English labourer has not been effected 
 within a recent period ; the golden age of the work- 
 ing class was followed without any interval by the 
 iron age which still subsists. We have seen that, 
 in the middle of the fifteenth century, every man 
 could obtain as much work as he pleased at extra- 
 vagant wages. So late as 1496, and even as 1514, 
 parliament thought it advisable to pass laws for 
 the purpose of keeping down wages, though the 
 rise which was then taking place was occasioned 
 entirely by the depreciation of the precious metals 
 consequent on the discovery of America, and was not 
 only not real, but concealed a positive fall in the 
 real price of labour. Very soon afterwards, how- 
 ever, legislation took a new turn ; and parliament, 
 instead of attempting to curtail the labourers' ho- 
 nest earnings, had to exercise its ingenuity in pro- 
 viding for the crowd of destitute for whom no work 
 could be found. England had probably never been 
 entirely free from sturdy beggars ; for wherever a 
 livelihood can be obtained without labour, there 
 
186 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 will generally be some persons who prefer an idle 
 vagabond life to one of patient industry, however 
 richly rewardefl. In this way we may understand- 
 the preamble to the " Statute of Labourers," passed 
 in Edward the Third's reign, which declared, in the 
 same breath, that though " many, seeing the neces- 
 sity of masters and great scarcity of servants, will 
 not serve unless they may receive excessive wages," 
 others are " rather willing to beg in idleness, than 
 by labour to get their living." These, however, 
 and their successors, for more than a century, were 
 beggars from choice, but they were at length re- 
 placed by a race of beggars from necessity. Re- 
 peated statutes, commencing with one passed in 
 1494 *, attest the rapid spread of destitution. For 
 a time, misled by the experience of the preceding 
 age, parliament imagined idleness to be still the 
 fruitful parent of this evil, and punishment its best 
 cure ; no other asylum, therefore, was offered to 
 able-bodied vagrants than the stocks, and no milder 
 treatment than whipping at the cart's tail. After 
 being admonished in this way, they were to be sent 
 to the place of their birth, there to set themselves 
 to work "as true men ought to do." In 1535, 
 however, it was discovered that the aforesaid " va- 
 liant vagabonds," after returning home, could find 
 no work to do ; and the parish authorities were in 
 consequence enjoined to collect voluntary contribu- 
 tions for the purpose, not only of relieving the im- 
 potent and infirm, but of enabling the strong and 
 lusty to gain a living with their own hands, f In 
 * 11 Henry VII. cap. 2. f 2 ? Henry VII. cap. 25. 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 187 
 
 1547, the number of beggars still rapidly increas- 
 ing, in spite of the "godly acts and statutes" al- 
 ready directed against them, another was passed, 
 which, though repealed two years afterwards, de- 
 serves to be mentioned, not merely on account of 
 its astonishing barbarity, but as showing how ge- 
 nuine the distresses of the lower classes must have 
 been, which even these atrocious measures could 
 not induce them to conceal. It was enacted, that 
 every able-bodied person found loitering about 
 should be branded with a hot iron, and adjudged 
 to two years' slavery to the man by whom he had 
 been apprehended, during which time he might be 
 fed upon bread and water, and refuse meat, and 
 forced to work by beating or otherwise ; that if he 
 ran away he should be branded a second time, and 
 should be condemned to slavery for life, and that 
 if he absconded again, he should suffer death as a 
 felon.* Threatened with slavery, stripes, and 
 death, men chose to run every danger in seeking to 
 better their condition, rather than pine with hunger 
 at home, and beggars and vagabonds continued 
 daily to increase. In 1562, voluntary alms being 
 found insufficient for the relief of the poor, the 
 parish authorities were empowered to assess persons 
 obstinately refusing to contribute.! Mendicancy 
 and vagabondage continuing still unabated, in 
 1572 J power was given to tax all the inhabitants 
 of a place for the relief of its poor. Other acts 
 followed ; and in 1601 the necessity of providing 
 
 * 1 Edw. VI. cap. 3. 
 
 f 5 Eliz. cap. 3. J 14 Eliz. cap. 5. 
 
188 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 employment for the able-bodied poor by means of 
 parochial assessments was fully admitted, and a 
 matured plan for that purpose was established.* 
 
 It cannot be denied that the scene described in 
 this series of statutes was one of real destitution; 
 that the prevalence of mendicancy arose from the 
 inability of labourers to procure 'sufficient work; 
 that the supply of labour was consequently larger 
 than the demand, and that in a word, the country 
 was already over-peopled. It will again be demanded 
 how this state of things, contrasting so strongly 
 with the character of the age immediately preced- 
 ing, was brought about. If it was produced by a 
 positive addition to the population, it is obvious 
 that the possession of comfort is not sufficient to 
 prevent the numbers of a community from becom- 
 ing excessive, and the principles laid down in the 
 last chapter must be abandoned as untenable. I 
 trust, however, that the reader may be persuaded 
 not to adopt this conclusion, and may be convinced 
 that the over-population of England in the sixteenth 
 century, or the disproportion between the numbers 
 of the labouring class and the amount of employ- 
 ment, proceeded not from the augmentation of the 
 former, but from the diminution of the latter. 
 
 Most writers on the subject have indeed imagined 
 that the growth of mendicancy at the period in 
 question is attributable to the dissolution of monas- 
 teries by Henry the Eighth ; but in opposition to 
 this opinion, it need only be said, that monasteries 
 
 * 43 Eliz. cap. 2. 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 189 
 
 were not abolished till 1535, many years after the 
 continual increase of vagrancy had become a stand- 
 ing topic of parliamentary lamentation. Besides, 
 admitting what is very much more than doubtful, 
 that any large portion of the monastic revenues 
 had been appropriated to the relief of the poor, it 
 can scarcely be supposed that habitual relief had 
 been afforded to any except the aged and infirm. 
 But the vagrants with whom the country was now 
 swarming, and upon whom the legislature emptied 
 the largest vessels of its wrath, are described as 
 " sturdy, lusty, mighty of body;" and as these had 
 never been dependent on the monasteries for sub- 
 sistence, it is evident that they could not have been 
 impoverished by their dissolution. If that measure 
 had any effect in increasing the number of sturdy 
 beggars, it probably did so by turning adrift some 
 thousands of monks who had been originally taken 
 from the lowest classes of society, and who, when 
 their accustomed means of support were withdrawn, 
 were obliged to seek a livelihood from other sources. 
 But, after all, an equal or a greater accession to the 
 labouring class had frequently before been occasioned 
 by the disbandment of an army, without being fol- 
 lowed by any sensible inconvenience ; and there can 
 be no doubt that the monks would have found new 
 occupations as quickly as soldiers had done on for- 
 mer occasions if novel obstacles had not been thrown 
 in their way. 
 
 The truth is, that the field of employment had 
 of late been very greatly contracted. Both pre- 
 viously, and for some time subsequently to the 
 
190 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 abolition of villenage, England contained a vast 
 number of small landholders. Besides owners of 
 freeholds of the yearly value of forty shillings 
 or thereabouts, who, at a time when land was 
 commonly let for no more than sixpence an acre, 
 must have formed a class important for its pro- 
 perty as well as its numbers, and, besides the 
 tenants in villenage, or their successors, the copy- 
 holders, who must have been at least as numerous 
 as the copyholders of the present day, there were 
 likewise many tenant-farmers, paying a rent of 
 not more than 4. a year, but occupying, as 
 appears from Bishop Latimer's account of his 
 father, corn land enough to employ half-a-dozen 
 men, and pasture enough to keep thirty cows and 
 a hundred sheep. * Besides these, there were the 
 married servants in husbandry who were .em- 
 ployed upon the estates of large proprietors or 
 farmers, and whose remuneration consisted in 
 part of the loan of a cottage, and of a piece of 
 ground which was seldom of less extent than three 
 or four acres. Most of the landholders of all 
 these different classes, except the one last men- 
 tioned, must have required the aid of hired 
 labourers, particularly as much land was under 
 tillage, and large quantities of corn were grown. 
 There was consequently a great demand for agri- 
 cultural labour; and as the supply was limited 
 by the causes elsewhere alluded to, wages became 
 very high. But the high rate of wages, combined 
 
 * Latimer's Sermons, p. 101. Cambridge, 1844. 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 191 
 
 with the increasing abundance and cheapness of 
 corn consequent upon the improvement of agricul- 
 ture, must have rendered tillage less profitable 
 than formerly, more especially to large landholders, 
 who did not consume at home the principal part 
 of their crops, but raised large quantities for sale. 
 At the same time, the extension of the woollen 
 manufacture was raising the price of wool ; and 
 the little attendance which sheep require was an 
 additional motive for causing sheep-farming to 
 be preferred to tillage. Arable land therefore 
 began to be converted into pasture ; and the seem- 
 ingly interminable corn-fields, which, like those of 
 Germany at this day, probably extended for miles 
 without having their even surface broken by fences 
 or any other visible boundaries, disappeared. After 
 being sown with grass, they were surrounded and 
 divided by enclosures, to prevent the sheep from 
 straying, and to do away with the necessity of 
 having shepherds always on the watch. By these 
 changes, the quantity of work to be done upon 
 a farm was exceedingly diminished, and most of 
 the servants, whom it had been usual to board and 
 lodge in the manor and farm-houses, were dis- 
 missed. This was not all. The married farm- 
 servants were ousted from their cottages, which 
 were pulled down, and their gardens and fields 
 were annexed to the adjoining meadows. The 
 small farmers were treated in the same way, as 
 their leases fell in, and were sent to join the daily 
 increasing crowd of competitors for work that was 
 daily decreasing in quantity. Even freeholders 
 
192 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 were in some instances ejected from their lands. * 
 This social revolution had probably commenced 
 even before the prosperity of the peasantry had 
 reached its climax ; but in 1487 it attracted the 
 notice of Parliament, and an act was passed to 
 restrain its progress ; for already it was observed 
 that enclosures were becoming " more frequent, 
 whereby arable land, which could not be manured 
 without people and families, was turned into pas- 
 ture, which was easily rid by a few herdsmen/' and 
 that " tenances for years, lives, and at will, where- 
 upon most of the yeomanry lived, were turned 
 into demesnes." f In 1533 J, an act was passed 
 
 * One of the ways in which this might be done is described 
 very graphically by Massinger's Sir Giles Overreach : 
 
 " I'll buy some cottage near his manor ; 
 Which done, I'll make my men break ope his fences, 
 Ride o'er his standing corn, and in the night 
 Set fire to his barns, or break his cattle's legs ; 
 These trespasses draw on suits, and suits expenses 
 Which I can spare, but will soon beggar him. 
 When I have harried him thus two or three years, 
 Though he sue in forma pauperis, in spite 
 Of all his thrift and care, he'll grow behind-hand. 
 Then with the favour of my man of law, 
 I will pretend some title : want will force him 
 To put it to arbitrement ; then, if he sell 
 For half the value, he shall have ready money, 
 And I possess his land. (New Way to pay old Debts.} 
 
 Sir Thomas More also, in his Utopia, speaks indignantly of 
 " husbandmen thrust out of their own, or else by covin and 
 fraud, or by violent oppression, put beside it, or by wrongs and 
 injuries so wearied that they be compelled to sell all." 
 
 t Lord Bacon's Hist, of King Henry VII., Works, vol. v. p. 61. 
 
 $ 25 Henry VIII. cap. 13. 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 193 
 
 strongly condemning the practice of " accumulat- 
 ing" farms, which it was declared had reduced " a 
 marvellous multitude" of the people to poverty 
 and misery, and left them no alternative but to 
 steal, or to die " pitifully" of cold and hunger. In 
 this act it was stated, that single farms might be 
 found with flocks of from ten to twenty thousand 
 sheep upon them, and it was ordained that no 
 man should keep more than two thousand sheep 
 except upon his own land, or rent more than two 
 farms. Two years later it was enacted, that the 
 King should have a moiety of the profits of land 
 converted (subsequently to a date specified) from 
 tillage to pasture, until a suitable house was erected 
 and the land was restored to tillage. In 1552 a 
 law * was made, which required that on all estates 
 as large a quantity of land as had been kept in 
 tillage for four years together at any time since 
 the accession of Henry VIII. should be so con- 
 tinued in tillage. But these and many subsequent 
 enactments of the same kind had not the smallest 
 effect in checking the consolidation of farms. 
 We find Eoger Ascham, in Queen Elizabeth's reign, 
 lamenting the dispersion of families, the ruin of 
 houses, the breaking up and destruction of " the 
 noble yeomanry, the honour and strength of Eng- 
 land." Harrison also speaks of towns pulled down 
 for sheep walks, " and of the tenements that had 
 fallen either down or into the lord's hands," or 
 had been " brought and united together by other 
 
 * 5 & 6 Edw. VI. cap. 5. 
 
 o 
 
194 HISTOEY OF THE 
 
 men, so that in some one manor seventeen, eighteen, 
 or twenty houses were shrunk." * " Where have 
 been a great many householders and inhabitants, " 
 says Bishop Latimer, " there is now but a shep- 
 herd and his dog f ;" and in a curious tract published 
 in 1581 by one William Stafford, a husbandman 
 is made to exclaim, " Marry, these enclosures do 
 undo us all, for they make us to pay dearer for 
 our land that we occupy, and causeth that we can 
 have no land to put to tillage ; all is taken up for 
 pasture, either for sheep or for grazing of cattle ; 
 insomuch that I have known of late a dozen 
 ploughs within less compass than six miles about 
 me laid down within this seven years, and where 
 threescore persons or upwards had their livings, 
 now one man with his cattle hath all. Those 
 sheep is the cause of all our mischief, for they have 
 driven husbandry out of the country, by which 
 was increased before all kinds of victuals, and now 
 altogether sheep, sheep, sheep." J While numbers 
 of persons were thus being continually driven from 
 their homes and deprived of their means of liveli- 
 hood, we need not be at a loss to account for the 
 increase of vagrancy, without ascribing it to the 
 increase of population. 
 
 It is perfectly true, that at this very time, while 
 her noble yeomanry were being degraded into com- 
 mon day labourers and mendicants, England, owing 
 to the extension of commerce and manufactures, 
 
 * Eden, Hist, of the Poor, vol. i. p. 118. 
 
 f Latimer's Sermons, p. 100. 
 
 J Pictorial History of England, vol. ii. p. 900. 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 195 
 
 was advancing with unexampled rapidity in wealth 
 and power, and the increase of employment in the 
 towns must have been more than equal to the de- 
 crease of employment in the country. It may 
 therefore be thought, that unless a positive addition 
 had been made to the numbers of the labouring 
 class, all the labourers dismissed from agriculture 
 might have obtained abundant occupation in the 
 towns. But there cannot be a greater error than 
 to suppose that the substitution of one employment 
 for another is not detrimental to the workmen ori- 
 ginally employed, if the amount of work to be done 
 remain the same. Even when the new business is 
 carried on in the same place as the old one, the 
 work may be very unsuitable to men who have 
 always been differently employed ; and if the busi- 
 ness be removed to a distance, innumerable difficul- 
 ties will prevent the workmen in general from fol- 
 lowing it. The starving labourers of the sixteenth 
 century might have earned a very comfortable 
 maintenance if they had been weavers and artizans 
 instead of ploughmen and carters, but as husbandry 
 was the only business they understood, few of them 
 may have thought it worth while to offer their 
 services in any other capacity, and those who did 
 may have been much obstructed in their search for 
 work by the tyrannical laws which endeavoured to 
 prevent husbandmen from leaving their place of 
 birth. Agriculture, the only occupation really ac- 
 cessible to the great body of the peasantry, had, as 
 we have seen, been greatly contracted, and this 
 
 o 2 
 
196 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 cause was quite sufficient of itself to reduce them 
 to destitution. 
 
 Perhaps the condition of the peasantry was never 
 worse than during the greater part of the sixteenth 
 century ; towards the end of that period it began 
 sensibly to improve. It has been attempted to 
 show, that misery up to a certain point promotes 
 the growth of population, but beyond that point it 
 has a much greater effect in increasing mortality, 
 and so counteracts its opposite tendency. The 
 misery of the homeless outcasts with whom Eng- 
 land was swarming during the domination of the 
 House of Tudor, was much too severe to allow them 
 to increase and multiply. On the contrary, want 
 and disease no doubt greatly thinned their numbers, 
 and might possibly have swept them away almost 
 entirely, if circumstances had not at length occurred 
 to rescue those who remained from their precarious 
 position. While the rural districts were being 
 desolated in the manner above described, the towns 
 were advancing fast in wealth and population, and 
 the increasing wants of the citizens, by greatly en- 
 hancing the price of corn, again altered the direc- 
 tion of agricultural industry, and occasioned a 
 strong reaction in favour of tillage. This augmented 
 the demand for agricultural labourers, and seems 
 for a time to have afforded sufficient employment 
 for all who sought it. Such at least is the inference 
 which may be drawn from the remark of Sir Edward 
 Coke, that an act passed in 1597 for the punish- 
 ment of rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, 
 caused that class to disappear entirely as long as 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 197 
 
 the law was strictly enforced*, which could not 
 have been the case unless every one had been able 
 to earn a livelihood by honest industry. But al- 
 though agricultural labourers were now raised 
 a good deal above the depth to which they had 
 sunk, they were very far from having regained 
 the prosperity which they had once enjoyed. The 
 cottages which were every where springing up to 
 replace those that had been pulled down in the 
 preceding period, had not in general any land at- 
 tached to them. In most parishes there were com- 
 mon lands, on which a poor householder might keep 
 a cow a most valuable privilege ; but otherwise 
 a labourer was often entirely dependent on his daily 
 earnings, and these were very inferior in value to 
 the income of a cottager a few generations earlier. 
 Their nominal amount was indeed greater, for, 
 owing to the depreciation of the precious metals 
 consequent upon the discovery of America, the rate 
 of money-wages had about doubled, but the price 
 of provisions and other commodities had risen in a 
 much larger proportion. The price of wheat, for 
 example, rose in the course of a hundred years 
 from about 7s. to about 30s. a quarter, and in the 
 year 1610, 4|^., or about a penny less than a whole 
 sheep had once cost, was given for a pound of mut- 
 ton. An outdoor labourer at the beginning of the 
 17th century, therefore, who had to buy his own food 
 out of sixpence or eight-pence a day, was^ not nearly 
 so well off as a man of the same class would have 
 
 * Eden, vol. i. p. 145. 
 o 3 
 
198 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 been in the 1 4th with only 3^d. a-day, even sup- 
 posing that the latter had not possessed in addition 
 the produce of a cottage farm. The wages of the 
 former seem to have borne about the same propor- 
 tion to prices, and to have enabled him to share in 
 the necessaries and conveniences of life about as 
 largely, as seven or eight shillings a- week might do 
 now. 
 
 Such a modicum of comfort could not, as we 
 may infer from the habits of the Dorsetshire pea- 
 santry of this day, act as a very eifectual restraint 
 upon population, and we need not be surprised, 
 therefore, that in a few years labourers increased 
 beyond the number that could procure employment. 
 The anonymous author of a pamphlet published in 
 1622, speaks of the daily increase of poor, and 
 describes the country as being " pitifully pestered' 7 
 with " lusty labourers" out of work, who, because 
 no man would be " troubled with their service" 
 were fain to " beg, filch, and steal for their mainte- 
 nance." Sir Matthew Hale*, writing about 1660, 
 confirms this statement, and the preamble of an 
 important statute passed in 1662, dwells upon the 
 " necessity, number, and continual increase of the 
 poor" throughout England and Wales. f In the 
 last thirty years of the same century the annual 
 produce of the poor rates was variously estimated 
 at from 600,OOOZ. to 840,000/., which, at the rate of 
 relief then customary, must have sufficed for the 
 constant maintenance of at least a hundred thou- 
 
 * Eden, vol. i. p. 216. 
 t 13 Car. II. cap. 12. 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 199 
 
 sand persons, or one-sixtieth part of the whole po- 
 pulation. Of the persons thus relieved, one-half, 
 according to a report drawn up by Mr. Locke in 
 1697, were able-bodied, and might have maintained 
 themselves if they had had work.* A temporary 
 reduction in the annu'al expenditure on the poor is 
 supposed to have been effected by an Act passed in 
 the 9th year of Geo. L, and in the three years end- 
 ing with 1750, the average amount is shown by 
 parliamentary return snot to have exceeded 690,000. 
 But by 1776 the amount had risen to 1,521,000/., 
 and in the three years ending with 1785, the an- 
 nual average was 1,912,000. Now in the 17th and 
 18th centuries every branch of national industry 
 flourished at least as vigorously as before. Com- 
 merce and manufactures prospered exceedingly, 
 and if agriculture did not quite keep pace with 
 them, it was, nevertheless, very much promoted by 
 their growth, and an additional stimulant was 
 given to tillage by the introduction of turnip hus- 
 bandry and artificial grasses. As therefore the de- 
 mand for labour of all sorts must have increased 
 considerably, instead of diminishing, the simultane- 
 ous increase of pauperism can only be attributed 
 to a still greater increase in the number of labour- 
 ers. It has already been hinted, that this advance 
 of population received its first impulse from the 
 depressed condition and consequent improvidence 
 of the labouring class at the beginning of the 17th 
 century, but its prolonged continuance was the 
 
 * Eden, vol. ii. p. 245. 
 o4 
 
200 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 result of circumstances of a somewhat different 
 nature. 
 
 It is very remarkable, that while pauperism was 
 advancing in the manner above described, the con- 
 dition of the labourers who obtained employment 
 was not injured by the competition of the unem- 
 ployed, but on the contrary was gradually improv- 
 ing. We have no information as to the state of 
 things in this respect throughout the country, but 
 some general deductions may be drawn from the 
 records of particular counties. The average wages 
 (including extra earnings in harvest) of an outdoor 
 agricultural labourer who had to find his own 
 food, had been in Rutland, in 1610, about tyd. 
 a-day, or 3s. 3d. weekly. In Essex in 1661, 
 they were about Is. Id. a-day, or 6s. 6d. weekly; 
 in Suffolk in 1682, lid. a-day, or 5s. 6d. weekly; 
 in Warwickshire in 1685, Sd. a-day, or 4s. weekly; 
 in Devonshire in the same year, Wd. a-day, or 
 5s. weekly; in Lancashire in 1725, Wd. a-day, or 
 5s. weekly for inferior labourers, and Is. a-day, or 
 6s. a week for those of the best sort.* In 1768 
 Arthur Young, who had been making a tour through 
 the south of England, principally with the view of 
 noting the state of agriculture and the condition of 
 the people, reckoned the average rate of agricultu- 
 ral wages the whole year round to be, within twenty 
 miles from London, 10s. 9d. a-week; at a distance 
 of twenty to sixty miles from London, Is. &d.; at 
 from sixty to one hundred and ten miles, 6s. 4d. ; 
 
 * Eden, vol. iii. App. 3. 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 201 
 
 at from a hundred and ten to a hundred and seventy 
 miles, 65. 3d. He observed the rates to be highest 
 in the eastern, and lowest in the western counties : 
 in some parts of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire they 
 were not higher than 4s. 6 d. in winter, and 6s. in 
 summer. In 1770, Young published a Tour through 
 the North of England, in which he describes the 
 weekly rate of agricultural wages as ranging from 
 4s. lid. to 9s. 9d., the average being 7s. Id. This 
 last sum was also the average within fifty miles of 
 London : between fifty and a hundred miles the 
 average rate was 65. $d.\ between one and two 
 hundred miles from London it rose to 7<s. 2d. ; be- 
 tween two and three hundred miles it was still 7s., 
 but beyond that distance it fell to 6s. Sd. The 
 enhancement of wages which thus appears to have 
 been going on for more than a hundred years, was 
 not merely nominal, nor a consequence of the de- 
 preciation of money: on the contrary, the prices of 
 provisions and of others of the most important 
 articles of consumption were frequently falling 
 while wages were rising. The average price of 
 wheat was 2/. lls. 7f d. per quarter in the ten years 
 ending with 1655. In each of the next ten decen- 
 nial periods it was as follows : 
 
 In the ten years ending with s. d. 
 
 1665 - 2 10 5j 
 
 1675 - 2 11| 
 
 1685 - 2 1 4 
 
 1695 - 1 19 6| 
 
 1705 - 2 2 11 
 
 1715 - 2 4 2J 
 
 1725 - - 1 15 4} 
 
202 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 In the ten years ending with g s. d. 
 
 1735 - 1 15 2 
 
 1745 - 1 12 1 
 
 1755 1 1 3| 
 
 Mutton was sold in London in 1610 for about 
 3fd per Ib. From 1660 to 1690 its price is said 
 to have been about 2d. per Ib., and though it be- 
 came dearer afterwards, it cost only ^\d. per Ib. 
 from 1706 to 1730, and only 3d. as late as 1760. 
 The prices of beef per Ib. are said to have been in 
 1610, 3|d.; in 1710, l^d. ; from 1740 to 1760, 
 2^d. Of wool, the prices were per tod, for some 
 years previously to 1622, 33s.; in 1641, 245.; in 
 1648, 37s. 6d. ; in 1649, 40s.; between 1650 arid 
 1660, they ranged from 22s. 6d. to 60s.; in 1671, 
 the price was 28s.; in 1680, 12s.; in 1681, 18s.; in 
 1707, 16s.; in 1717, 23s.; in 1738, 23s.; in 1760, 
 18s. 6d.* The industrious labourer must thus have 
 had at his command a larger share of the good things 
 of this world than before, and a corresponding 
 change for the better took place in his mode of 
 life. Wheaten bread, which there is reason to sup- 
 pose had been commonly used by the lower class of 
 people in many parts of England, in the golden 
 days that preceded the accession of Henry VII., had 
 afterwards ceased to form part of the food of the 
 peasantry ; and had been superseded by rye and 
 barley, except in the northern counties, where oats, 
 either alone or mixed with peas, had always been 
 the usual bread- corn. In the concluding years of 
 
 * The prices of meat and wool are taken partly from Eden's 
 Hist, of the Poor, and partly from the Pict. Hist, of England. 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 203 
 
 the seventeenth century, however, wheat began to 
 come again into more general use. Early in the 
 following century, it was certainly eaten by the 
 poorest people in some of the southern counties ; 
 and in 1764, according to calculations made with 
 great care about that time, very little besides 
 wheaten bread was eaten in any part of England 
 except the northern and some of the north midland 
 counties. With respect to meat, it was supposed 
 by the eminent political writer, Gregory King, in 
 1696, that there were no persons in England, except 
 paupers, who might not eat it twice a week. As 
 for beer, in order to prove it to have been the uni- 
 versal beverage, it need only be said that the an- 
 nual average quantity which paid duty in the ten 
 years ending with 1693, was sufficient to allow 
 more than a barrel for every individual, man, 
 woman, or child, in the kingdom. It appears un- 
 questionable, from all these statements, that the 
 real price of labour rose considerably at a time 
 when the market was greatly overstocked. Such a 
 phenomenon, of course, could not have occurred, if 
 the price had been suffered freely to adjust itself, 
 according to the proportion between the supply and 
 the demand, but this was prevented by the influence 
 of the Poor Laws, the operation of which must now 
 be briefly explained. 
 
 The act which is popularly regarded as the 
 foundation of the existing Poor Laws, is the 43d 
 Eliz. cap. 2., which ordained that, in every parish, 
 a fund should be raised by taxation of the inhabi- 
 tants, not merely for the relief of the aged and 
 
204 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 infirm, but for setting to work all persons having 
 no means to maintain themselves, and using no 
 ordinary or daily trade of life, to get their living 
 by. The momentous consequences with which this 
 ordinance was pregnant, were not at first discovered. 
 For many years the law remained nearly a dead 
 letter : in most parishes no assessments at all were 
 made, and in few or none was the amount collected 
 sufficient for its object ; so that the poverty in which 
 the lower classes were very generally sunk, was 
 left almost unopposed to exert its natural in- 
 fluence, in increasing the numbers and necessity of 
 the poor. The country again became as much in- 
 fested with vagrants as ever, and the evil, ag- 
 gravated no doubt by the disorders of the civil 
 war, at length reached such a height that, in 
 1662, Parliament, undismayed by former failures, 
 once more attempted to put a stop to it. With this 
 view was passed the celebrated act of the 13 Car. 
 II. cap. 12. which, deviating from former principles 
 of legislation, refrained from threatening wandering 
 beggars with whipping, branding, slavery, and death, 
 but strove to rouse the activity of parish officers, 
 by enabling any needy intruder into a strange 
 parish, who should not be removed within forty 
 days, to obtain a settlement there, and a conse- 
 quent claim to relief in the event of his afterwards 
 becoming destitute. This law was completely suc- 
 cessful, and, so long as it remained in force, which, 
 with some modifications, it did till the year 1795, 
 the English labourer was almost literally imprisoned 
 within the bounds of his parish. The success was, 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 205 
 
 however, dearly purchased. When people were 
 forbidden to seek a livelihood elsewhere, it was 
 impossible to refuse to maintain them in their place 
 of birth, and the benevolent intentions of the 43d 
 Elizabeth could be no longer disregarded. Able- 
 bodied paupers could not indeed be set to work, 
 according to the directions of that statute. In 
 every place there is only a certain amount of work 
 to be done, and only a certain amount of capital to 
 pay for it ; and, if the number of workmen be more 
 than proportionate to the work, employment can 
 only be given to those who want it by taking it 
 from those who have it. But there could not in 
 general be any reason for replacing one set of 
 workmen by another ; and those who had been 
 unemployed were therefore, for the most part, 
 permitted to remain in idleness, and were subsisted 
 gratuitously. But they were not merely furnished 
 with a bare subsistence. The parish authorities, 
 in some instances, moved by the pity which the 
 sight of undeserved misfortune naturally excites, 
 and willing enough to be charitable at other 
 people's expense, perceiving also numerous ways 
 in which they themselves might profit from a large 
 expenditure upon the poor, did not confine them- 
 selves to relieving the necessities of the destitute, 
 but supplied the paupers whom they maintained in 
 idleness with comforts which many a hardworking 
 man could not hope to obtain. We learn from 
 writers of the second half of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, that, at a time when two-thirds of all the 
 bread used in England was made of rye, barley, 
 
206 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 oats, or peas, parish paupers seldom condescended 
 to eat any that was not made of the finest wheaten 
 flour, and drank none but the strongest beer. Even 
 in the years immediately succeeding 1723, when the 
 formation of workhouses was authorised, although 
 most of those establishments were at first economi- 
 cally managed, there were some whose inmates 
 were served with meat dinners at least three or 
 four times a week ; the rest of their diet consisting 
 of suet and hasty puddings, bread and cheese, 
 broth, milk and peas porridge, potatoes, fresh 
 vegetables, and beer. When idleness was so libe- 
 rally rewarded, and when the poor might obtain a 
 more comfortable subsistence from the parish than 
 they could possibly earn by their own exertions, 
 their desire for employment must have greatly 
 abated. They had no inducement to compete with 
 their neighbours, or to offer to work for lower wages 
 than were commonly paid. If they could not obtain 
 the usual wages, they had recourse at once to the 
 parish ; and all of the very numerous class that 
 prefer ease to independence were glad of an excuse 
 for so doing. Thus, although the market was 
 greatly overstocked with labour, the price did not 
 fall, because only part of the whole stock was really 
 offered for sale ; and the same cause afterwards 
 permitted the price to rise with the increasing 
 demand for labour, although the whole stock in 
 the market was increasing at the same time in a 
 still larger proportion. It cannot be denied that 
 one immediate effect of the Poor Laws, as admi- 
 nistered at this time, was to keep up the rate of 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 207 
 
 wages, and to raise the whole body of labourers, 
 whether employed or unemployed, from their 
 former state of want and wretchedness ; and it 
 may seem that, by removing one principal source 
 of recklessness and improvidence, they must have 
 acted as a check upon population. They seem 
 really to have had this effect for some time. At 
 least, if the calculations of the late Mr. Bickman* 
 may be trusted, the population of England and 
 Wales, which, in the sixty years ending with 1630, 
 had increased from 4,123,708 to 5,600,517, a 
 difference of nearly a million and a half of souls, 
 increased by less than half a million in the seventy 
 years succeeding 1630, having reached to only 
 6,045,008 in 1700. For some years after the 
 commencement of the eighteenth century it seems 
 to have even declined, and was very little more 
 than six millions and a half in 1750. But whatever 
 tendency the Poor Laws may at first have had to 
 retard population in this way, was ultimately more 
 than counterbalanced by their influence in another. 
 If they rendered the poor man unwilling to forfeit 
 his newly acquired comfort by any act of impru- 
 dence, they also went far to convince him that there 
 was no imprudence in marrying without the means 
 of maintaining a family, since additional parish 
 assistance would be readily afforded to enable him 
 to bear any burden which he might bring upon 
 himself. If, by raising the rate of wages, they 
 elevated the position of the independent labourer, 
 
 * Population Returns, 1841. Preface, pp. 36, 37. 
 
208 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 and made him careful to avoid any thing that might 
 reduce him to a lower level ; they, on the other hand, 
 encouraged the dependent pauper to consult only 
 his own inclinations, without regard to the conse- 
 quences. After the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, the thoughtless profusion which had formerly 
 marked the administration of the Poor Laws, but 
 which had been somewhat repressed by the 9th 
 George I. cap. 7., became more extravagant than 
 before ; and thenceforward those laws weakened, 
 instead of strengthening, the impediments to mar- 
 riage, and stimulated population still more power- 
 fully than the indigence they had temporarily re- 
 lieved. In the forty years immediately succeeding 
 1750, an addition of more than two millions was 
 made to the numbers of the people, which were 
 then raised to 8,675,000. So vast an increase of 
 population might seem sufficient of itself to account 
 for the enormous increase of pauperism which took 
 place at the same time, but some minor causes may 
 be mentioned which helped to aggravate the evil. 
 The facility with which parish relief could be ob- 
 tained, no doubt rendered many idle who might 
 otherwise have earned their own livelihood; and 
 many, on the other hand, were deprived of their 
 accustomed occupation by the partial abandonment 
 of tillage, which, though in general very greatly 
 extended, ceased almost entirely in particular places. 
 Men who had amassed fortunes in trade or other 
 pursuits, and desired to possess suitable country 
 residences, if they could not persuade a decayed 
 family to part with its hereditary seat, purchased 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 209 
 
 some of the outlying lands of an estate, and cleared 
 half a dozen farms and a score or two of cottages to 
 make a park. Goldsmith's " Deserted Village " is 
 probably not too highly coloured a picture of the 
 desolation produced by such a process ; and its 
 outlines, at least, were certainly copied from na- 
 ture. The poet must have seen 
 
 " One only master grasp the whole domain, 
 And half a tillage stint the smiling plain ; " 
 
 or he would not have described so circumstantially 
 how 
 
 " The man of wealth and pride 
 Takes up a space that many poor supplied ; 
 Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds, 
 Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds ; " 
 
 nor how 
 
 " The seat where solitary sports are seen, 
 Indignant spurns the cottage from the green." 
 
 He had also, perhaps, observed the villagers leaving 
 their cherished abodes, and witnessed 
 
 " The sorrows of that parting day, 
 That call'd them from their native walks away, 
 When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, 
 Hung round the bowers, and fondly look'd their last ; 
 And took a long farewell, and wish'd in vain 
 For seats like those beyond the western main." 
 
 Possibly he may have tracked them in their sub- 
 sequent wanderings, and noticed, that when 
 
 " To some common's fenceless limits stray'd, 
 They drove their flocks to pick the scanty blade, 
 Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide, 
 And ev'n the bare worn common is denied." 
 P 
 
210 HISTOEY OF THE 
 
 Or "if to the city sped," he could not fail to 
 meet with stragglers, who . 
 
 " By cold and hunger led, 
 At proud men's doors would ask a little bread." 
 
 Among the lines here quoted is an allusion to a 
 circumstance, much too important to be omitted 
 from the list of causes which have contributed 
 to the degradation of the English peasantry. I 
 mean, the inclosure and partition of common land. 
 A hundred and fifty years ago, there was scarcely 
 a parish without a considerable extent of waste, 
 on which every householder was at liberty to turn 
 out a cow, or a pig or two, or a few sheep or 
 fowls. The poor man, therefore, even after the 
 loss of the fields anciently attached to his cottage, 
 might nevertheless contrive to supply his family 
 with plenty of milk, and eggs and bacon, at little 
 or no expense to himself. He has since in most 
 instances been deprived of this advantage also. 
 His rights of common belonged to him only in his 
 quality of householder ; they were communicated 
 and surrendered with the cottage which he in- 
 habited, and the enjoyment of them consequently 
 depended on the permission of the landowners of 
 the parish, whose property the waste land within 
 its precincts in reality was. Early in the last 
 century, landed proprietors began to see with 
 regret the neglect of these extensive portions of 
 their estates, which might be made to add very 
 considerably to their incomes, and applications 
 were -made to Parliament for power to divide and 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTKY. 211 
 
 inclose them. Little opposition was made to pro- 
 positions apparently so well calculated to promote 
 the national welfare. More than two hundred 
 inclosure bills were passed in the reign of George 
 II., and between the date of the accession of 
 George III. and the year 1832, not less than 3,635 
 became law. A vast extent of territory has been 
 brought into cultivation, and great benefit it must 
 be allowed has accrued, not only to the owners but 
 to the bulk of the community ; but these advan- 
 tages have been obtained at the expense of one 
 unfortunate class, and that the one least able to 
 aiford it. In the great majority of parishes, the 
 agricultural labourer has been deprived of the right 
 of pasture, and with it of one of his chief sources 
 of wealth. He can scarcely ever keep a cow except 
 in districts in which the " allotment system" has 
 been lately revived, and has for the most part been 
 reduced to dependence on the scanty and precari- 
 ous wages of hired service. It is true that in 
 inclosure bills compensation is usually awarded 
 to every owner of common rights, but the compen- 
 sation is obtained ultimately, if not immediately, 
 by the proprietors, and not by the occupiers of 
 cottages. The land annexed to a cottage is soon 
 detached, and united to the adjoining farm, and 
 even where cottagers are owners of their own 
 dwellings, their allotments generally fall at last 
 into the hands of some rich neighbour. In ninety- 
 nine cases out of a hundred, the poor man has 
 lost his rights of common without any permanent 
 equivalent. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 When Goldsmith wrote, and indeed throughout 
 the first half of the reign of George III., the con- 
 dition of the English peasantry must have presented 
 a very melancholy aspect to all who could perceive 
 how much the foundations of their independence 
 were undermined. As far, however, as regarded 
 the actual supply of their physical wants, there was 
 as yet little reason to pity them. Prices of pro- 
 visions, and particularly of corn, were indeed higher 
 than they had been for many years, but the rise 
 was not very material, and the earnings of an 
 industrious labourer were in general sufficient to 
 secure to his family an adequate supply of the 
 necessaries of life, or if there were a deficiency, the 
 parish was in general ready to supply it. But with 
 the year 1795 commenced a new and distressful 
 era. The price of corn rose at once from 52s. to 
 74s. per quarter, and the average price during the 
 last six years of the century was 72s. 6c?., being 
 raised to that height principally by the prevalence 
 of bad seasons, both in England and on the Conti- 
 nent. This cause, and others arising out of the war 
 then raging, raised the price of other articles, as 
 well as of corn. Butcher's meat, beer, butter, and 
 cheese, became about twice as dear as before, and 
 coals and candles about one-third dearer. Clothing 
 and other manufactured articles, it is true, became 
 cheaper, and house-rent, probably, remained un- 
 altered; but on the whole, and considering how 
 small a part these items form of a poor man's ex- 
 penditure, it may be asserted that considerably 
 more than one half was added between 1795 and 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 213 
 
 1. 800 to the cost of the necessaries of life. In th9 mean 
 time, although the wages of some kinds of artisans 
 were slightly augmented, those of agricultural la- 
 bourers remained at their former rate; that is to 
 say, at about 7s. a week, on an average. No calcula- 
 tion is needed to show, that on such an income, in 
 such times, it was scarcely possible for a family to 
 subsist, and the Poor Laws were found to be no 
 longer adequate to afford the required assistance. 
 This arose from no defect of zeal on the part of 
 their administrators. Public opinion had undergone 
 a wonderful change since the time when the poor 
 were regarded as public nuisances, whom it was 
 allowable to get rid of by every possible means, and 
 it was now thought to be the duty of a community 
 to maintain all its members in comfort. The 
 justices of the peace, who by virtue of certain 
 enactments, framed with a very different view, 
 had taken upon themselves to order relief for 
 whomsoever they pleased out of the parish funds, 
 do not seem to have doubted their ability, with the 
 means at their disposal, to discharge this duty for 
 the community. Early in 1795, the magistrates of 
 Berkshire attempted to " settle the incomes of the 
 industrious poor," by issuing an edict which di- 
 rected parish officers to make up the wages of a 
 labourer to a sum varying with the price of bread, 
 and the numbers of his family, and the example 
 was followed in most of the southern counties. In 
 the following year an act was passed, formally in- 
 vesting the magistrates with the powers which they 
 had already begun to exercise, and enabling a single 
 
 p 3 
 
214 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 justice to order relief for any poor person at his or 
 her home ; and while discussing this bill, some of 
 the most eminent members of the House of Commons 
 took occasion to expound the principles by which, 
 in their judgment, the grant of relief ought to be 
 regulated. It was distinctly asserted by such men 
 as Pitt, Fox, and Whitbread, that a labourer's remu- 
 neration should be proportioned, not to his services, 
 but to his wants ; that a single man ought not to 
 be paid so much as a man with a family, and that 
 if the earnings of the latter were not sufficient for 
 his comfortable support, the deficiency ought to be 
 made up out of the poor's rate. Maxims, promul- 
 gated by such high authority, and coinciding so 
 exactly with the sentiments previously held by the 
 majority of the administrators of the Poor Laws, 
 were forthwith taken by the latter for their rule of 
 conduct, but it does not appear that any important 
 results followed immediately from their adoption. 
 The amount annually expended on the poor became 
 indeed about twice as great as previously to 1795, 
 but the difference was not more than proportionate 
 to the increased dearness of provisions, and could not 
 provide for the maintenance of an additional number 
 of persons. It was, in fact, impossible, when the 
 whole stock of food in the country was reduced 
 much below the usual quantity, to assign to every 
 individual his usual allowance, or to increase one 
 person's share without diminishing that of another ; 
 and as it can hardly be supposed that people in 
 easy circumstances curtailed their accustomed meals 
 in order to give to the poor, the evils of the scarcity 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 215 
 
 must have fallen almost exclusively upon the latter. 
 It is not, indeed, so long ago but that many persons 
 living can well recollect how severe the sufferings 
 of the labouring class were at that time, and with 
 what difficulty they contrived to struggle through 
 them. Their indigence was, however, too recent as 
 yet to produce those effects upon population, which 
 have been elsewhere ascribed to it. Wretchedness 
 must become habitual, in order to produce reck- 
 lessness and indifference to the future. While the 
 remembrance of happier times remains, happier 
 times may be looked for, and a man may wish to 
 wait till they arrive, before incurring fresh burdens. 
 It seems, nevertheless, to have been, not a diminution 
 in the number of marriages, but an increase of 
 mortality consequent upon extreme poverty, that 
 caused population to proceed at a somewhat slower 
 rate between 1790 and 1801 than during the de- 
 cennial period immediately preceding. The census 
 taken in the last-mentioned year showed the number 
 of inhabitants of England and Wales to be 9,1 68,000, 
 or not quite half a million more than the number 
 estimated in 1790. The increase in the ten years 
 after 1780 is supposed to have been 722,000. 
 
 Between 1801 and 1810, prices rose still higher 
 than before. The average price of corn was about 
 82s., and the cost of most other provisions in- 
 creased in as great or a greater proportion. Some 
 portion of the rise of prices was only apparent, 
 being occasioned by the depreciation of the cur- 
 rency consequent upon the Bank Restriction Act 
 of 1797, but, except in 1801 and 1802, when the 
 
 p 4 
 
216 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 price of gold rose about 8 per cent., the deprecia- 
 tion of money was as yet too trifling to have much 
 effect. Some compensation for the increased ex- 
 pense of living was however at last afforded to 
 several important sections of the labouring class 
 by very considerable additions to their earnings. 
 The continuance of the war, and England's pre- 
 eminence at sea, gave to this country a superiority 
 over her commercial rivals, which, by the genius and 
 inventions of Arkwright, Cartwright, and Watt, 
 was almost converted into a monopoly of foreign 
 trade. Britain became the workshop of the world, 
 and the greatly augmented demand for all kinds 
 of skilled and manufacturing labour, caused the 
 wages of artizans, and of most descriptions of 
 operatives, to rise, until, by the year 1810, they 
 were in general double what they had been twenty 
 years before. This improvement was, however, 
 almost confined to the towns, and was shared in 
 only a very small measure by the inhabitants of 
 the country. A vast extension of agriculture was 
 indeed occasioned by the exorbitant price of corn, 
 and much waste land was brought into cultivation, 
 but it is doubtful whether much additional em- 
 ployment was given, in consequence, to agricul- 
 tural labourers. The high profits of farming had 
 caused that business to be undertaken by a new 
 class of men ; and the small farmers of former 
 days were in a great measure supplanted by large 
 capitalists, renting each his one or two thousand 
 acres. 
 
 By these, more expensive and more scientific 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 217 
 
 implements and processes were introduced,/ and 
 the productiveness of the soil was probably in- 
 creased, but at the same time a saving of labour 
 was effected, which rendered the services of a 
 smaller number of persons necessary. In spite 
 then of the extension of tillage, the wages of agri- 
 cultural labourers might very probably have re- 
 mained stationary, if an upward direction had not 
 been given to them by the operation of the Poor 
 Laws. The principles which in the last years 
 of the preceding century had been admitted into 
 the theory as well as the practice of these laws, 
 were still as fashionable as ever, and the wealth 
 which commerce was rapidly pouring into the 
 country, furnished much more abundant means 
 of carrying them into effect. The amount ex- 
 pended annually on the poor, rose again about 50 
 per cent., or from about four to six millions sterling, 
 and the provision thus made for a portion of the 
 class of agricultural labourers, enabled the re- 
 mainder to demand, and to obtain, an increase of 
 wages. Their earnings were augmented by about 
 one half, rising to, perhaps, 10s. a week on an 
 average, though it is difficult to ascertain the 
 average of rates which vary so greatly in different 
 counties. But this augmentation of wages, dispro- 
 portionate as it was to the advance of prices, was 
 far from restoring agricultural labourers to the 
 position they had occupied before the war broke 
 out, or from relieving them from the necessity of 
 still enduring very severe privations. Their dis- 
 comfort was moreover aggravated, by a circum- 
 
218 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 stance independent of the scantiness of their 
 incomes. Until recently, it had been common for 
 farm-servants, even when married and living in 
 their own cottages, to take their meals with their 
 master ; and, what was of more consequence, in 
 every farm-house, many unmarried servants of 
 both sexes were lodged as well as boarded. The 
 latter, therefore, even if ill paid, might be tolerably 
 housed and fed, and many of them no doubt fared 
 much better than they could have done if they had 
 been left to provide for themselves with treble 
 their actual wages. All had at least an example 
 of good living before them, which, if they did not 
 otherwise benefit by it, could not fail to have a 
 salutary effect in raising their ideas of comfort, 
 ancl rendering them unwilling to place themselves 
 in a position in which those ideas could not pos- 
 sibly be realised. 
 
 It was only men of simple manners, however, 
 who could consent to associate so familiarly with 
 their servants. When gentlemen became farmers, 
 few besides domestic servants were admitted into 
 the house ; the others received a pecuniary allow- 
 ance in lieu of their old privileges of board and 
 lodging, and were left to obtain these as they could. 
 It will be easily understood, that this banishment 
 from the farm-house must have been keenly felt, 
 and that the rustic bachelor, whether he attempted 
 to keep house for himself, or lodged with a stran- 
 ger's family, must have found a cheerless home 
 on his return from work in the fields. So dis- 
 agreeable a situation, he may have thought, could 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 219 
 
 scarcely become worse, and bad as it was, he c<zuld 
 scarcely hope that time would improve it ; so that 
 if he fancied a wife would enliven his solitude, 
 he had little inducement to balk his inclinations, 
 or to wait till a more suitable moment should 
 arrive for gratifying them. One circumstance, it 
 should be mentioned, which might have compelled 
 him to delay his marriage, viz., the difficulty of 
 procuring a separate habitation, now no longer 
 existed. To pay the rent of a poor cottager had 
 become a very common mode of affording him 
 parochial relief, and parish overseers and vestry- 
 men had discovered, that a very lucrative property 
 might be created by building cottages for the poor. 
 This was not the only mode in which the en- 
 couragement afforded to marriage by the Poor Laws 
 had of late been materially increased. Although 
 ever since the middle of the eighteenth century it 
 had been more or less usual to extend gratuitous 
 assistance from the parish funds to men with large 
 families whose earnings were insufficient for their 
 comfortable support, the practice was not legalised 
 until 1796, and until that year no able-bodied per- 
 son, not being an inmate of a workhouse, could 
 demand relief, however little difficulty there might 
 be in obtaining it ; but in a very few years afterwards 
 the plan recommended by the Berkshire magistrates 
 and by Mr. Pitt, became very generally acted upon 
 throughout the country. Heads of families were 
 assumed to be entitled to certain incomes, varying 
 with the number of mouths they had to feed ; and 
 if any one's wages were unequal to the amount 
 
220 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 considered to be his due, the parish readily made 
 up the deficiency. Thenceforward a poor man 
 might lay aside all thought for to-morrow, and 
 solace himself with the belief, that whatever family 
 he might bring around him, he should be main- 
 tained in the position which he actually occupied ; 
 nay, it might almost be said that a positive bounty 
 was placed on procreation, for as the more children 
 a man had, the more money he received, a large 
 family might be regarded as a source of wealth. 
 Even this was not all. If any resolute bachelor 
 were found capable of withstanding every tempta- 
 tion to marriage, and anxious to gain a livelihood 
 by other means than by begetting a pauper pro- 
 geny, it often happened that no choice was offered 
 to him. If married and single men were applying 
 for work at the same time, the farmers sagely 
 argued, that as the former would be the heaviest 
 burden on the poor-rates, it would be most politic 
 to enable them to earn something for themselves, 
 and the rejected bachelor found that he would not 
 be allowed to maintain himself unless he first got a 
 wife and children for the parish to maintain. 
 
 The carelessness arising in part from extreme in- 
 digence, and produced in part by the influence of 
 the Poor Laws, no doubt augmented exceedingly 
 the frequency of marriage among certain classes ; 
 but it is not asserted that this is the sole or even 
 the principal cause of the vast progress which popu- 
 tion has made during the present century, as well 
 as during the latter part of the preceding one. The 
 imprudent marriages of the poor can only augment 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 221 
 
 the numbers of their own class, but between 1801 
 and 1811 the number of inhabitants of England 
 and Wales rose from 8,872,980 to 10,150,615, a 
 difference of 1,277,635, and it would be ridiculous 
 to imagine that this immense addition was made to 
 the number of persons destitute of adequate means 
 of support. Although some important sections of 
 the people became impoverished, the aggregate 
 wealth of the nation was fast and steadily increasing*, 
 
 * The fact of the great and continued increase of the national 
 wealth during this period cannot, I think, be reasonably ques- 
 tioned ; yet it seems irreconcileable with the evidence of docu- 
 ments which are commonly appealed to as the best authorities. 
 I allude to the Parliamentary Returns. 
 
 Increase of national wealth, it must be premised, implies in- 
 crease of national income. A nation can scarcely, like an indi- 
 vidual, grow rich by mere parsimony, for it must always expend 
 the whole, or nearly the whole, of its average income. When an 
 individual is said to save, it is not usually understood that he lays 
 his savings by, and suffers them to remain idle ; he commonly either 
 employs, that is to say, expends them, in his own business, or 
 lends them at interest to be employed or expended by others. 
 At any rate, it is only money, plate, and jewels that are, strictly 
 speaking, hoarded ; for no man in his senses goes on filling 
 warehouse after warehouse with bulky goods, to serve for his 
 consumption in far distant years. Unless he has reason to think 
 he can profitably dispose of the surplus, he produces little more 
 than may suffice for present use. But money, plate, and jewels 
 constitute only a very insignificant item in national property, 
 which consists chiefly of bulky articles, provisions, manufac- 
 tures, buildings, ships, and raw materials, the annual production 
 of all of which is proportioned as nearly as possible to the ex- 
 pected annual consumption. The only articles that can be 
 called permanent acquisitions are those which, from their dura- 
 ble character, may remain long in use without being destroyed. 
 But accessions of wealth of this kind, however conducive to the 
 
222 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 and most of the miscellaneous classes that were 
 benefited by this increase of wealth, became en- 
 larged in proportion as additional means of subsist- 
 ence were supplied to them. The increase of popu- 
 lation was therefore in a great measure owing to the 
 increase of the means of subsistence, and if it had been 
 no more than proportionate to this latter increase, 
 
 convenience of the inhabitants, add nothing to a country's pro- 
 ductive resources, or to the means of subsistence, except in so 
 far as they occasion an increase in the national income. 
 
 Now, a little reflection will show, that national income cannot 
 possibly be augmented except in two modes, viz., either by an 
 increase of the produce of the native soil, or by an increase of 
 foreign imports. But although, during the first ten years of the 
 present century, British agriculture was undoubtedly very 
 greatly extended and very greatly improved, the good effects 
 of this progress were, in a great measure, counterbalanced by the 
 frequency of deficient harvests, so that probably no considerable 
 addition was made to the average annual amount of native 
 agricultural produce. The principal increase must apparently, 
 therefore, have taken place in foreign imports ; but this con- 
 clusion is contradicted by the Returns of Trade, laid before 
 Parliament. In these the official value of imports into Great 
 Britain, which, though affording no clue to their real value, is 
 considered a tolerable index to the relative quantities of the goods 
 imported, is stated to have been, 
 In 1801 - ^30,435,268 In 1806 - ^25,554,478 
 
 1802 28,308,373 1807 - 25,326,845 
 
 1803 25,104,541 1808 - 25,660,953 
 
 1804 26,454,281 1809 - 30,170,292 
 
 1805 27,334,020 1810 - 37,663,284 
 It would thus appear that the quantity of goods imported in 
 1801 was greater than in any other year previous to 1810. But 
 if this was really the case, how could the national income be 
 continually increasing ? This apparent inconsistency may, per- 
 haps, be easily explained by persons better versed in statistics, 
 but I must confess myself fairly puzzled by it. 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 223 
 
 it would have been a national blessing rather than 
 an evil ; but that it greatly exceeded these just 
 limits is manifest from the simultaneous extension 
 of pauperism and indigence, and it cannot be 
 doubted that the principal source of the excess was 
 the frequency of marriage among the poor. An- 
 other cause, however, that sensibly contributed to 
 the same result, must not be overlooked. There 
 was already a by no means inconsiderable influx of 
 Irish labourers, who could not, of course, obtain 
 employment without depressing, or at least keeping 
 down, the wages of labour, and compelling some of 
 their English competitors to have recourse to the 
 poor's-rates. 
 
 From the beginning of the year 1811 to the pa- 
 cification of 1814, prices underwent no reduction, 
 and were indeed apparently much increased, the 
 average price of corn, for example, rising to 100s. 
 The wages of labour, however, likewise rose to 12s. 
 in 1811, and to 14s. in 1812, and remained at the 
 same height during the two following years ; and 
 although the rise, like that of prices, was in part 
 only nominal, and produced by the depreciation of 
 the currency (which was 8 per cent, in 1811, and 
 from 20 to 25 per cent, in 1812, 1813, and 1814), 
 it was also in part a real and substantial benefit to 
 the labourer. The value of the currency was 
 not entirely restored until 1821, but subsequently 
 to 1817 the depreciation was too trifling to have 
 much influence upon prices, which were further 
 depressed in consequence of the cessation of the 
 political causes that had contributed to enhance 
 
224 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 them during the war. The average price of corn 
 during the six years ending with 1 820 consequently 
 fell to 775., and the price of most other necessaries 
 fell with it. On the other hand, the average of 
 agricultural wages also fell to 12s. in 1815, and 
 remained at about the same level until the end of 
 1820, but the fall being less than the fall of prices, 
 not only did not cause a deterioration of the la- 
 bourer's condition, but left it even somewhat im- 
 proved. On the whole, therefore, it appears, that 
 independently both of the fall of prices and of the 
 effects of a depreciated currency, agricultural wages 
 were considerably higher between 1811 and 1820, 
 than in the ten years immediately preceding. That 
 they should have become so at a time when every 
 village was swarming with people out of employ- 
 ment, is an anomaly which cannot, perhaps, be ex- 
 plained except by reference to the cause which has 
 already been mentioned as having formerly pro- 
 duced similar phenomena, viz. the influence of the 
 Poor Laws. The profusion which had long cha- 
 racterised the administration of those laws, was 
 not only unchecked, but, though assuredly needing 
 no additional stimulus, was fondly encouraged by 
 the legislature. In 1815, an Act, commonly styled 
 East's Act, was passed, which, as if it were not 
 enough that justices of the peace could order relief 
 for whomsoever they pleased, as often as they 
 pleased, empowered them further to order such 
 relief to be continued for three months together ; 
 and not content with allowing the poor to be re- 
 lieved at their own homes instead of in a work- 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 225 
 
 house, when the justices saw fit, now expressly de- 
 clared that they should not be required to enter a 
 workhouse, but should receive relief at home as 
 matter of right. The historical importance of this 
 law, like that of most similar documents, lies less 
 in its own positive injunctions than in the light 
 which it throws on the opinions and principles ge- 
 nerally current at the time it was framed ; and with 
 such a proof before us of the prodigal liberality 
 with which the poor were treated, we may at first 
 be disposed to wonder that the amount expended 
 on them did not increase more rapidly than it actually 
 did. The amount of poor's rates, which was probably 
 about six millions sterling in 1810, was not more 
 than 7,330,254. in 1820; but in consequence of 
 the fall of prices, the additional relief granted was 
 really much greater than these figures indicate. 
 Six millions sterling in 1810 would purchase only 
 1,132,075 quarters of wheat, whereas 2,155,957 
 quarters might have been purchased for 7,330,256. 
 in 1820 ; and it may be presumed, that pauperism 
 had advanced in the interval in something like the 
 same proportion. If it be considered further, that 
 the independent labourer, notwithstanding the re- 
 cent amelioration of his condition, was still very 
 scantily supplied with the necessaries of life, it will 
 be seen that the two causes which have been men- 
 tioned as the chief incentives to thoughtless mar- 
 riages were still in existence. It may also be seen, 
 that they were acting with unusual force. The 
 census of 1821 showed the number of inhabitants 
 of England and Wales to be 11, 978,875, or 1,828,260 
 
 Q 
 
226 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 more than in 1811. So vast an accession of popu- 
 lation in so short a space of time, and in a territory 
 of the same extent, was, perhaps, never made in any 
 other country ; at least nothing equal to it ever 
 occurred either in the United States or in Ireland. 
 The greater part of it may, perhaps, be ascribed to 
 the progress of national wealth, and a further por- 
 tion was, no doubt, the result of immigration from 
 Ireland ; but after making every possible deduction 
 on these accounts, there is still an immense re- 
 mainder, which may fairly be regarded as the effect 
 partly of poverty and partly of a mismanaged pro- 
 vision for the poor. 
 
 A somewhat similar explanation may be given of 
 the still greater progress of population in the next 
 decennial period, during which the indigence of a 
 considerable class remained unabated, and the abuses 
 of poor law administration unconnected, while the 
 aggregate wealth of the country increased faster 
 than ever, and extraordinary facilities were afforded 
 to immigrants by the more general use of steam 
 navigation. At the census of 1831, the number of 
 inhabitants in England and Wales was found to be 
 13,894,574, an increase of not less than 1,915,699 
 since 1821. Subsequently to 1820, prices of pro- 
 visions had continued to fall, the average price of 
 corn during the ten years ending with 1830 being 
 only 59^. the quarter, but agricultural wages had 
 likewise suffered a decline, the average, which had 
 been 125. a week in 1820, having sunk to 105. in 
 1821, and to 9s. in 1823, and not having risen above 
 115. during the next seven years. The principal 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 227 
 
 cause of this decline was the pecuniary distress of 
 the farmers, occasioned by the decreased value of 
 their produce, which compelled them to contract as 
 much as possible the expenses of cultivation. The 
 cheapness of provisions, however, which led the 
 farmers to attempt a reduction of wages, also 
 assisted them in effecting their object. A smaller 
 sum being required for a pauper's maintenance, and 
 less being consequently assigned for the purpose, 
 the independent labourer could no longer command 
 his former wages by threatening to throw himself 
 upon the parish, for, rather than take this step, it 
 was better for him to submit to a certain reduction.* 
 Still, from a comparison of wages and prices, it 
 does not appear that the labourer's condition was 
 now further deteriorated : on the contrary, it was 
 probably, if any thing, a little improved, though 
 the alteration either way was too small to deserve 
 notice. The impulse which population receives 
 from poverty had consequently lost little, if any 
 thing, of its force, and the encouragement afforded 
 
 * It cannot be denied that in this instance the rate of wages 
 was in part determined by the price of provisions, but this can 
 only happen where the circumstances which naturally regulate 
 the price of labour are arbitrarily interfered with. When the 
 money price of labour is suffered to adjust itself according to 
 the proportion between the supply and the demand, it will re- 
 main unaffected by any variations in the prices of provisions or 
 other commodities. But where, by means of a poor law, wages 
 are raised above their natural level, and are forced up to a sum 
 sufficient to purchase a certain quantity of necessaries, they may 
 be expected to fall whenever a fall of prices reduces the sum 
 required for that purpose. 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 by the poor laws was likewise still as strong as 
 ever. It might therefore have been expected, that 
 the amount expended in the relief of pauperism 
 would have increased ; but this was not the case. 
 Whether calculated in pounds sterling, or in quar- 
 ters of wheat, the amount so expended was greater 
 in the first than in the last year of the series, or 
 than in any of the intervening years, with one sin- 
 gle exception. From this it would appear, that 
 although pauperism undoubtedly increased consi- 
 derably in several counties, the increase was more 
 than counterbalanced by the decrease in others, and 
 that population, notwithstanding its wonderful pro- 
 gress, did not become more redundant. Neither 
 the aggregate number, nor the necessities of the 
 poor, received any augmentation. This can only be 
 accounted for by supposing that the wealth and 
 resources of the country increased as fast as the 
 population, and it is certain that they did increase 
 with unexampled rapidity. The national income 
 had never been so copiously supplied from each of 
 the sources from which it has been shown to be 
 derived. On the one hand, the productiveness of 
 the soil had been so much augmented, that notwith- 
 standing the vast addition made to the numbers of 
 the people, the corn consumed by them in 1821, 
 1822, and 1823, though supplied in abundance, and 
 at a moderate rate, was almost exclusively of home 
 growth, a phenomenon that had not occurred for 
 more than thirty years. In 1824 and 1825 also, 
 the imports of foreign corn were not very consider- 
 able. On the other hand, the official value of foreign 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 229 
 
 imports of all kinds rose from 27,769,122/. in 1821, 
 to 44,815,397^. in 1830, an advance to which, if it 
 were not altogether unprecedented, at least no pa- 
 rallel can be found in the Parliamentary Eeturns 
 of preceding years. 
 
 The causes, whatever they may have been, which 
 between 1821 and 1830 prevented an increase of 
 the expenditure upon the poor, continued to act in 
 the four years next succeeding, in no one of which 
 was the pecuniary amount so great as in 1820, nor 
 the corresponding value in wheat so great as in 
 1822. Owing, however, to the low price of agricul- 
 tural produce, the same amount of poor's rates 
 as had once been easily borne, had now become 
 an almost intolerable burthen on the land. On 
 many estates, chiefly in the southern counties, the 
 rates swallowed up nearly the whole rent, and it 
 was evident that, if much more increased, they would 
 cause the land to be abandoned, through the im- 
 possibility of cultivating it without loss. In some 
 instances this result had already happened, and in 
 particular one entire parish, that of Cholesbury, in 
 Buckinghamshire, had been absolutely deserted by 
 the proprietor. Meanwhile the demoralisation of 
 the lazy, insolent paupers, who lived at ease at the 
 expense of the industrious, was daily becoming more 
 conspicuous, and frequent outrages, equally brutal 
 and cowardly, committed upon those who attempted 
 to bridle their license, showed to what lengths they 
 were prepared to go on the slightest provocation, and 
 how little they retained of those sterling qualities 
 for which the English peasantry had once been 
 
230 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 renowned. In short, a crisis was at hand, which 
 it was obvious would, unless averted, utterly over- 
 throw the national greatness, leave the country a 
 prey to anarchy and disorder, and reduce all classes 
 of the people to misery. The approach of these 
 calamities had long been perceived ; but ordinary 
 minds shrank from a struggle with evils of such 
 magnitude, and successive statesmen held the helm 
 of government without making one vigorous effort to 
 steer the vessel of the state from the breakers upon 
 which she was fast driving. Happily, the direction 
 of affairs was at last entrusted to abler hands; 
 and stronger heads were invited to consult on the 
 measures which the dangers of the times required. 
 After two years spent in anxious and careful deli- 
 beration, a plan for the removal of the existing 
 evil was submitted to Parliament, and being carried 
 through both Houses by great majorities, received 
 the royal assent on the 14th August, 1834, and 
 became the celebrated Poor Law Amendment Act. 
 Without entering into a detailed account of this 
 memorable statute, it will be sufficient to state, that 
 its fundamental principle is the necessity of making 
 the condition of the dependent pauper less agreeable 
 than that of the independent labourer, and that a 
 principal means by which this principle is proposed 
 to be enforced, is the refusal of parochial relief to 
 the able-bodied elsewhere than within the walls of a 
 workhouse. No time was lost in carrying the new 
 law into effect. In less than a year after its enact- 
 ment it was in active operation in 112 unions, 
 comprehending 2,066 parishes, and one tenth of the 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTKY. 231 
 
 whole population of England and Wales. The 
 change produced by its introduction was ^almost 
 magical. The first unions were intentionally formed 
 in the most intensely pauperised districts, in which 
 there had previously seemed to be the most decided 
 symptoms of over-population. Scarcely a parish 
 could have been found amongst them, in which 
 there were not some able-bodied labourers out of 
 employment, and in many places a hundred and 
 more were entirely supported, during one half of 
 the year, at the expense of the parish. When, 
 however, these men found that they would no 
 longer be allowed to spend their days basking in 
 the sun, or playing at pitch and toss, and their 
 evenings in the alehouse, but must either submit 
 to the confinement and discipline of a workhouse, 
 or earn a livelihood by their own labour, it soon 
 appeared that the latter alternative was attended 
 with little real difficulty : very few who could work 
 were really unable to procure employment, and 
 compelled to apply for parochial relief. In the 
 county of Sussex, for example, in which, in 1834, 
 there had been 6160 able-bodied paupers, there 
 were only 124 remaining in the summer of 1835: 
 in four unions in Kent, the number was reduced 
 from 954 to 5. All the rest found means of 
 providing for themselves, and most of them without 
 leaving their respective parishes. It appeared, after 
 searching inquiries, that only about half a dozen 
 men in each of the Kentish unions had quitted it 
 in search of work elsewhere, and these were fellows 
 whom no one would trust, and who were obliged to 
 
 Q 4 
 
232 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 go to other places to renew their characters. One 
 or two of them had been tempted, by the prospect 
 of pay and glory, to enter the service of the Queen 
 of Spain. Indeed, except from Suffolk and Buck- 
 inghamshire, from which about 200 families were 
 persuaded to remove to the manufacturing districts, 
 no considerable migration of agricultural labourers 
 seems to have taken place from the southern coun- 
 ties.* Almost the whole of them remained in their 
 native villages, but nevertheless found means of 
 keeping themselves out of the workhouse. It is 
 deserving of notice, that the absorption of so much 
 additional labour was not accompanied by any 
 reduction of wages. This might not be difficult to 
 account for, in places in which it had been usual to 
 eke out wages from the poor's rates, and to pay all 
 men, whether industrious or idle, alike, or at 
 least without reference to any other distinction than 
 their wants. There, the reclaimed paupers might 
 be receiving the same sums as before, because, after 
 they ceased to be chargeable to the parish, the funds 
 for the remuneration of labour would be increased 
 exactly as much as the poor's rates were diminished. 
 But in many parishes it had been usual to make a 
 difference, though generally only a small one, be- 
 tween paupers and independent labourers ; and here 
 it might have been expected, that the competition 
 of the latter, when thrown upon their own resources, 
 would lower the rate of wages. If, for example, 
 where an industrious man could earn 12$. a week, 
 
 * Mr. Muggeridge's Report to Poor Law Commissioners 
 on Home Migration. 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 233 
 
 the weekly allowances made to paupers were 10s. 
 each, the farmers would save only 10s. in poor's 
 rates for every one of the latter who ceased to be 
 chargeable to the parish, and could not, it may be 
 thought, pay him a larger sum in wages, without 
 paying less to their other labourers. It appears, 
 however, that when the remuneration of the quon- 
 dam paupers was made to depend upon the value 
 of their services, they exerted themselves accord- 
 ingly, and their industry created new funds for its own 
 recompense. The produce of labour became larger 
 than before, and the farmers were enabled to ap- 
 propriate a larger portion of this produce to the 
 payment of wages, and were induced to do so by 
 the wish to keep to themselves labour which had 
 now become so profitable. 
 
 Although, however, the symptoms of over-popu- 
 lation were so much lessened, it must not be ima- 
 gined that they had been altogether deceptive. 
 Work had been shown to exist for most of those 
 who required it, but there were still a few persons 
 who, being unable to procure employment, were 
 obliged to take refuge in the workhouse. The 
 earnings of the employed also, though sufficient for 
 subsistence, were, in many parts of the country, 
 inadequate to satisfy even the most moderate ideas 
 of comfort. Besides, it must be observed, that the 
 New Poor Law was introduced at a peculiarly favour- 
 able juncture. The unusually abundant harvests of 
 1835 and 1836 not only lowered the prices of pro- 
 visions, but, added to the unnatural activity pre- 
 vailing in the manufacturing districts, created an 
 
234 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 almost unexampled amount of employment. The 
 temporary prosperity proceeding from those sources 
 was followed by a cruel reaction. The distress of 
 the manufacturing classes in the years 1840, 1841, 
 and 1842, which has been already described, caused 
 less attention to be paid to the condition of agricul- 
 tural labourers, but the latter also had to endure 
 privations, which, if somewhat less severe at the 
 time, have been far more lasting. Their employers," 
 the farmers, had been impoverished in 1835 and 
 1836 by the very abundance and cheapness of 
 provisions, which to other classes were unalloyed 
 blessings, and would thus have been disabled from 
 employing so much labour as before, even if less 
 had not sufficed to gather in the comparatively 
 scanty crops of subsequent years. The labourers 
 were therefore injured in two ways, by the de- 
 crease of their earnings, and by the enhanced price 
 of necessaries ; and although the farmers meanwhile 
 were enabled partially to repair their previous losses, 
 they were soon afterwards depressed lower than 
 ever in consequence of the alteration of the corn 
 laws in 1842. The facilities afforded by that mea- 
 sure to the importation of foreign corn have per- 
 manently reduced the price of agricultural produce 
 so much, that farmers have, in many instances, 
 found it impossible to pay their former rents with- 
 out reducing other items of expenditure. Of these 
 the largest, and at the same time the one most 
 completely under the farmer's control, is labour. 
 Less labour has of late been employed in agricul- 
 ture, and what has been employed has been paid for 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 235 
 
 at lower rates. Wages have fallen, and the number 
 of men out of employment has increased, and both 
 these phenomena were especially perceptible in the 
 spring and summer of last year (1844). To the 
 effects of the poverty of the farmers were then 
 added those of a long-continued drought, which 
 put an almost entire stop to many operations of 
 husbandry, so that in what is commonly one of the 
 busiest seasons, numbers of able-bodied men were 
 idling about, vainly offering to work for a shilling 
 a day, and in many instances manifested their dis- 
 appointment by setting fire to barns and hayricks. 
 Thus, since 1837, the condition of agricultural 
 labourers in many parts of England has been un- 
 questionably deteriorated, and the recklessness 
 arising from this cause has probably made up in a 
 great measure for the cessation of the impulse for- 
 merly given to population by the mal-administra- 
 tion of the poor laws. In this way may fairly be 
 accounted for a considerable part of the progress 
 which population made between 1836 and 1841, 
 and a farther portion must be attributed to the 
 influx of Irish immigrants, the extent of which may 
 be estimated from the fact, that at the date of the 
 last census the number of persons of Irish birth 
 dwelling in Great Britain was no less than 419,256. 
 These two are perhaps the only causes of any ex- 
 cessive increase of population that may have taken 
 place in this decennial period the only causes, 
 that is, why population increased faster than the 
 means of subsistence. That it did so to a certain 
 extent is placed beyond doubt, both by the severer 
 
236 HISTORY OF THE 
 
 and more extended distress observable among cer- 
 tain classes, and by the absolute amount of the 
 increase itself, which at the last census was found 
 to have been not less than 2,009,642 in the pre- 
 ceding ten years. During the same period, how- 
 ever, the value of foreign goods imported had 
 advanced from 48,161,661^. to 62,684,587^., so that 
 the greater part of this vast increase in the numbers 
 of the people seems to have been the legitimate con- 
 sequence of the increase of the national resources. 
 
 It is easier to point out the general causes which 
 have rendered the whole population of the country 
 redundant, than to distinguish the particular cir- 
 cumstances which have caused the redundancy 
 to be more remarkable in some districts than in 
 others. Those counties, however, in which the 
 class of agricultural labourers is most depressed, 
 have all one thing in common. Each of them was 
 formerly the seat of a flourishing manufacture 
 carried on by the cottagers at their own homes, 
 which has now decayed, or been withdrawn to 
 other situations. Thus, in Buckinghamshire and 
 Bedfordshire, the wives and children of labouring 
 men had formerly very profitable occupation in 
 making lace and straw-plait. During the last war, 
 a tolerable lace-maker, working eight hours a-day, 
 could easily earn 10s. or 125. a-week, and at straw- 
 plaiting, there were examples of women earning 
 as much as 22s. a-week. The profits of both 
 employments have since been so much reduced by 
 the use of machinery, and the competition of Leg- 
 horn hats and bonnets, that a pillow-lace-maker 
 
ENGLISH PEASANTRY. 237 
 
 must now work twelve hours daily to earn 25. 6d. 
 a- week, and a straw-plaiter is not very much 
 better paid. It is possible that these manufactures, 
 growing up as they no doubt did very gradually, 
 and presenting a new means of defraying part of 
 a family's expenses, may have promoted population, 
 by inducing labourers to marry sooner than they 
 would have done if they had been entirely dependent 
 on their own wages. If this were the case, the rate 
 of agricultural wages must have fallen in conse- 
 quence, and when, after the decay of the domestic 
 manufactures, those wages became the main stay 
 of a family, their deficiency would of course be 
 more decided than elsewhere. 
 
 A similar explanation may be offered with re- 
 spect to Dorsetshire, where the making of wire 
 shirt-buttons (now in a great measure superseded 
 by the use of mother-of-pearl) once employed great 
 numbers of women and children. At several 
 places in Wiltshire, Somersetshire, Gloucestershire, 
 and others of the western counties, most of the 
 cottagers fifty years ago were weavers, whose chief 
 dependence was their looms, though they worked 
 in the fields at harvest-time and other busy seasons. 
 By so doing, they kept down the wages of agricul- 
 tural labourers who had no other employment, 
 and now that they have themselves become depen- 
 dent upon agriculture in consequence of the re- 
 moval of the woollen manufacture from the cottage 
 to the factory, these reduced wages have become 
 their own portion also. 
 
 In this attempt to explain the excessive increase 
 
238 OVER-POPULATION 
 
 of population in England and Wales, the reader's 
 attention has been directed almost exclusively to 
 the condition of the peasantry, because it is sus- 
 pected that the population of towns is rarely in- 
 creased faster than the means of subsistence, except 
 by immigration from rural districts. Further in- 
 quiries it must be confessed are wanting for the 
 satisfactory determination of this question, but 
 several considerations seem to warrant the opinion 
 just expressed. Town residents have not the same 
 inducements to marry as dwellers in the country. 
 Independently of the greater facilities they possess 
 for the criminal gratification of their passions, 
 they have freer access to society and to various 
 amusements, which take them a good deal away from 
 home, and enable them better to dispense with 
 domestic comfort. * If, however, in spite of every 
 motive for remaining single they do marry, with 
 insufficient means, the foul atmosphere of the 
 crowded localities in which they are for the most 
 part obliged to live, heightening the effect of in- 
 sufficiency of food and clothing, occasions a mor- 
 tality among their children, which generally pre- 
 vents any considerable increase of population from 
 
 * It is no refutation of this argument that in Glasgow, 
 Manchester, and other large manufacturing towns, the number 
 of marriages, in proportion to the population, is extraordinarily- 
 great. Owing to the continual influx of operatives, the pro- 
 portion of inhabitants of marriageable age is much larger in 
 such towns than elsewhere; so that, notwithstanding the in- 
 creased force of dissuasives from matrimony, it is not very 
 wonderful that marriages are unusually frequent. 
 
IN ENGLISH TOWNS. 239 
 
 this source. Numerous towns both at home and 
 abroad might be instanced, in which population 
 has remained stationary, or nearly so, for several 
 generations, although in all towns, probably, the 
 number of strangers entering in search of employ- 
 ment is always greater than that of the natives 
 leaving on the same errand. Bruges and Kome 
 are good examples. The records of births and 
 deaths in the former, from 1700 to 1814, show 
 a natural increase of only 8214 in 114 years, 
 that is, an annual average increase of 2 in 1000. * 
 In the latter, though that city be the resort of 
 multitudes of beggars, ever flocking in from the 
 country round, the population was actually de- 
 creasing for some years previously to 1842. f 
 The case of Amsterdam is very similar. In the 
 twelve years ending with 1832, the average annual 
 number of deaths was 7336 ; of births, only 
 7282. J In places in which population is long 
 stationary, the means of subsistence may also be 
 presumed to fluctuate little in amount, but even 
 where these are rapidly increasing, and are attract- 
 ing thousands of settlers from without, the increase 
 of population from natural causes is often exceed- 
 ingly small. In two of the most thriving towns 
 of Great Britain, Liverpool and Bristol, it is, as 
 we have already seen, absolutely nothing, the 
 annual deaths being more numerous than the 
 
 * Macculloch, Geog. Diet. 
 
 f Statistical Tables of Pop. of Rome, inserted in Athenaeum, 
 No. 886, 19th Oct. 1844. 
 
 J Chambers' Popular Statistics. 
 
240 OVER-POPULATION 
 
 births ; and the same result would no doubt be 
 exhibited in many other places, if we had state- 
 ments of births and deaths in towns strictly so 
 called, apart from the healthy suburban districts 
 invariably associated with them in the Reports 
 of the Registrar-General. From one case, that of 
 the metropolis, in which we are enabled to sever 
 this connection, we may judge of the erroneous 
 conclusions to which the statements respecting 
 other great towns are likely to lead. 
 
 In what is called the metropolitan district, ex- 
 tending from Kensington to Greenwich, and from 
 the foot of Highgate-hill to Camberwell, the 
 births, in 1840-41, exceeded the deaths by 8814; 
 but, if we confine ourselves to the quarters in 
 which the poor most thickly congregate, we shall 
 generally find that the deaths exceed the births. 
 This is the case in the subdivisions denominated 
 St. Martin's in the Fields, East and West London, 
 Whitechapel, St. Saviour's and St. Olave's, and 
 Greenwich. In St. George's Hanover-square, 
 Westminster, St. Giles and St. George, Strand, 
 Holborn, and the city of London, there is a slight 
 excess of births, too slight, however, to make up for 
 the deficiency in the first-named quarters. If, 
 then, in eleven out of the thirty sections into 
 which the metropolis is divided by the Registrar- 
 General, natural causes are not of themselves suf- 
 ficient to prevent a decrease in the number of in- 
 habitants, how much less likely are they to occa- 
 sion an increase in the still more crowded recesses 
 of Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham. 
 
IN ENGLISH TOWNS. 241 
 
 Although, however, it is not probable that the 
 urban population has been rendered excessive by 
 natural increase, another cause of over-population, 
 viz., the withdrawal from certain classes of part 
 of the funds formerly appropriated to their main- 
 tenance, has had some operation in most towns 
 of Great Britain in which textile manufactures are 
 carried on. Hand-loom weavers, who are gene- 
 rally to be found in greater or smaller numbers 
 in such towns, were once among the best paid, 
 whereas they have now become the very worst 
 paid of English operatives. The change is com- 
 monly ascribed to the introduction of the power- 
 loom, and there can be no doubt that it was partly 
 brought about by that circumstance. The use of 
 the improved machinery, though it occasioned a 
 vast augmentation of national wealth, and a 
 corresponding addition to the demand for labour, 
 lowered the price of fabrics produced by the hand- 
 loom, and must necessarily have likewise lessened 
 the earnings of hand-loom weavers. Only a small 
 part, however, of the distress of the latter can be 
 accounted for in this way ; for, long before power- 
 looms came into general use, the condition of the 
 hand-loom weavers had become very little better 
 than at present. So far back as 1808 they were 
 described, by a very competent witness *, as scarcely 
 able by unremitting labour to keep themselves 
 alive ; and from that year down to 1818, when the 
 
 * Mr. W. Radcliffe, cited by Macculloch, Statist, of Brit. 
 Empire, vol. ii. p. 84. 
 
 R 
 
242 OVER-POPULATION 
 
 power-loom was still a rarity, they never rose 
 again to a state of any thing like comfort. Their 
 depression seems, indeed, to have been principally 
 the result of the reaction consequent upon the 
 extrordinary prosperity they enjoyed in the inter- 
 val between 1788 and 1803. During that period 
 a weaver's income, derived from the united labour 
 of his family, ranged from 40s. to even 120s. a- 
 week ; but such earnings were too high to be last- 
 ing. Crowds of emigrants were attracted by them 
 into the manufacturing districts, beyond what the 
 demand for labour, considerable as it was, could 
 absorb ; and, as the business of the cotton-loom 
 is extremely easy, requiring little strength and 
 less skill, it was adopted by all who could find 
 nothing else to do, by boys and girls, as well by 
 adults. The rate of wages in this employment, 
 consequently, sank far below its level in every 
 other. Nevertheless, the long-established han^- 
 loom weavers continued from old habit to ply 
 their accustomed vocation, and although their 
 own receipts were fast diminishing, suffered the 
 well-paid situations in the factories to be occupied 
 for the most part by strangers. They have very 
 generally brought up their children to the same 
 decaying trade, and their numbers have been fur- 
 ther reinforced by the needy candidates for employ- 
 ment, common in most large towns, but particu- 
 larly numerous in the north of England, where 
 plenty of Irishmen are always ready to fill up 
 vacancies in the list of hand-loom weavers, as fast 
 
IN ENGLISH TOWNS. 243 
 
 as they occur. Thus is the race perpetuated, and 
 its misery prolonged. 
 
 In some other towns, chiefly in the southern and 
 midland counties, distress and over-population have 
 been produced by the transfer of manufactures 
 formerly carried on there to more advantageous 
 situations. This is an event whi'ch no foresight 
 could have prevented; but the over-population 
 created in this manner would be of short duration, 
 if the evil proceeded from this source alone. The 
 persons deprived of their accustomed means of sup- 
 port would necessarily be exposed for a time to 
 privations more~or less severe, but, unless recruited 
 from the*country, they would all probably ere long 
 discover n-ovv modes of getting a livelihood, and a 
 single generation would most likely suffice to re- 
 establish the former proportion between the supply 
 and the demand for labour. Their temporary suf- 
 ferings, however, may serve to show that, as has 
 been before observed, a diversion of industry from 
 its accustomed channels, even into others wider 
 and more commodious, is seldom an unmixed good, 
 but though, perhaps, a national blessing, is almost 
 always a curse to some individuals. 
 
 The disturbing influence of the poor laws renders 
 it more difficult in England than elsewhere, to trace 
 the tendency of poverty to augment population ; yet, 
 even here, the proofs of the reality of such a tendency 
 are sufficiently obvious. It will be recollected that 
 the peasantry, having, at the time of the Saxon 
 conquest, been placed in circumstances which se- 
 cured to them a competent livelihood, continued in 
 
 R 2 
 
244 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 the enjoyment of plenty until the reign of Henry VII. 
 Great numbers of them were then suddenly deprived 
 of their occupations, and were subjected to priva- 
 tions so severe as to counteract the recklessness 
 which ever accompanies extreme indigence, and to 
 occasion a decrease rather than an increase of po- 
 pulation. After the lapse of a century, the field of 
 employment was again enlarged, and all who chose 
 to labour were enabled to earn more than enough 
 to keep them alive, though too little to keep them 
 in comfort. The fecundity of poverty was then 
 allowed to produce permanent effects, and soon 
 covered the land with a fresh swarm of beggars, 
 for whom adequate provision was at length made by 
 the public, soon after the restoration of Charles II. 
 The poor laws, which then first came into active 
 operation, for a while relieved destitution without 
 greatly, or at least generally, impairing the utility 
 of prudence, and as long as they continued to act 
 in this manner, the progress of population was 
 decidedly retarded. But, about the middle of the 
 18th century, profusion became the distinguishing 
 characteristic of poor law administration, and of- 
 fered direct encouragement to the marriages of the 
 poor ; and this was, probably, the sole cause of the 
 excessive speed with which population proceeded 
 from that date to the commencement of the wars 
 of the French Revolution. Then, however, agri- 
 cultural labourers were again subjected to severe 
 privations, which, with only brief intermissions, 
 though with varying degrees of intensity, have con- 
 tinued to affect them ever since. It is during this 
 
KECAPITULATION. 245 
 
 last dreary period, that the largest accession has 
 been made both to the numbers of the people and 
 to the number of the poor; and although other 
 causes have contributed towards the result, the 
 coincidence may be fairly claimed as an illustration 
 of the tendency of poverty to increase the re- 
 dundancy of population. 
 
246 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CAUSES OP OVER-POPULATION IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. 
 
 Relations subsisting between Highland Chieftains and their 
 Clansmen in former Times. Decline of the clannish Feeling 
 after the Rebellion of 1745. Ejection of Highland Tenantry 
 and Formation of Sheep Farms. Decay of Kelp Manufac- 
 ture. Effects of Misery on the Character and Habits of the 
 Poor. Usual Explanation of the excessive Populousness of 
 Ireland its Incompleteness. Primeval Poverty of the 
 Irish Peasantry. Pastoral Occupation of the primitive Irish, 
 and of their Descendants, until the latter Part of the 1 8th 
 Century. Wretched State of the labouring Class down to 
 the same Epoch. Slight Improvement of their Condition, in 
 consequence of the Extension of Tillage. Effect of this 
 Improvement on Population. Contrast between Ulster and 
 the rest of Ireland. Tenant Right. Proneness of the Irish 
 Poor to early Marriage. 
 
 IN tracing the over-population of Scotland to its 
 source, it will not be necessary to review the earlier 
 portions of the social history of that country. A 
 reference to the events of recent years will suffice. 
 In the Lowlands the condition of the peasantry is 
 not only comfortable at present, but is said to have 
 improved very perceptibly within the last half 
 century ; and in the Highlands, where the signs of 
 over-population are too prominent to be overlooked, 
 they have become conspicuous only within a still 
 shorter period. 
 
 As long as the Highland chieftains retained and 
 valued their patriarchal influence, and preferred 
 the charms of solitary sway to the pleasures of 
 intercourse with equals, their incomes were spent 
 
HIGHLANDS. 247 
 
 entirely amongst their respective clans, and were 
 devoted chiefly to the maintenance of the largest 
 possible body of retainers. Such of their lands as 
 were not managed by their own servants, were 
 parcelled out among tenants, from whom the most 
 valuable returns expected were fidelity and obe- 
 dience. Most of the farmers, however, were free- 
 holders, who paid no rent whatever, and were only 
 liable to a contribution called calpe, in token of their 
 personal subordination to the chief. Single men 
 without property were maintained by the chief, or 
 by some of their richer clansmen, whom they 
 served in peace, and followed in war ; but no one 
 ever thought of marrying until, by inheriting a 
 farm or procuring the lease of one, he had got a 
 house of his own over his head. While these 
 usages prevailed, population could not increase 
 beyond the means of subsistence, and the poorest 
 Highlanders, secure from actual want, and inured 
 to hardships, lived happily and contentedly. 
 
 After the rebellion of 1745, however, the High- 
 landers were disarmed ; the use of their distinctive 
 garb was forbidden ; the hereditary jurisdictions of 
 their leaders were abolished, and by means of 
 military roads and English garrisons, the authority 
 of the general government was extended over every 
 part of their wild country. Many of their chiefs 
 fled, and those who remained soon became as un- 
 desirous as they were unable to resume their former 
 social position. There was no longer any motive 
 to maintain a crowd of dependents, who could 
 offer no effectual opposition to the law; and the 
 
 B 4 
 
248 PAST AND PKESENT 
 
 only advantage which a laird derived from the 
 populousness of his estate, consisted in the ability 
 to raise troops for the Crown, and so to obtain com- 
 missions for himself and his relatives. It was part 
 of the wise policy of the great Lord Chatham, to 
 allay the disaffection of the Highlanders, by raising 
 regiments of them for his Canadian expedition ; 
 and it is said that, at one time, a fifth part of the 
 men able to bear arms were in the army. When 
 this resource failed, the Highland lairds, who had now 
 imbibed a strong taste for the enjoyments of civilised 
 life, had to seek other modes of improving their 
 incomes, and for this purpose very extraordinary 
 facilities had of late been afforded to them. By a 
 series of changes the Highland tacksman, who was 
 originally co-proprietor of his land, had become at 
 first vassal, then hereditary tenant, and lastly 
 tenant-at-will of the chief, and the latter had been 
 declared by law absolute proprietor of the land 
 occupied by his clan. The chiefs did not hesitate 
 to avail themselves to the utmost of the advantages 
 thus conceded to them, and, with the view of 
 raising their rents, began to oust the tenants of the 
 small grazing farms into which the Highland 
 counties had been divided, in order to form ex- 
 tensive sheep-walks. To such an extent has this 
 been done, that in many places where once were 
 numerous black cattle farms, now not an inhabitant 
 is to be seen for miles. This was a revolution very si- 
 milar to the one which took place in England towards 
 the close of the 15th century, and would have been 
 followed immediately by the same melancholy conse- 
 
STATE OF THE HIGHLANDS. 249 
 
 quences, but for certain circumstances which served 
 for a time to furnish the dispossessed peasantry 
 with new means of employment and subsistence. 
 The construction of the Caledonian and Crinan 
 Canals, of roads and bridges, and other public 
 works, provided occupation for considerable num- 
 bers, and the pecuniary allowances made to volun- 
 teers during the last war, were also a very important 
 assistance. But the most valuable resource was 
 the manufacture of kelp, which attained to an 
 astonishing degree of prosperity during the war, 
 and drew off to the western coasts and islands the 
 bulk of those inhabitants of the inland districts, 
 who possessed no adequate means of livelihood at 
 home. After the repeal of the duty on salt in 1822, 
 however, the kelp manufacture rapidly declined, 
 and it is now almost wholly extinct, and its decay 
 has deprived multitudes of their principal means of 
 subsistence. * 
 
 Meantime the consolidation of farms is still going 
 on as actively as ever. It is only within the last 
 five and thirty years that the straths and glens of 
 Sutherland have been cleared of their inhabitants, 
 and that the whole county has been converted into 
 one immense sheepwalk, over which the traveller 
 may proceed for forty miles together without seeing 
 a tree or a stone wall, or anything but a heath 
 dotted with sheep and lambs, f Even the few cot- 
 
 * Skene's Highlanders of Scotland, vol. i. ch. 6. and 7. 
 Evidence taken by Highland Emigration Committee. Re- 
 port of Scottish Poor Law Commissioners. 
 
 f Reports of "Commissioner" of Times Newspaper, June, 1845. 
 
250 HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 tiers who remain are considered too numerous. If 
 an old couple dying leave a son behind, the latter is 
 permitted to marry, and to occupy the vacant dwel- 
 ling ; otherwise the cottage is pulled down, and its 
 land added to some adjacent tenement. The ex- 
 ample of Sutherland is imitated in the neighbour- 
 ing counties. During the last four years some 
 hundreds of families have been " weeded" out of 
 Ross-shire, and nearly four hundred more have re- 
 ceived notice to quit next year. Similar notice has 
 been given to thirty-four families in Cromarty, and 
 only the other day eighteen families who were living 
 in peace and comfort in Glencalvie, in Ross-shire, 
 were expelled from the farms occupied for ages by 
 themselves and their forefathers, to make room for 
 sheep. Little heeds the ruthless oppressor what be- 
 comes of such outcasts : " the nearest loch is deep 
 enough for them all." Lucky are they if they are 
 permitted to settle down on some desolate moor, 
 and obtain a temporary refuge there, until by cul- 
 tivation they have given to the soil value enough 
 to make it worth the landlord's while to drive them 
 off again. 
 
 These wholesale "clearances," as they are called, 
 are quite sufficient to account for the destitution of 
 the districts in which they have been effected ; but 
 misery in the Highlands exhibits its usual tendency 
 to perpetuate and extend itself. There, as else- 
 where, it is remarked that early marriages are most 
 frequent among the poorest of the people; and 
 wherever an excessive increase of population takes 
 place, it can generally be traced to the labouring 
 
IRELAND. 215 
 
 class, whose members marry without a shilling, and 
 without any other place to live in than their parents' 
 houses.* 
 
 Writers on Ireland are almost unanimous in im- 
 puting the excessive populousness of that country 
 mainly to two causes the minute subdivision of 
 land, and the adoption by the peasantry of the 
 potato as their principal article of food. Until late in 
 the last century nearly the whole territory was given 
 up to pasturage, most of the occupiers of land 
 being opulent graziers, who employed comparatively 
 few labourers in the management of their extensive 
 farms; but in the years 1783 and 1784 the Irish 
 Parliament granted high bounties on the exporta- 
 tion of grain, and prohibited its importation from 
 abroad ; and the rise of price which took place in 
 consequence, was further promoted by the demand 
 for foreign corn in Great Britain after the com- 
 mencement of the war with France, and by the 
 abolition, in 1806, of all restrictions on the corn 
 trade between this country and Ireland. Extraor- 
 dinary inducements were thus given to landholders 
 to exchange pasturage for tillage ; but the tracts 
 held by single graziers were in general much too 
 extensive to be cultivated by their actual tenants, 
 and they were therefore divided into farms of more 
 convenient size, and let to such persons as were 
 willing to undertake them. There was not, how- 
 ever, capital enough in the island for this sudden 
 
 * Report of Scottish Poor Law Commissioners, App. ii., 
 especially pp. 9. and 163. 
 
252 PAST AND PRESENT 
 
 revolution in husbandry, and most of the new race 
 of farmers were so poor that they could not pay 
 their labourers in any other way than by assigning 
 to them pieces of ground to build cabins upon, and 
 to cultivate for their own subsistence. Together 
 with the farmers, therefore, a -considerable body of 
 cottiers was created, and the number of the latter 
 was further augmented through the desire of the 
 landlords to increase their political influence. The 
 elective franchise belonged in Ireland, as in Eng- 
 land, to forty -shilling freeholders, that is to say, to 
 the possessors of a life interest in land of the clear 
 annual value of forty shillings ; but previously to 
 1792 it was enjoyed only by Protestants, and was 
 consequently withheld from the great body of the 
 peasantry. In that year, however, the privilege 
 was conceded to Catholics also, and landlords then 
 began to manufacture voters by thousands, by 
 granting them leases for life of small patches of 
 land. In this manner the bulk of the people were 
 converted into occupiers of land, and furnished 
 with the means of rearing a family, of which they 
 did not delay to avail themselves, and an increase 
 of population took place in consequence. Gavel- 
 kind, or the custom of dividing a father's landed 
 property, whether freehold or leasehold, equally 
 among his children, has always prevailed in Ireland. 
 When one of the newly-made farmers died, there- 
 fore, all his sons were able to establish themselves 
 on farms of smaller extent, and a cottier's sons 
 also generally inherited small pieces of ground. 
 Having thus some assured means of livelihood, they 
 
STATE OF IRELAND. 253 
 
 married as hastily as their fathers had done. Their 
 example was in turn followed by their children, and 
 by a repetition of the process, most of the descend- 
 ants of the original farmers have, in the course of 
 two or three generations, sunk to the level of cot- 
 tiers, and most of the original cottage holdings 
 have been divided among as many families as can 
 contrive to obtain from the soil potatoes enough to 
 keep them alive. 
 
 This explanation, however, though perfectly cor- 
 rect as far as it goes, leaves the main difficulties 
 of the subject untouched. There are plenty of 
 countries, besides Ireland, in which the peasantry 
 are occupiers of land, and in which equal shares of 
 a man's property are inherited by all his sons ; yet 
 we do not find that in such countries the land 
 is continually subjected to more and more minute 
 subdivision, and that the people in each succeeding 
 generation are content to fare worse than their 
 immediate predecessors, or marry as soon as they 
 can command a bare subsistence. The son of a 
 Flemish or German boor does not set up for an 
 independent householder as soon he becomes en- 
 titled to a piece of land. He first considers whe- 
 ther the land is large enough to maintain him in 
 the style he has been accustomed to. If not, 
 he either lets or sells it to a stranger, or more 
 commonly holds it in partnership with his brothers, 
 until, by the death of the other co-heirs, the whole 
 patrimony is left to a single proprietor. Mr. Laing 
 found properties in Norway which had remained 
 undiminished in possession of the same families 
 
254 PAST AND PRESENT 
 
 since the days of Harold Harfager, and Mr. Nicholl, 
 whose prejudices are certainly not in favour of 
 small farmers, confesses that among those of 
 Belgium he could discover no tendency to the 
 subdivision of their holdings. The modern bonder 
 and boors occupy farms as large, and enjoy as 
 much abundance, and more comfort, than their 
 ancestors of a century back. In both these coun- 
 tries, as well as in France and Germany, popula- 
 tion is so far from outrunning the means of sub- 
 sistence, that it does not even keep pace with 
 them. In France more particularly, the condition 
 of the people has been steadily improving during 
 the last thirty years, or during the whole period 
 in which they have enjoyed tranquil possession of 
 their recently acquired land. 
 
 Again, where people subsist entirely on potatoes, 
 the most productive of vegetables, a much greater 
 number can be maintained upon the same extent 
 of ground ; but the pota'to is as well known in most 
 other parts of Europe as in Ireland, and some 
 peculiar circumstances must have induced the 
 Irish alone of European nations to submit to a 
 potato diet. The simple reason of their having 
 done so is, that they could never afford any thing 
 better, and in this their primeval poverty, lies the 
 true secret of their present condition. 
 
 From the earliest times, the Irish peasantry 
 have been miserably poor, and have been as im- 
 prudent, and as prone, among other follies, to early 
 marriages, as they are at this moment. If their 
 conversion into occupiers of land had sensibly 
 
STATE OF IRELAND. 255 
 
 improved their social position, the benefit would 
 probably have been permanent. Their poverty 
 and their improvidence would have been cured 
 by the same means, and over-population, instead 
 of being promoted, would have been checked in 
 its progress. Unfortunately, the terms of their 
 tenure of land prevented it from materially increas- 
 ing their resources, and instead of giving them the 
 means of living in greater comfort, only enabled 
 them to bring up more children in the same misery 
 as they were themselves accustomed to. Their 
 children, when grown up, did not feel the want of 
 comforts they had never known, and only sought 
 for the means of supporting life ; and, provided 
 they could obtain land enough to grow a few 
 potatoes, they fancied themselves quite com- 
 petent to provide for a wife and children. The 
 prodigious strides which population has made of 
 late years have rendered the destitution of the 
 people more obvious than before, but it is doubtful 
 whether they have rendered it much more severe. 
 Ireland was certainly never so populous as at pre- 
 sent : it never before contained so large a popula- 
 tion ; but it has long, perhaps, been nearly as much 
 over-peopled, that is to say, the number of inhabi- 
 tants has long been nearly as much disproportioned 
 to the means of subsistence. The mass of the 
 people has always been subjected to such extreme 
 privations, that although the number of sufferers 
 is now far greater than ever, it is doubtful whether 
 their sufferings have been much aggravated. A 
 
256 PAST AND PRESENT 
 
 very hasty retrospect will suffice to discover the 
 grounds for this opinion. 
 
 From the earliest times Ireland has been noted 
 for the excellence of its pastures. Its level surface, 
 overspread with the most luxuriant herbage, pre- 
 sented a wide field, over which the cattle of the 
 first settlers might freely range, and multiply at an 
 exceedingly rapid rate. Their owners became pro- 
 portionably wealthy; but the possession of great 
 wealth by individuals implies a corresponding dis- 
 parity of ranks in the community. The authority 
 of the leader of a tribe might depend on his per- 
 sonal character, or on accidental circumstances ; 
 but, whatever might be the political position of the 
 chief with respect to his fellow herdsmen, the 
 latter, no doubt, exercised almost unlimited power 
 over their servants arid dependents. It is indeed a 
 recorded fact, that these retainers did, after a while, 
 degenerate into absolute bondsmen, who were at- 
 tached to the manor on which they dwelt, and, 
 under the name of " betages," were as completely at 
 the disposal of their lords as the serfs of conti- 
 nental Europe. The pastoral occupation of the 
 primitive Irish was not laid aside as soon as they 
 had divided their new country amongst them, and 
 had stationed themselves on particular spots, but 
 continued to be practised by their descendants for 
 many generations. The principal obstacle to change 
 was probably at first the nature of the climate, 
 which, Mela says, was as unsuitable for grain as it 
 was favourable to the growth of grass*; and this 
 
 * Pomp. Mela, de Situ Orbis, lib. iii. cap. 6. 
 
STATE OF IRELAND. 257 
 
 was perhaps the sole reason why, so late as the 
 twelfth century, the people could still be repre- 
 sented as despising husbandry, and as not having 
 laid aside their ancient pastoral mode of life.* 
 
 When greater intercourse sprang up between 
 them and more civilised nations, they would have 
 been taught the advantage of cultivating the soil ; 
 but, unfortunately, in the long period of anarchy 
 and confusion which succeeded to the conquest by 
 Henry the Second, the incessant warfare between 
 the English colonists and the natives acted as an 
 effectual bar to agriculture, for both parties thought 
 it wiser to keep their property in the shape of flocks 
 and herds, which could be driven into a place of 
 shelter, than in corn stacks or standing crops, 
 which must have been left to the mercy of a suc- 
 cessful invader. Cattle thus continued to be almost 
 the sole produce of the country, so much so indeed 
 that they were often used as the medium of ex- 
 change ; and even in the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century, the Book of Ballymote is said to have been 
 purchased for one hundred and forty milch cows.f 
 More than a hundred years later we find the poet 
 Spenser lamenting that " all men fell to pasturage, 
 and none to husbandry ;" and recommending that 
 an ordinance should be made to compel every one 
 who kept twenty kine, to keep one plough going 
 likewise. J It is not likely that agriculture made 
 
 * " Gens agriculturae labores aspernans, a primo pastoralis 
 vivendi modo non recedens." Giraldus Cambrensis, apud 
 Moore, Hist of Ireland, vol. i. p. 317. 
 
 f Moore, vol. i. p. 191. 
 
 J Spenser, View of Ireland. Dublin, 1763, p. 230. 
 
 S 
 
258 PAST AND PRESENT 
 
 much progress after this, during the reigns of 
 Elizabeth and of the first two Stuarts, and during 
 the Protectorate a period marked by the rebellion 
 of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, the massacre 
 of the Protestants promoted by Roger Moore, the 
 equally bloody invasion of Cromwell, and the con- 
 fiscation of five-sixths of the island ; and if it did, 
 it must again have been thrown back as much as 
 ever after the Revolution of 1688, when a twelfth 
 of the land again changed masters, and a series of 
 penal acts was directed against the Roman Catho- 
 lics. These atrocious laws, among other monstrous 
 provisions, forbade papists to purchase lands or to 
 hold them by lease for more than thirty-one years, 
 or to derive from leasehold property a profit greater 
 than one-third of the rent. The great majority of 
 the people, being Roman Catholics, were thus in 
 effect restrained from the practice of agriculture, 
 and the proprietors^ of estates had really no option 
 but to divide them among the few capitalists who 
 could legally compete for them, and who of course 
 could not properly superintend the management of 
 the immense tracts which fell to their shares, ex- 
 cept by keeping them almost entirely under grass. 
 So general and so recent was the neglect of tillage, 
 that, in the year 1727, a law was made to compel 
 every occupier of 100 acres of land to cultivate at 
 least jive acres. 
 
 From the earliest times, then, until about sixty 
 years ago, Ireland was almost entirely a grazing 
 country. Now, although every class, in a pastoral 
 community, is commonly sufficiently supplied with 
 
STATE OF IRELAND. 259 
 
 the necessaries of life, this is not likely to be the 
 case, except when the people have little commercial 
 intercourse with more civilised neighbours. A rich 
 herdsman has then, literally, no means of getting 
 rid of his superfluous wealth, except by maintaining 
 a large retinue of servants, and he is naturally 
 liberal enough of the milk, cheese, wool, hides, &c., 
 which must be wasted if he does not give them 
 away. But Ireland, from a very remote period, 
 has carried on a considerable export trade ; and the 
 lords of the soil have always possessed, in foreign 
 countries, a market for their surplus produce. They 
 have therefore had good reasons for practising 
 economy, and for restricting the remuneration of 
 their servants to what was absolutely necessary for 
 their subsistence. When the servants became serfs, 
 they were not, according to the custom in more 
 agricultural countries, provided with portions of 
 of land to cultivate for their own support ; for the 
 estates of their lords, however extensive, could 
 scarcely be too large for pasturage. They lived 
 upon such fare as their masters chose to provide, 
 went half-naked, and slept under trees, or the 
 scarcely better shelter of a few branches cemented 
 together with mud. When they became enfranchised, 
 they gained nothing but personal freedom. Their 
 condition, in most other respects, remained un- 
 changed. Froissart describes them as living in 
 forests, in huts made of boughs, like wild beasts.* 
 There was so little demand for labour, that most 
 
 * Johnes* Froissart, edition of 1839, vol. ii. p. 578. 
 s 2 
 
260 PAST AND PRESENT 
 
 were still glad to serve for a bare subsistence, and 
 the few who were permitted to be tenants of land 
 obtained little more from their farms. Irish land- 
 lords, says Spenser, " do not use to set out their 
 lands in farm, or for terms of years, but only from 
 year to year, and some during pleasure; neither, 
 indeed, will the Irish husbandman otherwise take 
 his land than so long as he lists himself. The 
 reason hereof is, that the landlords used most 
 shamefully to rack their tenants, laying upon 
 them coigns and livery at pleasure, and exacting of 
 them, besides his covenants, what he pleaseth." 
 Spenser goes on to speak of the farm-houses, which 
 he calls "rather swine-styes than houses;" and of 
 the farmers' " beastly manner of life, and savage 
 condition, lying and living together with his beast 
 in one house, in one room, in one bed, that is, clean 
 straw, or rather a foul dunghill."* Matters were 
 not at all mended in 1672, when Sir William Petty 
 made his survey, and estimated that, out of 200,000 
 houses then existing in Ireland, 160,000 were 
 " wretched nasty cabins, without chimney, window, 
 or doorshut, even worse than those of the savage 
 Americans." 
 
 From these premises it may be concluded, that 
 the present misery of the Irish peasantry is of no 
 recent origin, but has been from time immemorial 
 an heirloom in the race. The number of labourers 
 has always been greatly disproportioned to the de- 
 mand of labour, and the remuneration of labour 
 
 * Spenser, View of Ireland, pp. 125 7. 
 
STATE OF IRELAND. 261 
 
 has consequently never been much more than suffi- 
 cient to procure the merest sustenance. This was 
 as much the case when Ireland was one vast graz- 
 ing farm, and contained few inhabitants besides 
 cattle and their attendants, as now that the face of 
 the country is cut up into potato gardens, and 
 dotted with cabins, each containing a separate 
 family. The inhabitants have always been as 
 numerous as the country in its actual circumstances 
 could support, and population has only advanced 
 in proportion as the limits set to it have been 
 widened. How much soever population may have 
 varied in amount at different periods, it has always 
 been nearly equally in excess of the means of sub- 
 sistence for the labouring class, and the multiplica- 
 tion of the latter, much as it has increased the 
 mass of misery, has not perhaps sensibly aggra- 
 vated the sufferings of individuals. The chief dif- 
 ference is, that whereas people were once starving on 
 a short allowance of meat, they are now starving on 
 an equally short allowance of potatoes. Abundance 
 either of one or the other they scarcely ever en- 
 joyed. 
 
 Any thing like comfort certainly was never even 
 temporarily known to the Irish peasantry. A tri- 
 fling and transient improvement in' their condition 
 took place towards the close of the last century, 
 when the general adoption of tillage increased the 
 demand for farm servants ; but the increase was too 
 gradual to produce any material effect on the re- 
 muneration of labour. The Bounty Acts of 1783 
 and 1784 did not cause a large breadth of land to 
 
 3 3 
 
262 PAST AND PRESENT 
 
 be suddenly brought under the plough. The in- 
 crease in the exportation of grain, which may be 
 regarded as an exact measure of the increase of 
 cultivation consequent upon those acts, shows that 
 the latter was inconsiderable. The quantity of 
 wheat and other sorts of corn exported from Ire- 
 land was 211,979 barrels in 1783, and 648,884 
 barrels in 1789, showing a difference in six years 
 of 436,905 barrels, or about 266,000 quarters; and 
 this quantity, divided by six, gives about 44,000 
 quarters as the annual ratio of increased exporta- 
 tion. But to produce 44,000 quarters of corn, not 
 more than 11,000 acres are required, and five hun- 
 dred men are many more than are commonly employ- 
 ed to cultivate 11,000 acres in the ordinary manner. 
 In each of the six years, therefore, ending with 
 1789, additional employment was created for no 
 more than five hundred labourers, at the very out- 
 side. But such an increase of employment, in the 
 midst of a population of nearly four millions, could 
 not materially raise the price of labour. The 
 wages of a labourer, or the piece of ground which 
 he obtained in lieu of money payment, did not 
 therefore raise his ideas of comfort, by enabling him 
 to procure new enjoyments and to satisfy new 
 wants, but merely gave him an ampler meal of 
 potatoes, and the means of feeding a greater 
 number of children on the same simple fare. The 
 addition to the resources of the peasantry was just 
 sufficient to give a fresh impulse to population, 
 which advanced so rapidly, that although the ex- 
 tension of tillage continued to increase the demand 
 
STATE OF IRELAND. 263 
 
 for labour, the supply of labourers fully kept up 
 with it, and prevented it from working any bene- 
 ficial change in the condition of the people. It is 
 true that population could scarcely have advanced 
 so rapidly as it did, if the facilities for acquiring 
 land, and the general use of the cheapest diet, had 
 not made the chief requisite of existence easily pro- 
 curable ; but these circumstances could only place 
 the bare means of subsistence within reach of a 
 larger number of persons, and could not compel 
 any to be content with it. The peasantry of Nor- 
 way, Belgium, Switzerland, and France, may, if 
 they please, divide their farms into patches just 
 large enough to supply a family with potatoes, but 
 no one will be satisfied with such a provision, be- 
 cause all have been accustomed to comforts which 
 it cannot afford them. It is only those who have 
 never tasted the conveniences of life, that are ready 
 to propagate their species, without any better pro- 
 spect than that of ability to keep themselves alive. 
 It is because the son of an Irish cottier has always 
 considered a fill of potatoes to be the height of 
 physical comfort, that he esteems a few square 
 yards of ground a very competent marriage portion. 
 The true cause of the over-population of Ireland 
 must be looked for in the ancient and inveterate 
 poverty of her people. But for this, the occupation 
 of land would have produced effects the very 
 opposite of those which have actually proceeded 
 from it, and would have established the prosperity 
 of the peasantry on a firm basis, instead of increas- 
 ing the number of participators in their misery. 
 
 s 4 
 
264 PAST AND PRESENT 
 
 It is a conclusive proof that the occupation 
 of land by the Irish peasantry does not of 
 itself contribute to their misery, that it is pre- 
 cisely where the distribution of land amongst them 
 is most general that population is least redundant, 
 and the condition of the people most tolerable. 
 In Ulster, the number of farms not exceeding five 
 acres in extent, and the proportion of inhabitants 
 occupying land, are greater than in any one of the 
 other three provinces, yet it is in Ulster only that 
 the English tourist is occasionally reminded of his 
 own country by the neatness of the whitewashed 
 cottages, and by the appearance of their compara- 
 tively well-fed and well-clad inmates. It is true 
 that Ulster is the most densely-peopled portion of 
 the whole island, but population has not outrun 
 subsistence in the same manner as in the other 
 provinces, and the inhabitants, though much more 
 numerous, have long managed to preserve the same 
 proportion between their numbers and their means 
 of livelihood. The reason of this is, that they were 
 always able to command something approach- 
 ing to a comfortable subsistence. The terms of 
 their tenure of land do not leave them just so 
 much only of the produce as may suffice 
 to keep them from starving. They are not mere 
 tenants in the ordinary sense of the word, but 
 possess a proprietary right over the soil, which 
 limits the landlord's power, and in most instances 
 virtually prevents him from raising his rent, or 
 ejecting the actual occupant. This " tenant-right" 
 as it is called, which is peculiar to the North 
 
STATE OF IRELAND. 265 
 
 of Ireland, has probably grown out of the privileges 
 granted to the English and Scottish emigrants, by 
 whom Ulster was colonised in James the First's 
 time, to induce them to settle in so barbarous a 
 region. Although founded solely on prescription, 
 its operation is almost as effectual as if it were 
 recognised by law, and its value to its possessor 
 is self-evident. It stimulates him to exertion, by 
 securing to him the entire produce of his ad- 
 ditional labour, and enables him to procure sundry 
 substantial advantages, the desire to retain 
 which is only another name for prudence. A 
 cottier's sons have the same power in Ulster 
 as in Munster or Connaught of dividing their 
 father's holding, but they see clearly that they 
 cannot maintain separate families on their re- 
 spective shares without sacrificing the few com- 
 forts they have been accustomed to. They seek, 
 therefore, for some additional means of livelihood, 
 and do not in general marry until they find it. 
 The cottage farms are consequently transmitted 
 from one generation to another without diminution 
 of size, and population only keeps pace with the in- 
 crease of means for its support. The only county 
 in Ulster to which this description does not apply 
 is Donegal, in which, as the indigenous Celtic in- 
 habitants were never disturbed, the tenant-right 
 has not been introduced, except partially, and in 
 an imperfect shape. The peasantry of that county, 
 ever since they became occupiers of land, have 
 been kept as poor as their brethren in the most 
 wretched districts of Connaught, and their numbers 
 
266 STATE OF IKELAND. 
 
 have increased as fast, and the partition of their 
 holdings has been carried on to the same extent. 
 
 While it is thus clear, even from observation of 
 the state of Ireland, that facilities for obtaining the 
 tenancy of land give no excessive impulse to popu- 
 lation, except among a people rendered desperate 
 by misery, it is equally evident that familiarity with 
 wretchedness, independently of other circumstances, 
 is the most powerful of incentives to early mar- 
 riages. The Commissioners of Inquiry into the 
 Condition of the Irish Poor in 1836, found it uni- 
 versally admitted that the most destitute were also 
 the most ready to marry, and that provided they 
 could scrape together halfpence enough for the 
 priest's fee, they would not always wait even till 
 they could get a roof over their heads, and potatoes 
 and whisky for the wedding feast. The witnesses 
 only differed as to the reasons for such impatience. 
 Whatever might be the motives, however, of the 
 candidates for matrimony, whether they were 
 anxious to have children to take care of them in 
 their old age, or thought that they could not fare 
 worse coupled than they did singly, or whether 
 they did not think of the future at all, is not of 
 much consequence. Their conduct is equally cor- 
 roborative of the opinion in support of which it 
 is cited, and, like the other statements in this and 
 the two preceding Chapters, points to the conclusion 
 that the original cause of over-population is almost 
 invariably misery. 
 
267 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 REMEDIES FOR OVER-POPULATION IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 
 
 Restrictions on the Marriages of the Poor. Soundness of the 
 Theory of Malthus. Its Incompleteness. Consideration of 
 various Schemes for the Cure of Poverty. Vindication of 
 the New Poor Law. Emigration. Improvement of Agri- 
 culture. Free Trade. Ability of foreign Countries to 
 supply Great Britain with Provisions. Imperative Obliga- 
 tion on foreign Merchants to accept British Goods in ex- 
 change. Groundlessness of the Opinion that Cheapness of 
 Food would occasion a Fall of Wages. Examination of Ob- 
 jections to Free Trade in Provisions. Loss of Revenue 
 Dependence on foreign Countries. Reduction of Rents. 
 Possible Extent of such Reduction. Circumstances by which 
 it would be compensated. Inadmissibility of the Objection 
 that Free Trade might lower Rents. Effect of Free Trade on 
 the Demand for agricultural Labour Subdivision of Farms. 
 Manner in which that Subdivision would affect Land 
 Owners and agricultural Labourers. Superior Productive- 
 ness of small Farms. High Rents obtainable for them 
 Great Amount of human Labour required for their Cultiva- 
 tion. Cottage Allotments. Their Advantages. Examina- 
 tion of their supposed Tendency to create an excessive agri- 
 cultural Population. Peculiar Circumstances which have led 
 to the minute Partition of Land in Ireland. Dissimilar Con- 
 dition of England. Actual Results of the Occupation of Land 
 by the Peasantry in some Parts of England. Its Influence 
 in preventing and curing Pauperism, and in checking im- 
 provident Marriages. Tendency of Cottage Allotments 
 to promote the social and moral Improvement of the Oc- 
 cupants. 
 
 To cure over-population, is to restore the proper 
 proportion between the number of labourers and 
 
268 THEORY 
 
 the fund for the remuneration of labour. Either 
 the first must be diminished, or the second must 
 be augmented. But it is not sufficient to cure, we 
 must also guard against a return of the disease. 
 Population must if possible be prevented from in- 
 creasing beyond the means of subsistence. This 
 can only be done by restraining people from marry- 
 ing until they can bear the expenses of a family. 
 Whatever other remedies may be prescribed, there- 
 fore, restrictions upon the marriages of the poor are 
 an indispensable part of the regimen to be observed. 
 It requires some courage, in these days, to ex- 
 hibit such principles, the very essence of Malthusi- 
 anism, in all their naked simplicity. They are, 
 indeed, as clear, and one would have thought as 
 undeniable, as the sun at mid-day ; but they have 
 been so sternly denounced, and so mercilessly ridi- 
 culed, that few are now found bold enough to avow 
 them. It is not merely benevolent declaimers or 
 fanatical zealots who inveigh against the " detest- 
 able hard-heartedness of the system " that would 
 keep people single until they can afford to indulge 
 in the " luxury of marriage" *, who call it "an im- 
 peachment of God's providence" f to suppose that 
 population can outrun subsistence, and in this fifty- 
 ninth century esteem it a sin to disobey the ante- 
 
 * These expressions are Southey's, and occur in an article in 
 the Quarterly Review, vol. viii. p. 326. 
 
 f See the late Mr. Sadler's " Law of Population," or rather 
 an article in No. 102. of the Edinburgh Review, in which the 
 most brilliant writer of the age has condescended to demolish 
 Mr. Sadler's absurdities. 
 
OF MALTHUS. 269 
 
 S 
 
 diiuvian injunction, "to be fruitful and multiply, 
 and replenish the earth." * Even hard-headed and 
 hard-hearted political economists shrink from one 
 whom they were once proud to hail as a colleague. 
 Mr. M'Culloch, the Coryphaeus of the band, stig- 
 matises the theory of Malthus "as a striking in- 
 stance of the abuse of general principles f ; " and 
 Mr. Laing contends, that to give the name of moral 
 restraint to prudential abstinence from marriage is 
 to " confound prudence and morality," and to 
 " overturn the land-marks of human virtue." J I will 
 not be drawn into a regular defence of Mr. Malthus 
 against his opponents, though the temptation is 
 great to show that the poor have no more right 
 than the rich to indulge in luxuries which they can- 
 not afford, and that it is decidedly immoral to bring 
 children into the world to starve. I will confine 
 myself to one or two observations. Malthus asserts 
 
 * Mr. Alison has taken this for the text of his Discourse on 
 the " Principles of Population." 
 
 f Principles of Political Economy. Preface. 
 J Residence in Norway, p. 481. Notes of a Traveller, p. 338. 
 Mr. Laing is not to be put down by authority, or I would 
 quote Milton and Dean Swift against him. The former makes 
 Eve exclaim : 
 
 " Miserable it is 
 To be to others cause of misery, 
 Our own begotten, and of our loins to bring 
 Into this cursed world a woful race." Par. Lost, book x. 
 
 And the latter informs us that " the Lilliputians think nothing 
 can be more unjust than for people, in subservience to their own 
 appetites, to bring children into the world, and leave the burden 
 of supporting them on the public." Voyage to Lilliput, chap. vi. 
 
270 THEORY 
 
 that people ought not to marry until they are able 
 to maintain the children they are likely to have. This 
 is the great maxim which he labours to establish, 
 the end to which all his reasonings point, the sole 
 practical deduction to be drawn from his doctrines. 
 Do his opponents maintain the contrary ? Do 
 Messrs. M'Culloch, Alison, and Laing, does any 
 one, in short, except doting mammas, impatient to 
 behold their children's children, or young ladies 
 still dreaming of love in a cottage, think that peo- 
 ple ought to marry before they can afford to do so ? 
 If they do not think this, they are as much Mal- 
 thusians as the founder of the sect, for Malthus 
 himself has said no more. It is, indeed, his great 
 defect that he has confined himself to this, that 
 he has said so little, not that he has said so much. 
 Over the space of two goodly volumes he has heaped 
 up proofs of what no reasonable man disputes, 
 the necessity, viz., in certain circumstances, for ab- 
 stinence from marriage ; but he has omitted to show 
 how men can be induced to practise such abstinence. 
 He apparently relied entirely on education. He 
 seems to have thought that people might be per- 
 suaded to control their matrimonial inclinations 
 by having the evil consequences of indulgence in 
 them clearly explained. He overlooked or under- 
 valued the tendency which the possession of pro- 
 perty has to engender prudence, and seems, indeed, 
 to have thought that that quality is rarely to be 
 found among members of the labouring class, except 
 under the pressure of misery. If he has not explicitly 
 pronounced these sentiments, at least he has not 
 
OF MALTHUS. 271 
 
 clearly expressed the contrary ; and it is this defi- 
 ciency on his part which it is the object of the pre- 
 sent essay to supply. An attempt has already been 
 made to show that misery renders men reckless in 
 marriage, as in every thing else ; and that, in order 
 to make them provident, it is first necessary to 
 make them comfortable, and to make the continu- 
 ance of their comfort contingent on their own beha- 
 viour. It has been asserted that indigence, the 
 never-absent symptom of over-population, is like- 
 wise its principal upholder and promoter. If these 
 opinions be correct, a permanent cure of over-popu- 
 lation may be effected by any means that will raise 
 the labouring classes from the poverty in which 
 they are sunk, and provide them with adequate 
 means of supporting themselves. How so desirable 
 a change can be wrought in the condition of the 
 British peasantry is now to be considered, and I 
 enter upon this part of my subject with the more 
 alacrity, because none can fail to be interested in 
 the immediate object of pursuit, however doubtful 
 they may be of the ulterior results expected from it. 
 Before, however, offering any suggestions as to 
 the proper course to be followed, it will be con- 
 venient to examine some measures which are 
 popularly regarded as likely to conduce to the 
 desired end, and it is particularly important to 
 demonstrate the hopelessness of any considerable 
 benefit from a relaxation of the present Poor Law. 
 Few persons are now disposed to deny, that a poor 
 law of some sort is essential to the well-being of 
 every community. Oases of destitution, arising 
 
272 NEW POOR LAW. 
 
 from physical infirmity, are everywhere liable to 
 occur; and there ought certainly to be a public 
 provision, to which the sufferers may have access, 
 in default of private charity. A variety of causes, 
 too, may deprive the able-bodied of their accus- 
 tomed occupation ; and humanity and policy equally 
 demand that similar provision should be made for 
 them also. But, although a poor law be highly 
 useful, and indeed indispensable, there is no hu- 
 man institution which requires to be more strictly 
 watched, to prevent it from doing more harm than 
 good. If relief be bestowed too freely, even on the 
 infirm, it is apt to create improvidence. If it 
 be granted to the able-bodied, unless either very 
 sparingly, or coupled with very stringent condi- 
 tions, it fosters idleness and discourages indepen- 
 dent industry. Even if this evil be avoided, the 
 knowledge that there is a resource, other than his 
 own proper business, from which he may derive a 
 maintenance, deprives the labourer of the principal 
 motive for postponing marriage until his earnings 
 are sufficient for the expenses of such a change 
 in his condition. Unless, therefore, some special 
 precaution be taken, the supply of labourers, though 
 already surpassing the demand, will be augmented 
 by fresh swarms, and poverty will be extended by 
 the very means adopted to relieve it. This can 
 only be prevented by making the situation of the 
 dependent pauper less desirable than that of the 
 independent labourer. 
 
 It may savour of Quixotism to volunteer an 
 apology for the New Poor Law, at a time when its 
 
NEW POOR LAW. 273 
 
 very authors are for the most part awed into si- 
 lence, and when some of them take credit for the 
 wide deviation which has been lately made from its 
 most important principles. Nevertheless, I shall 
 not hesitate to express my conviction, that the ad- 
 ministration of the law, where most rigid, is in all 
 its principal features marked by at least as much 
 gentleness and liberality as are consistent with 
 proper regard to the dangers to be apprehended.* 
 
 The most unpopular part of the present system 
 is that which, in certain circumstances, requires 
 paupers to enter a workhouse. Yet inmates of 
 workhouses are lodged, clothed, and fed so much 
 better than independent labourers, that the latter 
 would probably demand admittance in a body into 
 the so-called bastiles, but for the discipline observed 
 there. Still, it is asked, why should paupers be 
 subjected to any peculiar restraints ? Poverty is 
 not a crime ; why then should they be punished for 
 it ? If they really stand in need of relief, why is 
 not relief afforded to them in their own dwel- 
 lings ? The chief reasons for requiring entry into a 
 workhouse are that this, besides being a ready 
 and effectual mode of testing want, offers the 
 cheapest means of relieving it, and admits of a 
 
 * In matters of detail there is certainly room for improve- 
 ment. The large size of many unions, for example, however 
 advantageous in some respects, often compels a poor person to 
 make <a journey of several miles in order to substantiate a claim 
 to relief; and this, it is obvious, might in cases of emergency 
 be attended with serious consequences. It would apparently be 
 easy to devise some means of remedying this evil. 
 
 T 
 
274 NEW POOK LAW. 
 
 greater portion of relief being afforded with safety. 
 When paupers are allowed to remain at home, it is 
 often difficult to ascertain whether their distress is 
 real or feigned ; the cost of maintaining them is 
 greater than it would be in a large establishment, 
 where the most methodical arrangements could be 
 practised ; and, as no restraints can be imposed on 
 their personal liberty, the only means of making 
 them dissatisfied with their dependent condition is 
 to abridge the assistance afforded to them. Po- 
 verty, it is true, is not a crime, but neither is the 
 workhouse a place of punishment. On the con- 
 trary, it is really as comfortable an asylum as 
 could be provided for the destitute, without en- 
 couraging pauperism*; and the conditions attached 
 
 * The late proceedings at Andover may perhaps be thought 
 to require some modification of these sentences. Notwithstand- 
 ing every testimony, it is difficult to believe that Englishmen, 
 with tongues in their heads and with the national propensity to 
 grumble, did really submit to a diet so meagre that they were 
 glad to supply its deficiencies by gnawing putrid scraps of flesh 
 from the bones they were set to crush, without at least com- 
 plaining to the guardians of the scantiness of the food allotted 
 to them. The reports on the subject cannot be otherwise than 
 greatly exaggerated and overcoloured. Still, if they have the 
 smallest foundation in truth, it can no longer be disputed that 
 the workhouse allowance, however suitable for persons leading 
 a comparatively sedentary life, is not sufficient for those who 
 are set to hard labour. At the same time, we must be careful 
 to distinguish between the intrinsic harshness of a system, and 
 grievances arising out of a breach of its regulations. The late 
 master of the Andover workhouse was unquestionably utterly 
 unfit for his office ; but his misconduct his alleged peculations, 
 licentiousness, and drunkenness, are no sign of any defect in the 
 New Poor Law. In the administration of human affairs, confi- 
 
NEW POOR LAW. 275 
 
 to a participation in its advantages are necessary 
 to guard against this latter danger, and could not 
 be moderated without being rendered altogether 
 worthless. For, in what does the discipline of a 
 workhouse consist ? The most tender-hearted phi- 
 lanthropist cannot disapprove of the inmates being 
 
 dence must needs be reposed in fallible agents, and while human 
 nature remains what it is, the trust will be often abused. But 
 although Macdougall's offences prove nothing against the Poor 
 Law, they prove a great deal against the Poor Law Commis- 
 sioners, who have evinced an unequivocal desire to screen their 
 suspected servant from detection and punishment. Their par- 
 tiality is not perhaps difficult to account for. For years past 
 they have been so unceasingly subjected to the unscrupulous 
 assaults of political rancour, they have been so badgered with false 
 and frivolous accusations, and have seen the acts and motives of 
 themselves and their subordinates so industriously misrepre- 
 sented, that they have not unnaturally become prejudiced against 
 all complaints, and disposed to regard every new charge as a fresh 
 invention of malice. But this, though possibly an explanation, 
 is no excuse for their conduct. In spite of every provocation, 
 they are bound fairly and patiently to investigate every com- 
 plaint, without reference to the motives of those who make it, 
 and they must not shut their eyes to the delinquency of their 
 inferiors, merely because their attention is drawn to it by an 
 adversary. The watchful animosity with which they are re- 
 garded, instead of making them callous to public opinion, ought 
 in common policy to make them more studious not to give any 
 real ground for reproach ; and the.y cannot better serve the 
 purpose of their enemies than by suffering themselves to be 
 irritated into declaring themselves the advocates of all under 
 their authority who are accused of oppressing the poor. In 
 that case, the prediction of a friendly journal may not impro- 
 bably be speedily verified, and the Commissioners may be the 
 destruction of the law they are appointed to administer, and 
 which they are so anxious to uphold. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 NEW POOR LAW. 
 
 required to observe regular hours, to practise habits 
 of cleanliness, and to perform stated tasks when 
 able to work. There are. in fact, only two regula- 
 tions to which any specious objection can be made. 
 Paupers, with the exception of the aged (to whom 
 considerable indulgence is allowed), are in general 
 confined strictly to the workhouse premises so long 
 as they choose to reside there, and are also re- 
 strained from associating with relatives or compa- 
 nions of the other sex. These rules have incurred 
 the most vehement censure. Why, it is asked, 
 should not free egress be permitted at stated hours, 
 so far as the preservation of order in the establish- 
 ment would permit ? Simply because workhouses 
 are designed solely for the relief of genuine want, 
 and are not intended to be boarding-houses for 
 labourers in general, as Mr. Wakley perhaps would 
 have them, and as they would certainly become if 
 such liberty were granted. As habitations, they 
 are far preferable to cottages of the very best 
 description. What cottager then would refuse to 
 avail himself of their advantages, if he could do so 
 unconditionally? Work in the workhouse is not 
 worse than work elsewhere, and is often better 
 remunerated ; at least, agricultural labourers live 
 much better in the workhouse than they do in their 
 own homes. Unless there were some irksomeness 
 to counterbalance its recommendations, a residence 
 in the workhouse would be much more anxiously 
 desiderated than it is now eschewed ; workmen 
 would be continually leaving their employers, and 
 the parish would be the only popular master. It 
 
NEW POOR LAW. 277 
 
 is, however, the separation of the sexes, and parti- 
 cularly of husband and wife, that has incurred the 
 largest share of odium. The practice, although 
 usual in hospitals and similar charitable institu- 
 tions, has been styled inhuman and unnatural, and 
 it has also been called an impious defiance of the 
 Divine injunction, " What God hath joined, let 
 no man put asunder." Of course, those who so 
 strangely misapply our Saviour's reprobation of 
 divorce, are not indebted for the quotation to their 
 own biblical researches ; but, even if the words 
 really had the meaning attributed to them, they 
 would be equally inapplicable. Whether it be or 
 be not allowable, in any circumstances, forcibly to 
 separate man and wife, no one will dispute that 
 they have a right to part of their own accord, if 
 any considerations of convenience render a tempo- 
 rary sacrifice of each other's society desirable. But 
 the separation which takes place in the workhouse 
 is a spontaneous arrangement of this sort. No 
 compulsion is used : the parties are quite at liberty 
 to live together at home, if they can afford to do 
 so; but, if they cannot support themselves, and 
 apply to the parish for subsistence, the parish has 
 a right to dictate its own terms ; and no conditions 
 can be more reasonable than, that being themselves 
 a burden to the public, they shall not employ their 
 leisure in accumulating an additional burden. 
 
 If however the workhouse discipline be free from 
 objection, how comes it that the poor are in general 
 so averse to submit to it, and that in some instances 
 
 T 3 
 
278 NEW POOR LAW. 
 
 they have preferred to endure the extremes of 
 privation ? The question may best be answered by 
 those who have taken so much pains to inflame the 
 minds of the poor, and to fill them with exaggerated 
 notions of their rights. Cases undoubtedly there 
 are, in which a family, by taking up its abode in a 
 workhouse, would disable itself from regaining an 
 independent position, and in which the refusal of 
 out-door relief would leave only a grievous alterna- 
 tive. But such cases, though not uncommon, are 
 still only exceptions. In general, the poor ought 
 surely to be thankful for an asylum in which the 
 infirm may obtain a permanent retreat, and the 
 able-bodied may take refuge from temporary dis- 
 tress, and in which the wants of all are supplied 
 with a liberality to which they are unaccustomed 
 elsewhere. Left to themselves, they would surely 
 never have spurned these advantages, or have 
 dreamt of dictating in what mode charitable assist- 
 ance should be afforded to them. When however 
 their superiors in station and knowledge are conti- 
 nually assuring them, not only that maintenance at 
 the public expense is nothing more than their due, 
 but that, in the arrangements for their support, 
 regard to their comfort should be the foremost 
 consideration ; that the workhouse is only a prison 
 designed for the punishment of poverty, and that 
 to yield to its restraints is unmanly and degrading; 
 when notions like these are industriously propa- 
 gated amongst them, what wonder if they exclaim 
 against a supposed invasion of their just privileges, 
 and that some are willing to starve rather than 
 
NEW POOR LAW. 279 
 
 submit to what they are taught to regard as insolent 
 tyranny? Absurd as the prejudice is, it has 
 become so strong, that it has been thought advisa- 
 ble to humour it. The workhouse test is not now 
 applied to one in six of the whole number of appli- 
 cants for parish relief, and the remainder receive 
 assistance at their own homes. The relaxation is, 
 however, the reverse of beneficial to the poor them- 
 selves. For reasons already explained, so large a 
 supply of necessaries cannot safely be granted to 
 out-door as to in-door paupers. When the restraints 
 of a workhouse are wanting, the only means of 
 keeping the pauper in a worse position than the 
 independent labourer, is by reducing his allowance. 
 This is of necessity the expedient actually adopted, 
 and, as an inevitable consequence, the wants of the 
 out-door poor are relieved more imperfectly, though 
 perhaps at a greater relative expense, than those of 
 inmates of workhouses. Fresh pretexts for indig- 
 nation are thus furnished to the opponents of the New 
 Poor Law, without however more real ground for 
 invective than before. The principle upon which the 
 regulations respecting out-door poor are based, is 
 certainly sound, and could not be abandoned without 
 causing the demoralisation of the industrious classes. 
 Even if it were too closely adhered to, if exces- 
 sive frugality were exhibited in the treatment of 
 the out- door poor, the privations occasioned by it 
 might, except in the case of men with families, be 
 said to be voluntarily borne. The more abundant 
 diet and greater accommodation of the workhouse 
 are offered to all who need them, and if any prefer 
 
 T 4 
 
280 NEW POOK LAW. 
 
 to receive smaller allowances at their own homes, 
 they can only blame their own choice. General 
 rules for the relief of the poor, like general rules 
 for any purpose whatsoever, affect different indivi- 
 duals unequally; and among those exposed to their 
 unvarying operation, are of course some whose 
 previous conduct, character, or other circumstances 
 entitle them to more than ordinary consideration. 
 But these are not deprived by the Poor Law of the 
 benefit of the sympathy which their situation is 
 calculated to excite. No larger allowance from the 
 parish funds is made to them than to others ; but if 
 any such additional allowance were made, it could 
 only be obtained by means of increased contribu- 
 tions on the part of the rate-payers. The latter 
 are not compelled to wait until the collector calls 
 upon them. If they witness distress, which the 
 poor's-rates do not seem to relieve adequately, they 
 are at liberty to assess themselves voluntarily, and 
 to contribute what is wanting. A poor law is not 
 designed to supersede private charity. Its legiti- 
 mate object is to prevent destitution, and it cannot 
 attempt much more, without undermining those 
 virtues which are the most effectual safeguards 
 against destitution. If, in particular cases, the 
 provision which it makes is less liberal than would 
 be consistent with wise economy, it is for private 
 benevolence to supply its deficiencies ; and the true 
 friends of the poor would be much better employed 
 in stimulating by example as well as precept the 
 dormant charity of their neighbours, than by writing 
 letters for the newspapers in abuse of a law, which 
 
NEW POOR LAW. 281 
 
 at worst can only be accused of not compelling 
 people to be as charitable as they ought to be of 
 their own accord. 
 
 Far from extending the grant of out-door relief, 
 true policy would perhaps suggest a much stricter 
 enforcement of the rule which the authors of the 
 Poor Law had in view; and, in the great majority 
 of cases, would permit relief to be given only in the 
 workhouse. From the operation of this rule, entire 
 families, capable in ordinary times of supporting 
 themselves, but whose means of livelihood were 
 temporarily curtailed or withdrawn, might very 
 properly be exempted. A little assistance afforded 
 to these at their own homes, might enable them to 
 struggle through their temporary difficulties, and to 
 regain in a short time their independence ; whereas, 
 if they were compelled to enter the workhouse, 
 they might be permanently detained there by the 
 impossibility of again procuring and furnishing 
 habitations elsewhere. Such families or households, 
 however, appear to be the only exceptions which it 
 would be really advisable to make. Of all persons 
 otherwise circumstanced, whether old or young, 
 married or single, infirm or vigorous, the workhouse 
 should be the only certain dependence in distress, 
 the only place in which they could claim relief 
 as their due. The discipline of the workhouse, so 
 far as regarded the old or the very young, might 
 probably be somewhat relaxed without any bad 
 consequences ; not so much so, however, as to 
 make the workhouse a desirable abode, and so to 
 dissuade the labourer from making another provi- 
 
282 NEW POOR LAW. 
 
 sion for himself in old age, or for his children in 
 the event of his own premature death. But to 
 able-bodied inmates, while every requisite was sup- 
 plied for their maintenance in health and strength, 
 the workhouse should undoubtedly be made suffi- 
 ciently irksome to make them impatient to get out 
 of it. If among those to whom on their applying 
 for parish relief the workhouse would be offered, 
 were any deserving a more kindly treatment, it 
 would be the office of those who commiserated them, 
 to raise, by subscription or otherwise, the means of 
 supporting them at their own homes. Well-directed 
 private charity, thus employed, as its uncertain aid 
 could not be depended on, could do no harm, and 
 might offer to labourers an additional incentive to 
 good behaviour ; whereas a legal and compulsory 
 provision for the out-door poor, unless very frugally 
 distributed, could not fail to engender improvidence. 
 Freedom from this tendency is the chief advantage 
 which the workhouse system possesses over every 
 other mode of relief. The expediency of keeping 
 the allowance of the out-door poor below the earn- 
 ings of their independent brethren, may prevent 
 the wants of the former from being adequately 
 relieved, and may cause them to be retained in a 
 state bordering more or less closely on indigence. 
 Thus, one of the chief advantages of a poor law, that 
 of keeping up a high standard of comfort among 
 the lower orders of people, will be sacrificed, and 
 a course which must necessarily lower their ideas 
 of what is requisite will be intentionally adopted, 
 in order to avoid giving direct encouragement to 
 
NEW POOR LAW. 283 
 
 improvidence. In the workhouse, both these dan- 
 gers may be avoided, and the poor may be well 
 lodged, clothed, and fed, without by their example 
 depriving poverty of its wholesome terrors. This 
 is the principal recommendation of the workhouse ; 
 but another ground of preference is the comparative 
 cheapness with which its inmates may be maintained. 
 Two or three hundred persons, living together, may 
 be supplied abundantly with every requisite for a 
 sum which, if they were separated, would scarcely 
 keep them alive. With the most skilful manage- 
 ment, the expenditure on account of the poor must 
 be very large, but certainly no means should be 
 neglected of keeping it as low as may be consistent 
 with the perfect attainment of its legitimate objects. 
 The present, however, is no time to sing the 
 praises of the workhouse, at least with any expect- 
 ation that its resources will be placed under in- 
 creased requisition. The current of popular feeling 
 runs too strongly the other way, to allow of the 
 limits within which out-door relief is granted being 
 drawn closer. To prevent their being still more 
 widened is all that can be hoped for. Many power- 
 ful voices already swell the cry of " a fair day's 
 wages for a fair day's work," and declare that, if a 
 man cannot procure work for himself, the public 
 are bound to find him employment, and to recom- 
 pense his services as if they were really required. 
 It is vain to urge the obvious objection to this pro- 
 position, that the deficiency of employment proceeds 
 from the excess of labourers, in other words, from 
 over-population ; and that to offer a man the means 
 
284 NEW POOE LAW. 
 
 of bringing up a family when his services are not 
 needed, is the surest way to increase over-population . 
 The dictates of a short-sighted benevolence are 
 alone listened to. If a man be willing to work, it 
 is not his fault that he cannot find employment. 
 Certainly not ; but although not his fault, it is his 
 misfortune ; and upon whom but himself should 
 his misfortunes fall ? Assistance to support the 
 load, is all that he can expect from his neighbours, 
 
 he cannot reasonably ask them to take it wholly 
 upon themselves ; especially if by so doing they must 
 cause it eventually to fall with redoubled weight , 
 upon his children. But the real question is not 
 whether it be desirable to assign the same incomes 
 to paupers and to independent labourers. The 
 thing, whether desirable or not, is utterly imprac- 
 ticable, or only practicable by reducing both classes 
 to an equality of indigence. When persons able to 
 work are unable to procure employment, it is be- 
 cause there is not sufficient employment for them, 
 
 because the fund for the remuneration of labour 
 is not sufficient for the comfortable maintenance of 
 the whole body of labourers. It is impossible, 
 therefore, to give occupation to the unemployed, 
 without taking it from those in employment. It 
 has been shown that the average annual revenue 
 of a nation (with the exception of any specie or 
 other valuables that may be hoarded), is wholly 
 expended within the year.* The whole income 
 of every individual is likewise expended within 
 
 * See ante, p. 221. note. 
 
NEW POOR LAW. 285 
 
 the same period, either by the owner himself, 
 or by those to whom he lends his money at 
 interest. In whatever manner expended, it serves 
 for the support of industry, it sets a number of 
 persons to work, and enables them to gain a liveli- 
 hood. Now, if from any one's income an unusually 
 large deduction be made in the shape of poor's 
 rates, exactly so much less remains to be spent with 
 tradespeople, and the latter have so much less to 
 pay their workmen. Every addition to the amount 
 of poor's rates causes a corresponding deduction of 
 the amount payable in wages, and the poor can 
 only be relieved at the expense of independent 
 labourers. This is, indeed, no reason why destitu- 
 tion should not be relieved, for it is better that one 
 set of persons should be deprived of some comforts, 
 than that another set should be left to starve. But 
 it is an excellent reason why relief should not much 
 exceed what is strictly necessary. If it be at- 
 tempted, by means of charitable donations, to place 
 paupers on a level with independent labourers in 
 respect to income, some of the latter must neces- 
 sarily be reduced below that level ; or the level 
 common to all must itself be lowered. This con- 
 sideration ought to induce the opponents of the 
 New Poor Law to pause. How much soever they 
 may desire to elevate the pauper, they cannot surely 
 wish to degrade the independent labourer, or to 
 make the two exchange conditions. Yet this is 
 obviously the end towards which all their efforts 
 are tending. 
 
 It will be very easy to turn the preceding re- 
 
286 NEW POOR LAW. 
 
 marks against the writer, and to accuse him of cal- 
 lousness and indifference to the sufferings of the un- 
 fortunate. Although, however, what has been said 
 may be misrepresented, it cannot, I am persuaded, 
 be misunderstood by any who will take the trouble 
 to examine for themselves. One who devotes a 
 volume to an enquiry into the best means of pro- 
 moting the welfare of the poor, may fairly claim 
 credit for taking some interest in the subject, how- 
 ever widely his views respecting it may differ from 
 those of his critics. He may entertain all the 
 opinions expressed above with regard to poor laws, 
 and yet be a very sincere and very ardent friend of 
 the poor. Measures for increasing the dependence 
 of the poor upon charity can only benefit one por- 
 tion of the labouring class in the same proportion 
 as they injure another, and, if carried far, must in- 
 evitably involve all in ruin. The true way to im- 
 prove the condition of the able-bodied is, in all 
 cases short of want of the necessaries of life, to 
 throw them entirely on their own resources, but 
 at the same time to augment those resources 
 to the utmost, to make their own industry their 
 sole dependence, but to enlarge the field within 
 which that industry may be exerted. To make them 
 public pensioners, is at best only to alter the distri- 
 bution of the fund for the payment of wages ; but, 
 to produce any unalloyed advantage, the equili- 
 brium between that fund and the number of persons 
 dependent upon it must be restored the one must 
 be augmented, or the other must be diminished. 
 In order to diminish the number of labourers in 
 
EMIGRATION. 287 
 
 a country, if such desperate measures be rejected as 
 the child-eating scheme of Dean Swift and the 
 "painless extinction" of infants, spoken of in "grim 
 earnest " by Mr. Carlyle, emigration is the only 
 expedient that can be recommended. In order, 
 however, to produce any durable results, emigration 
 must be carried on on a gigantic scale. Experience 
 has proved incontestably, that a country can afford 
 to lose annually a very considerable number of in- 
 habitants without becoming less populous in con- 
 sequence. Up to a certain point, the withdrawal 
 of part of a community only places a greater num- 
 ber of persons in a position to marry immediately, 
 and the gap is filled up, almost as soon as it is made, 
 by an increase in the number of births. It is only 
 when the number of persons removed is so great, 
 and the incomes of those remaining are so much 
 augmented in consequence, as to create among the 
 latter a higher standard of comfort, and to raise 
 their notions of what is requisite for ease and re- 
 spectability, that marriages decrease in number, and 
 the progress of population is checked. These re- 
 sults might be expected in England, if the bulk of 
 the surplus population could be persuaded and en- 
 abled to emigrate at once, but of course such a 
 scheme is purely chimerical. The mere expense of 
 transporting the emigrants to their destinations 
 would not indeed offer a serious objection. The 
 average charge for a passage to the most distant of 
 our colonies is little more than the annual cost of a 
 pauper's maintenance, so that, supposing ships 
 enough to be procurable, the country might be 
 
288 EMIGRATION. 
 
 for ever freed from the burthen of maintaining all 
 those who are not comfortable at home, for little 
 more than the amount which they now cost every 
 year. But the insurmountable difficulty is, that 
 of providing at once for a million or so of fresh 
 settlers, in any part of the world. Waste land of 
 good quality is abundant enough, both in America 
 and Australia ; but land cannot be cultivated with- 
 out capital, and in none of the countries available 
 for colonisation is there capital more than sufficient 
 to employ the limited supplies of labour which they 
 already receive. At present, only about 100,000 emi- 
 grants annually leave the British Islands ; yet in 
 Canada, New Brunswick, and New South Wales, the 
 labour market is oft en over-stocked, and out of 60,000 
 persons who emigrated to the United States in the 
 year 1842, nearly 10,000 were compelled to re- 
 turn home by inability to procure employment.* It 
 is obvious then, that for the present the resource 
 offered by emigration is of no great national value. 
 What it may become hereafter remains to be seen. 
 Improved plans for the disposal of the waste lands 
 in our colonies have lately been proposed f, which 
 if adopted may greatly encourage the investment of 
 capital in the soil, and furnish funds at the same 
 time for the conveyance of emigrants to the en- 
 larged field, which will then be opened to their 
 
 * Parliam. Returns ; and Hansard's Debates, 3rd April, 
 1843. 
 
 f The reader need scarcely be referred to the able speeches 
 of Mr. Charles Buller on Systematic Colonisation, delivered in 
 the House of Commons in the session of 1843. 
 
EMIGRATION. 289 
 
 labour. A really serviceable outlet will then be af- 
 forded to our redundant and cooped-up population ; 
 but years must elapse before this can happen, and in 
 the interval emigration must continue to flow in its 
 present restricted channels. Of the average annual 
 number of emigrants who now leave the United 
 Kingdom, probably one half, or about 50,000, may 
 be natives of England and Wales ; but the subtrac- 
 tion of so insignificant a proportion of the whole 
 people cannot in the smallest degree ameliorate the 
 condition of the millions left behind. All who now 
 emigrate do so entirely of their own accord, and 
 almost entirely at their own expense, and it would 
 be a mistaken policy to assist them on their way, 
 in the hope of diminishing population. Emigration 
 cannot have the slightest effect of this sort, as long 
 as its total amount remains as small as at present, 
 and while it takes place from all parts of the country 
 indiscriminately. It might be different if the emi- 
 grants proceeded from a few districts of limited 
 extent. One over- peopled tract after another might 
 then be cleared of its superfluous inhabitants, and 
 plenty and social comfort might replace want and 
 misery within slowly but surely extending limits. 
 The produce of the poors' rates could hardly, per- 
 haps, in some rural parishes, be applied more bene- 
 ficially for the interests of all parties concerned 
 than in furnishing all the able-bodied inhabitants 
 who had no regular employment, with the means 
 of transporting themselves to a foreign home, where 
 industry would be sure of earning a competent 
 livelihood. No very heavy contributions would be 
 
 u 
 
290 EMIGRATION. 
 
 required from the rate-payers for this purpose, and 
 the amount would, moreover, be applied to the re- 
 duction of future taxation, for pauperism would be 
 almost extinguished, and the remaining labourers 
 raised at once to independence. Such an expedient 
 as this, however, ought not to be resorted to except 
 in cases of extreme necessity. Banishment, even 
 when voluntary and self-imposed, is still a painful re- 
 source. It is hard to bid a lasting farewell to kin- 
 dred and friends, and to resign for ever the inde- 
 scribable charm, the endearing associations that cling 
 to every object in our place of birth, even though 
 poverty has been our lot, and though brighter pro- 
 spects entice us away. In some crowded parts of 
 the Scottish Highlands and in Ireland, where the 
 inhabitants have multiplied to a number for which 
 it is almost hopeless to seek for adequate means of 
 subsistence on the spot, emigration may seem to be 
 the easiest way of escaping from misery ; but before 
 passing sentence of exile on the English peasantry, 
 it behoves us to inquire what it is in the power 
 either of the legislature or of individuals to do for 
 them at home. 
 
 The numbers of the peasantry remaining the same, 
 the only means by which their condition can be 
 improved, is an increase of the aggregate fund 
 assigned for their support. Such an increase may 
 take place in two ways : an increased demand for 
 labour may cause a larger amount of money to be 
 distributed among the labourers, and occasion a rise 
 of wages ; or, money -wages remaining unaltered, 
 the cost of food and other necessaries may fall in 
 
AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENTS. 291 
 
 consequence of increased production at home, or of 
 increased importation from abroad. Postponing 
 the question of the possibility of affording additional 
 employment to agricultural labourers, let us first 
 consider how far their present earnings may be 
 rendered more valuable by a reduction in the price 
 of the necessaries of life. 
 
 Whatever makes an article more abundant, 
 without at the same time increasing the demand 
 for it, makes it also cheaper than before. If, then, 
 by improved methods of cultivation, larger crops 
 could be drawn from the soil, the price of agricul- 
 tural produce would be reduced, and labourers and 
 others would be enabled to live more comfortably, 
 without any addition to their pecuniary receipts. 
 Now, since the peace of 1815, British agriculture 
 has made very great progress, so much so, that 
 notwithstanding the simultaneous increase of po- 
 pulation, the corn raised at home has, in some very 
 fruitful years, been equal, or nearly so, to the total 
 national consumption, and has been sold at not 
 more than one half the average price of the earlier 
 part of the century. Improvement has been par- 
 ticularly remarkable during the last few years, 
 since the public has become familiar with the experi- 
 ments and speculations of Professors Liebig and 
 Johnstone, Mr. Smith of Deanston, and others, and 
 since the alteration of the corn laws has forced 
 farmers into double diligence, in order to protect 
 themselves against foreign competition. The art, 
 however, is far from being equally advanced in 
 every part of these islands ; and it has been sup- 
 
 u 2 
 
292 AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 posed that, if the processes and implements of 
 husbandry used in the best-farmed counties were 
 generally adopted throughout the kingdom, the 
 annual produce of the soil would be doubled. If 
 this estimate make any approach to accuracy, (and 
 no one will think it exaggerated who has witnessed 
 the neglect of drainage, the waste and misapplica- 
 tion both of manure and of animal labour, in all 
 but the most improved districts,) it is obvious that 
 the native supply of food might be raised at once 
 to a level with the demand. But for this purpose 
 farmers must have more capital, and more encou- 
 ragement to invest it in their business, as well as 
 more skill and knowledge. Their resources must 
 not be exhausted by rents so high as barely to 
 leave them the means of continuing cultivation in 
 the present antiquated manner, and they must be 
 freed from the danger of ejectment, as a consequence 
 of improving their lands. They must have long 
 leases at moderate rents. The actual exorbitance 
 of rents may be plausibly inferred from the abate- 
 ments which are regularly made by many landlords, 
 when payment bcomes due. Such landlords are 
 called liberal, and their generosity is highly extolled 
 in the local newspapers ; but the quality for which 
 they take credit would be better shown in fixing 
 rents, in the first instance, at reasonable rates, from 
 which no deduction would be requisite. Abatements 
 are only made when farmers have not the means of 
 paying in full. It seems, indeed, that in average 
 seasons the nominal rent is not expected to be com- 
 pletely realised, but it is fixed so high, in order 
 
AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENTS. 293 
 
 that when a year of unusual agricultural prosperity 
 occurs, the principal advantage from it may go to 
 the landlord. It is probable that such rapacity 
 defeats itself, and that a farmer who finds, the more 
 he exerts himself, and the more he produces, the 
 more rent he has to pay, sinks into apathy, and 
 does not trouble himself to raise more than the 
 smallest sum which he thinks likely to satisfy the 
 claims upon him. Still it is possible that the pre- 
 sent high rents might be punctually paid without 
 distressing the farmers, if the latter were encou- 
 raged to exert themselves by the possession of 
 leases. But in most parts of England leases are 
 almost unknown, and the practice of granting them 
 is supposed to be on the decline.* Farmers, for 
 the most part, are removable at the landlord's plea- 
 sure. Where this is the case, a tenant is seldom 
 silly enough, by expensive improvements, to run the 
 risk of having his rent raised, or of being ousted to 
 make way for a higher bidder. It is no doubt true 
 that improvers are rarely ejected, arid that instances 
 are numerous of a farm remaining in possession of 
 the same family for many generations without the 
 security of a lease ; but the explanation of this is 
 to be sought, not in the moderation of the landlord, 
 but in the caution of the tenant, who, adding no- 
 thing to the value of his land, offers no temptation 
 to others to bid more for it than he pays. A pru- 
 dent man, however convinced of his landlord's good 
 faith, will scarcely lay out capital upon his pro- 
 
 * M'Culloch, Statistics of British Empire, vol. i. p. 455. 
 u 3 
 
294 AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 perty without a written engagement that he will 
 be allowed to reap the full benefit of it. How much 
 soever opinions may differ as to the necessity of 
 reducing rents, there can be no doubt that, until 
 leases become general, agricultural improvement 
 must be greatly retarded. What at present chiefly 
 prevents farmers from obtaining the security they 
 so much need is the Chandos clause of the Keform 
 Bill (introduced, be it observed, by their especial 
 friend and champion), which, by giving the elective 
 franchise to fifty-pound tenants-at-will, a class 
 completely in the power of their landlords, causes 
 them to be preferred to leaseholders who can ven- 
 ture to vote as they choose. A greater service 
 could scarcely be rendered to agriculture than by 
 the withdrawal of this baleful privilege from men 
 who dare not use it conscientiously, which only 
 serves to rob them of their independence, and which 
 entices country gentlemen to cultivate their politi- 
 cal influence at the expense of their estates. When- 
 ever the tenure of land shall be freed from its 
 capital defects, when farmers are no longer drained 
 of the funds necessary for scientific cultivation, 
 and can prudently embark all their spare capital in 
 their business, the season will have arrived for in- 
 creasing their knowledge of their art, and of the 
 best modes of turning their resources to account. 
 Agricultural associations may then wisely take a 
 lesson from the Anti-Corn-Law League publish 
 tracts and popular treatises on husbandry, and des- 
 patch emissaries all over the country to lecture 
 both in public and private to agricultural auditors, 
 
AGKICULTUEAL IMPROVEMENTS. 295 
 
 explaining the practical deductions which have 
 been obtained by researches into the properties of 
 soils and manures, and into the chemical composi- 
 tion of plants and animals. A spirit of inquiry 
 and reflection may thus be awakened in a class in 
 which it is particularly wanting, and farmers at the 
 periodical meetings of their clubs may have obser- 
 vations and opinions really worth communicating 
 to each other. Many other expedients will readily 
 suggest themselves as likely to be of service in 
 combating the prejudices of the present race of 
 farmers, but it is from the enlightenment of the 
 rising generation that the most decisive results 
 may be expected. Agricultural schools should be 
 established, in which, with everything essential in 
 the ordinary course of study, should be combined 
 special instruction, practical as well as theoretical, 
 in all branches of knowledge connected with hus- 
 bandry. Colleges should also be founded for the 
 benefit of those who desired a more intimate ac- 
 quaintance with agricultural science, and the an- 
 nexation of professorships of agriculture to the 
 national universities would also do good, by at least 
 making the study fashionable among young men of 
 the higher grades of society. Indications are al- 
 ready visible of a disposition among influential 
 persons to afford these facilities for training skilful 
 agriculturists. The great benefit derived from the 
 school existing at Templemoyle in Ireland, has 
 caused the formation of similar institutions in this 
 part of the kingdom to be at least talked about, 
 and as the thing might be almost as easily done as 
 
 u 4 
 
296 AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 said, it is to be hoped that actions will soon follow 
 words. For the establishment of an agricultural 
 school, little more seems to be required than that 
 the leading landholders of a district should seek 
 out some person qualified to undertake its manage- 
 ment, and should promise him their countenance 
 and support. If any pecuniary assistance were 
 required, it would probably be only a moderate 
 sum for the purchase or lease of a piece of ground 
 and the construction of the necessary buildings, 
 and might be a loan to be repaid at an early period. 
 The school would require no endowment. If well 
 conducted, it would be abundantly supported by 
 members of the class for w^hom it was designed, 
 and who would undoubtedly prefer it to the wretched 
 places of education at present open to them. It is 
 the more probable that the establishment of schools 
 of this kind will not be much longer delayed, as 
 agricultural seminaries of a higher character are 
 already springing up. The completion of the col- 
 lege at Cirencester will probably be followed by 
 the erection of preparatory schools, in which future 
 collegians may imbibe the elements of instruction, 
 and from the college will, in turn, issue tutors qua- 
 lified to take the management of the schools. The 
 example thus set in the western counties will, it 
 may be presumed, be followed in the rest of Eng- 
 land, until at length no part of the country is un- 
 provided with adequate means of agricultural edu- 
 cation. When this desideratum is supplied, and 
 when the other circumstances which join with un- 
 skilfuiness in cramping the farmer's energies are 
 
FREE TRADE. 297 
 
 removed, we may expect to see the capabilities of 
 the soil fully developed ; but a consummation de- 
 pendent on such conditions can only be the work 
 of time. In proportion as more accurate views are 
 taken by landholders of the obstacles which have 
 hitherto impeded the progress of agriculture, more 
 capital will be invested in that department of in- 
 dustry, more judgment will be shown in the appli- 
 cation of it, and a corresponding increase will take 
 place in the annual amount of produce. This in- 
 crease, however, must certainly be gradual, and 
 will probably be slow. But a slowly progressive 
 augmentation of the national stock of provisions 
 will not necessarily render them cheaper, for the 
 increase in the number of consumers, and in the 
 consequent demand, may keep pace with it. In 
 order to insure a fall of prices, the increase of sup- 
 ply must be rapid enough to arrest the growth of 
 population, by improving the condition of the lower 
 orders of people, and raising their ideas of comfort. 
 Without denying the possibility of such a revolu- 
 tion being effected by greater activity on the part 
 of the actual occupiers of land in Great Britain, it 
 will not be superfluous to look elsewhere for the 
 means of procuring a considerable immediate en- 
 largement of our present supply of food. 
 
 Foreign commerce presents a very valuable re- 
 source. In almost every other part of the civilised 
 world provisions are much cheaper than in Eng- 
 land, and in most' countries of easy access, the 
 difference of price is much more than equal to the 
 cost of conveyance to our shores. They are, how- 
 
298 FREE TKADE. 
 
 ever, shut out from what would otherwise be their 
 best market, by the excessive duties levied on their 
 importation into this kingdom. But for these re- 
 strictions, the price of food here would not in 
 general exceed its price in any other country by 
 more than the expense of transport from the latter. 
 Elaborate calculations have been made, with the 
 view of ascertaining the probable reduction of price 
 which would be effected by the free importation of 
 foreign provisions, and very different results have 
 been obtained at different times, corresponding 
 with the varying opinions and wishes of the calcu- 
 lators. The mistakes of conjectural estimates may, 
 however, be avoided, if any country can be found 
 situated in other respects like Great Britain, but re- 
 ceiving a large portion of its food from abroad, by 
 means of a trade unshackled by fiscal burthens. 
 This is the case with the islands in the British 
 Channel. Guernsey and Jersey do not produce a 
 fourth part of the corn consumed by their inhabi- 
 tants, and are principally supplied with it from 
 France, Denmark, and Prussia. France also fur- 
 nishes them with fruit and poultry, and Holland 
 with cheese. The freight of the two most impor- 
 tant of these articles from the exporting countries, 
 is certainly not lower, and is probably higher, than 
 it would be to Great Britain. It is therefore our 
 customs' duties alone that make corn, foreign 
 cheese, and in general all sorts of provisions that 
 will bear keeping, dearer in this country than in 
 Guernsey and Jersey, where their price is com- 
 monly about one -sixth part lower than with us. 
 
FREE TRADE. 299 
 
 Consequently, most kinds of food might at once be 
 made about one-sixth cheaper by the removal of 
 the imposts now levied on importation from abroad. 
 It has indeed been asserted, and some persons 
 possibly believe, that foreign countries would be 
 unable to satisfy the additional demands that would 
 be made upon them if the British provision market 
 were thrown open to all the world. With respect 
 to corn, more especially, statements have been put 
 forth professing to specify the quantities that might 
 be obtained from various sources, and suggesting 
 the conclusion, that the total amount of importa- 
 tion would have only an inconsiderable effect on 
 prices here, and would still leave them a good deal 
 above their present level on the Continent. There 
 seems to be no real ground for this opinion. For 
 many years past Great Britain has had no regular 
 trade in corn with foreign countries. Immense 
 quantities have from time to time been imported, 
 but there have also been several years in which the 
 importation has been too small to deserve notice. 
 The demand, though often exceedingly large, has 
 been too inconstant and irregular to be safely de- 
 pended on, and foreign growers, therefore, have no 
 doubt been deterred from providing for it. Never- 
 theless, whenever a demand for foreign corn has 
 arisen, no difficulty has been experienced in ob- 
 taining whatever quantity was required. The 
 importation has" several times exceeded three mil- 
 lions of quarters in a year, and in one year (1839), 
 it amounted to more than 4,600,000 quarters. 
 This, it must be borne in mind, was effected with- 
 
300 FREE TEADE. 
 
 out any previous notice, and can only show at most 
 what quantity of corn foreign countries are able to 
 spare from their present average annual stocks. 
 How much more they might be able to furnish, if 
 they were encouraged to extend cultivation by the 
 certainty of being able to dispose of the increased 
 produce, it is impossible to say, but supposing, for 
 the sake of argument, that all the corn-growing 
 countries of Europe and America could raise only 
 five millions of quarters in addition to their pre- 
 sent average crops, even such an insignificant im- 
 portation would much more than suifice to reduce 
 prices in this country to their level in the Channel 
 Islands. The average quantity of corn annually 
 brought to market in the United Kingdom is sup- 
 posed to be about thirty millions of quarters*, 
 which would be increased one sixth by the importa- 
 tion of five millions of foreign gr^in ; but it has 
 been often observed, and it is well known, that the 
 price of an article, particularly of one so indispens- 
 able as corn, does not vary merely inversely as the 
 quantity, but in a very much larger proportion, and 
 that an addition of one- sixth to the stock in the 
 market would cause the price to fall very much 
 more than one-sixth. The thirty millions of quar- 
 ters just mentioned include grain of all sorts, barley, 
 rye, oats, &c., as well as wheat. The quantity of 
 wheat annually brought to market is probably not 
 more than eight millions of quarters. To reduce 
 the price of wheat from 48<s. a quarter, which may 
 
 * M'Culloch, Commercial Diet., edit. 1844, p. 407. 
 
FREE TRADE. 301 
 
 now be regarded as the average rate in England, to 
 40., an addition of one million of quarters to the 
 average quantity annually brought to market would 
 very nearly suffice, and it would be ridiculous to 
 question the power of procuring so moderate a sup- 
 ply from abroad. It may then be presumed that 
 free trade in provisions would provide us with corn, 
 and consequently with both bread and beer, at the 
 same prices for which they are now usually sold in 
 Guernsey or Jersey. Butter and cheese would be- 
 come equally cheap, for Holland, the great dairy 
 farm of Europe, lies over against our shores, and 
 would find it more profitable to supply our wants 
 then to send her produce to more distant markets. 
 The imports of fresh meat and poultry would most 
 likely be inconsiderable, but the price of the former 
 would be indirectly depressed by foreign supplies 
 of salt beef, bacon, and hams. Potatoes and some 
 other sorts of vegetables might also be introduced 
 in any quantities from abroad, unless they could be 
 produced as cheaply at home. These are the most 
 important articles whose price would be materially 
 reduced by the repeal of duties on foreign provi- 
 sions ; for rice, sago, and similar tropical produce 
 are already nearly as cheap as they can be made ; 
 tea and coffee are luxuries, and sugar, though habit 
 has caused it to be regarded as almost a necessary 
 of life, is not, strictly speaking, food, and is a very 
 proper subject for moderate taxation. Among the 
 articles first mentioned, however, are included 
 almost all those which enter largely into the diet of 
 the poor, and of these a stock sufficient for our 
 
302 FREE TRADE. 
 
 consumption would be immediately furnished at 
 greatly reduced prices, if foreign commerce were 
 relieved from her present restrictions. 
 
 It has been questioned, however, whether the 
 enlarged supply obtained from abroad would be 
 continuous. At first, no doubt, the high price of 
 provisions in this country would ensure a consider- 
 able importation ; but it has been supposed that 
 foreign producers might be deterred from accepting 
 British goods in exchange by the high import 
 duties to which the latter are liable on the Con- 
 tinent and in America, and that they might insist 
 on being paid in money. In that case the country 
 would quickly be drained of the precious metals, 
 and the new-born trade would necessarily be brought 
 to a close. It is important that these apprehensions 
 should be shown to be unfounded. 
 
 Notwithstanding the measures adopted by foreign 
 nations for the protection of their own manufac- 
 tures, there is not a civilised country in the world 
 that does not annually import a certain quantity of 
 British goods ; from which it is to be inferred that 
 foreign workmen do not manufacture sufficient for 
 the other classes of their countrymen, and that the 
 latter are obliged to have recourse to British assist- 
 ance to supply the deficiency. British goods are 
 therefore no where wholly excluded by the operation 
 of hostile tariffs. The non-manufacturing classes 
 of every nation, after purchasing what their own 
 countrymen are capable of furnishing, purchase in 
 addition as large a supply of British productions as 
 they are able to pay for, and would purchase still 
 
FREE TRADE. 303 
 
 more if their means would permit. Now, if a new 
 or enlarged market for their produce were offered 
 to foreign agriculturists in England, their means of 
 purchasing would be augmented. The cultivation 
 of their waste land would yield an additional supply 
 of provisions, which at present could not be pro- 
 fitably disposed of, but which might then be sent 
 to Great Britain and exchanged for various kinds 
 of commodities ; and these commodities might be 
 carried home without more obstruction from high 
 customs' duties than the British goods actually im- 
 ported at present. It does not appear, then, that 
 any difficulty would be experienced in effecting an 
 exchange of British manufactures with foreign pro- 
 visions; but even if the foreign merchant should, 
 for some inexplicable cause, persist in demanding 
 payment in coin, his unaccountable obstinacy would 
 not put a stop to trade, but would merely cause it 
 to take a more circuitous route. A very slight 
 exportation from this country would raise the value 
 of the precious metals to such a height, and would 
 consequently so greatly depress prices, that the 
 money sent out would be immediately returned to 
 be expended in a market where it could be laid out 
 to so much advantage. The goods purchased with 
 it would then be exported to the countries which 
 had supplied the provisions, and would thus in effect 
 be bartered for them, the employment of money 
 having served merely to prolong the transaction. 
 In this manner the trade might continue. Provi- 
 sions might be sent to England from abroad, and 
 money might be sent back for them, the money, 
 
304 FREE TRADE. 
 
 however, would immediately return to buy manu- 
 factures, and these manufactures would be finally 
 exported. So clumsy a process would indeed soon 
 be abandoned, or rather would never be adopted, and 
 a direct system of barter would be employed in pre- 
 ference ; but in one way or the other foreigners would 
 assuredly be induced to accept our manufactures in 
 exchange for their provisions, and consequently, if 
 the importation of the latter were freely permitted, 
 it would not be discontinued from any inability on 
 our part to pay for our supplies. 
 
 But foreign tariffs might be raised, additional 
 duties might be imposed on British goods, or the 
 trade in them might be altogether forbidden. This 
 certainly might happen, but there is no probability 
 that it would. The admission of an additional 
 quantity of British fabrics into a foreign market at 
 the present duties would not interfere in the least 
 with the foreign manufacturer. He might still 
 retain all his old customers, and continue to sell as 
 many of his products as before. The British goods 
 would be paid for solely in food which he did not 
 require, and which indeed would not have been 
 raised except to pay for those goods, and would be 
 superfluous for any other purpose. The extended 
 trade with Britain would thus divert no capital 
 from established channels, but would as it were 
 create new funds for its own support, would 
 cause provisions to be raised which could not be 
 disposed of except in purchasing the British pro- 
 ducts offered in exchange for them. A stoppage 
 of the British trade would leave these provisions 
 
FREE TRADE. 305 
 
 on the producer's hands. He could not sell them 
 to his manufacturing- countrymen, for the latter, 
 having already a sufficiency of food, would not 
 require them. The producer, therefore, although 
 prevented from buying British goods, would not be 
 able to buy more of home manufacture. If the 
 blind selfishness of the foreign manufacturer de- 
 manded additional protection from British compe- 
 tition, his cry would be opposed by another equally 
 loud from the foreign agriculturist; and it is scarcely 
 credible that any government would be silly enough 
 wantonly to deprive one class of its subjects of a 
 source of wealth which could not be diverted to 
 the benefit of any other class. 
 
 It will then, perhaps, be conceded, that Free Trade 
 would greatly augment the supply, and propor- 
 tionately reduce the price of food in this country: 
 still it is contended that a reductioif of the price of 
 food cannot be advantageous to labourers, for that 
 it occasions a corresponding fall in their pecuniary 
 receipts. Though an oft -refuted, it is still a com- 
 mon opinion, that wages are regulated by the price 
 of food ; so that, however abundant and cheap the 
 latter may become, the earnings of the labourer, de- 
 creasing in proportion, cannot procure for him a 
 larger portion of it. If this be true, the ameliora- 
 tion of the condition of hired labourers may be 
 abandoned as hopeless. Their principal complaint 
 is want of food, and if wages only rise when food 
 grows dearer, and if food never grows cheap with- 
 out making wages fall, human ingenuity is at a 
 loss to conceive how their power of purchasing pro- 
 
 x 
 
306 FREE TRADE. 
 
 visions can be augmented. On the other hand, 
 their situation will be as secure from deterioration 
 as it is incapable of improvement. Whether pro- 
 visions be dear or cheap, their ability to purchase 
 them will remain the same. Even a famine cannot 
 injure them ; the evils of scarcity must fall exclu- 
 sively on the rich. A theory involving such pro- 
 positions as these cannot be sound. Every one 
 knows that the command which labourers possess 
 over food does vary very materially, both in diffe- 
 rent countries, and in the same country at different 
 times; that farm servants in Norway and Bel- 
 gium, for example, are six times as well fed as in 
 Munster or Connaught, and that the meagre figures 
 who till the ground in Dorsetshire and Somerset- 
 shire are lineal descendants of an ancient race of 
 sturdy beef-eaters. It is also notorious, that wages 
 are often high where food is cheap, and low where 
 it is dear ; that they are nowhere lower than in 
 Ireland, where provisions are dearer than in any 
 other part of Europe except Great Britain, and no 
 where higher than in the United States, where the 
 cost of subsistence is proverbially moderate. Still, 
 although the notion that wages and prices rise and 
 fall together, is in general utterly false, it must be 
 admitted, that there were till lately circumstances 
 which afforded some countenance to it in this coun- 
 try. Previously to the amendment of the Poor 
 Law, the rate of agricultural wages in most parts 
 of England depended on the decision of parish 
 vestries and, county magistrates. By these, certain 
 sums, proportioned to their wants, were assigned as 
 
FREE TRADE. 307 
 
 suitable incomes for labourers, and if any one failed 
 by his own labour to procure the amount specified 
 for him, the deficiency was made up out of the poor's 
 rates. The sum requisite for the supply of a per- 
 son's wants necessarily varied with the price of 
 food, and as the independent labourer would natu- 
 rally refuse to accept less than he might receive as 
 a pauper, and as he could not obtain much more 
 while there were labourers out of employment 
 maintained by the parish funds, his wages were 
 commonly regulated by the pauper's allowance, arid 
 varied like it with the price of provisions. This 
 has since ceased to be the case. The allowance now 
 made to an out-door pauper, little, if at all, exceeds 
 what is necessary for subsistence. Less than this 
 an independent labourer need not, and does not 
 accept, but the Poor Law interferes with the rate 
 of wages only so far as to prevent its sinking below 
 this extreme level. In all its fluctuations above 
 this mark, the price of labour is at present governed, 
 in England as elsewhere, by the circumstance which 
 determines the price of all other commodities, viz. 
 the proportion between the supply of, and the de- 
 mand for, the article. When workmen are nume- 
 rous and work is scarce, the former, in order to 
 procure employment, will attempt to undersell each 
 other, and wages will fall. If, on the contrary, the 
 demand for labour be great and labourers few, the 
 masters will bid against each other, striving to 
 attract workmen into their service by raising wages, 
 which will rise higher or lower in proportion to the 
 amount of capital possessed by the masters. Thus 
 
 x 2 
 
308 FREE TRADE. 
 
 it appears, that the rate of money wages depends 
 entirely on the proportion between the supply of 
 labour and the amount of money applicable to its 
 remuneration, and has no connection with the price 
 of provisions ; wages may be high when food is a 
 drug in the market, or they may be low when there 
 is a famine in the land. Their real value does, in- 
 deed, depend greatly on the price of food, for they 
 will buy more or less of it according as it is cheap 
 or dear, and if wages were paid in food instead of 
 in money, their nominal as well as their real value 
 would vary with the abundance of food. But it is 
 obvious, that the larger the stocks of food possessed 
 by the employers of labour, the more food would 
 they be willing to offer in order to procure ser- 
 vants, so that, directly or indirectly, an augmenta- 
 tion of the supply of food must always proportion- 
 ately increase the labourer's ability to procure it. 
 
 Arguments like these, however, have already 
 been often employed in vain, and it cannot be ex- 
 pected that they will be more successful now than 
 when urged by abler writers. I shall therefore 
 attempt a new mode of demonstrating ^that wages 
 are not depressed by the cheapness of provisions. 
 When any considerable addition is made to the 
 stock of food in a country, the increased abundance 
 and cheapnt/ss do not induce people in easy cir- 
 cumstances to consume more than before; for 
 scarcity, though it may prevent many from in- 
 dulging their palates, is seldom sufficiently intense 
 to compel any but the poor to stint their appetites. 
 The rich, therefore, in times of plenty, merely pay 
 
FREE TRADE. 309 
 
 less for their provisions ; but, as they do not use 
 more than usual, an unusually large residue re- 
 mains for the poor, to whom, as to the only willing 
 purchasers, it must be sold, if sold at all. But if 
 wages have fallen in proportion to the increased 
 cheapness of food, the poor cannot have the means 
 of buying more than previously, and will be unable 
 to pay for the additional quantity offered to them. 
 Yet this additional quantity is not wasted, but is 
 eventually sold ; and, since none but the poor re- 
 quired it, it can only have been sold to the poor. 
 The latter, therefore, must have had the means 
 of paying for it, and their wages cannot have been 
 reduced by the cheapness of food, seeing that they 
 have continued sufficient to purchase the whole of 
 the additional supply which occasioned that cheap- 
 ness. 
 
 Although, however, the low price of food cannot 
 of itself lower wages, it may be suspected that the 
 adoption of the particular means here recommended 
 of making food cheap, viz. the free importation of 
 foreign provisions, might have that effect, by nar- 
 rowing the field of agricultural employment in this 
 country. This question shall be presently con- 
 sidered, but it will be convenient first to examine 
 some other supposed impediments to a measure, 
 which, provided it did not lessen the demand for 
 labour, would apparently enable the labourer to 
 purchase one-sixth part more food than at present. 
 
 The first and most obvious objection to the repeal 
 of any import duties, is the loss of the revenue 
 arising from them. But the duties on corn, the 
 
 x 3 
 
310 FREE TRADE. 
 
 principal article of food imported, cannot be de- 
 pended on as a source of revenue. In some years 
 they are very productive, but in others they yield 
 little or nothing. Their proceeds can at best be 
 regarded only as an unexpected windfall for the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer ; but as their amount 
 is considerable only in bad seasons, when people, 
 having to pay more for bread, cannot afford to 
 spend so much on other taxed articles, it probably 
 never does more than make up for a decrease of 
 income from some other source, which with corn 
 at free-trade prices would not have occurred. As 
 for the duties on provisions of every other kind 
 on butter, cheese, salt meat, bacon, hams, eggs, 
 rice, &c., their annual produce is very little more 
 than 300,000/., the loss of which sum might be 
 compensated at least eight times over, merely by 
 an equalisation of the duties on British colonial 
 and foreign sugar. 
 
 Another objection to free trade in provisions, is 
 that it would render us dependent, for part of our 
 subsistence, on foreign countries, which might then 
 at any time reduce us to great distress, by cutting 
 off the supplies. This is perfectly true; but we 
 are already exposed to a greater danger of the same 
 kind. If many of our purveyors of food were 
 foreigners, and should all with one accord resolve 
 to shut up shop, they would certainly place us on 
 short commons; but our own countrymen, the 
 farmers and others, who now almost monopolise 
 our custom, might starve us outright by com- 
 bining among themselves, and refusing to sell 
 
FREE TRADE. 311 
 
 to us any more. Every one who does not 
 himself raise or make every thing he uses, 
 must be partially dependent upon others for 
 the necessaries of life, but the dependence gives 
 him no concern, because he knows it to be mutual. 
 My baker has it in his power to disappoint me of 
 to-morrow's breakfast, yet I reckon with unabated 
 confidence on the customary hot rolls, because if I 
 want his bread he wants my money, and can as ill 
 afford to spare the one as I can the other. It is 
 solely from such mercenary motives, and by no 
 means from any com patriotic prejudices in our 
 favour, that our own farmers keep our markets 
 constantly supplied; and foreigners, being not less 
 greedy of gain, would be equally ready to furnish 
 us with their surplus produce as long as we could 
 offer them what they desired in exchange. But the 
 crops would sometimes fail in foreign countries; all 
 the provisions might be required at home, and there 
 might be none to spare for us ; and this would be 
 particularly likely to happen with respect to corn. 
 But all corn countries are not in the same climate 
 nor does any country consist of only one soil. The 
 same weather which makes the harvest defective in 
 one place makes it unusually abundant in another 
 and such local variations, compensating each other, 
 not improbably render the aggregate produce of 
 extensive regions much the same from year to year. 
 When the market was ill supplied at Dantzic, it 
 would probably be crammed -at Odessa, or in Sicily 
 or Egypt ; or if the scarcity were general on this 
 side of the Atlantic, the chances would be greater 
 
 x 4 
 
312 FREE TRADE. 
 
 of extraordinary plenty in the United States. But 
 perhaps war might break out between ourselves and 
 the supplying countries. We should scarcely how- 
 ever quarrel with all of them at once ; or, if we 
 did, it would-be a sign of a pugnacious disposition 
 on our part, which low diet would be very useful 
 in correcting, and so the evil would cure itself. In 
 truth, however, there would be little danger of a 
 breach between countries so intimately connected 
 by a mutually beneficial commerce. Nothing tends 
 so greatly to prevent men from quarrelling as mutual 
 dependence ; and the remark applies quite as well ' 
 to communities as to individuals. One nation 
 woul:l be as reluctant to make war with another in 
 whose territories she enjoyed an extensive market 
 for her goods, as a tradesman would be to quarrel 
 with his customers. She would naturally be equally 
 anxious not to give offence. Russia, although 
 invulnerable by external violence, bridles her ambi- 
 tion at the bidding of other Powers, in order that 
 they may continue to deal with her for hides and 
 tallow. Without their help in getting rid of her 
 superabundance, she would be choked in her own 
 fat, and would perish from the dropping off of her 
 constituent members. The youthful passions of 
 America, in like manner, are constrained by nothing^ 
 stronger than bonds of cotton. None but ourselves 
 can take off her immense stock of this article, and 
 she cannot therefore venture seriously to disoblige 
 us. Her intemperance commonly vents itself in 
 harmless vapouring, and notwithstanding her im- 
 placable ill-will towards us, she has long refrained 
 
FREE TRADE. 313 
 
 from any action that would have compelled us to 
 retaliate. France alone, amongst civilised nations, 
 is tormented by an unqualified desire for war, and 
 is withheld from it only by the poverty of her 
 resources and the good sense of her ruler. This 
 results from her commercial isolation. Having 
 little trade with any of her neighbours, she has no 
 tradesmanlike reasons for keeping the peace ; and, 
 envious of the-prosperity which her narrow policy 
 prevents her from equalling, she snatches eagerly 
 at every pretext for dispute. The larger the deal- 
 ings between different nations, the more certain are 
 they to remain on good terms. The dependence of 
 this country upon foreigners for part of her sub- 
 sistence, instead of being a cause for uneasiness, 
 would become more secure in proportion as it 
 extended. As long as our imports of food are of 
 trifling amount, or take place only at uncertain 
 intervals, it may be easy for a capricious govern- 
 ment to interrupt our intercourse with its subjects; 
 but if a considerable portion of our population 
 were dependent for subsistence on foreign supplies, 
 the agricultural classes in almost every neigh- 
 bouring country would be interested in opposing a 
 stoppage of the trade. One principal design of 
 Providence in assigning different products to dif- 
 ferent regions, was doubtless to prevent their inha- 
 bitants from being entirely self-dependent, and to 
 force them into commercial and amicable intercourse. 
 Every country in the world possesses peculiar 
 advantages for the production of certain articles of 
 human consumption, and so obvious is the advantage 
 
314 FREE TRADE. 
 
 of seeking every commodity where it can be pro- 
 cured most cheaply and of the best quality, that if 
 free trade were once universally established, the 
 common interest of mankind would secure it from 
 the risk of disturbance. War would then become 
 an impossibility. Political economy thus points out 
 the way to a state of tranquillity, for which philan- 
 thropists and philosophers of all ages have vainly 
 sighed. The genuine Universal Peace Society is the 
 Anti-Corn Law League, and Adam Smith its most 
 appropriate patron saint. The sword will not be 
 turned into a ploughshare, nor the spear into a 
 pruning-hook, until old iron is needed for tools 
 of husbandry, and till men are too busily engaged 
 in raising corn and wine to sell to their neighbours, 
 to have time to spare for cutting their throats. 
 
 These, however, are trifles. The grand obstacle 
 to the repeal of duties on foreign provisions, is the 
 fear which is entertained of its injuring British 
 agriculturists, by reducing the price of their pro- 
 duce. In the discussion of this part of the subject, 
 it must be premised that "agriculturists" is rather 
 too comprehensive a term for those classes of our 
 countrymen which can really be interested in 
 excluding foreign provisions. Landlords and holders 
 of land on lease alone can possibly be benefited by 
 a continuance of high prices. To the great majority 
 of farmers, who are merely tenants at will, and are 
 at liberty to break off their connection with their 
 landlords at the close of every year, it is a matter 
 of indifference what the average price of food may 
 be, or rather they are as much interested as any 
 
FREE TEADE. 315 
 
 other consumers in being able to buy it cheap. 
 Except during the short period for which their 
 landlord's demands upon them are fixed, their profit 
 does not depend upon the price of produce. If 
 prices are high, rents will be high also ; and if they 
 are expected to fall, rents will likewise fall. In 
 arranging the - terms on which land shall be let, 
 both owner and farmer calculate how much the 
 value of the produce is likely to exceed the expenses 
 of cultivation, together with the usual profit on 
 those expenses. The difference is, strictly speaking, 
 " rent," the whole of which it is the landlord's 
 object to obtain, while the farmer is equally anxious 
 not to engage to pay more. If the ordinary price 
 of agricultural produce be so low that the value of 
 the crop will probably only exceed the cost of culti- 
 vation by sixpence or a shilling an acre, sixpence 
 or a shilling an acre is all the rent that the farmer 
 will consent to pay ; w T hereas, if prices be high, he 
 may be ready to pay two or three pounds per acre. 
 All that he demands is a means of profitably 
 employing his capital, and this, if he calculate cor- 
 rectly, he may have equally in either of the above 
 cases. Agricultural labourers, likewise, if the 
 employment for them remain the same, will receive 
 the. same money wages, and with the same money, 
 will of course be better off when food is cheap than 
 when it is dear. 
 
 Of the whole body of agriculturists, therefore, 
 taking the term in its most extended sense, the only 
 portion that can be directly benefited by high 
 prices, consists of landlords and leaseholders. The 
 
316 FREE TRADE. 
 
 interest which these possess in them seems at first 
 sight obvious enough. Rent has been explained to be 
 that portion of the produce of land which remains 
 after the expenses of cultivation, including the 
 farmer's profit, have been paid. Conseqiiently, 
 when prices are high, the surplus remaining for rent 
 is proportionally large, and when prices fall, unless 
 the expenses of cultivation are reduced, not merely 
 in the same proportion, but absolutely to the same 
 extent, the landlord's claim must be reduced also, 
 or must be paid in part out of the farmer's capital. 
 It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that these re- 
 sults would follow the establishment of free trade 
 in food. Grounds have already been assigned for 
 the belief, that by that measure the price of British 
 agricultural produce would be reduced one sixth. 
 By such increased cheapness of many commodities, 
 the cost of subsequent production would, no doubt, 
 be affected, but it could riot possibly be reduced in 
 more than the saine proportion ; and it is obvious 
 that a fall of one-sixth in the gross value of the 
 crop would be far from compensated by a reduction 
 of one-sixth in the cost of raising it. Moreover, 
 the items of which the cost of cultivation is com- 
 posed are not only not always the same, but vary 
 both with the quality of the soil, and with the nature 
 of the produce, and all the items are not equally 
 susceptible of reduction. For this reason, the ten- 
 dency of rents to fall would be counteracted in 
 very different degrees in different cases by the 
 diminution of the farmer's expenditure ; but one 
 or two examples may be useful in showing the pro- 
 bable average result. An acre of light land, of 
 
FREE TRADE. 317 
 
 medium quality, sown, according to the most ap- 
 proved rotation, with turnips, barley, clover, and 
 wheat, generally yields, in the course of four years, 
 mutton, wool, grain, clover, &c., to the value, at 
 present prices, of about 26/. altogether, or 6/. 10s. 
 annually. This last sum would, at present, be 
 distributed in something like the following man- 
 ner: The expenses of cultivation might absorb 
 about 5/. 4?. 9d. ; the farmer's profit, reduced as it 
 has been of late years, would scarcely exceed five 
 shillings*, and one pound would remain for rent. 
 The expenses of cultivation might be subdivided 
 
 as follows: 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Manure - 1 10 
 
 Seed 12 9 
 
 Manual labour 120 
 Animal ditto, and wear and tear of cattle 
 
 and agricultural implements - 1130 
 Poor's rates, church and highway rates, 
 
 and tithes 070 
 
 5 4 9 
 
 Now a deduction of one-sixth from the gross 
 value of the produce would reduce the annual pro- 
 ceeds to 5Z. 8s. 4c?., and would seem at first sight 
 to leave nothing whatever for rent. But on the 
 other hand, the fall of prices would occasion a con- 
 siderable reduction in the farmer's expenditure. 
 Wages, indeed, a very important item, would not 
 fall unless the demand for labour were diminished, 
 which, I hope presently to be able to show, would 
 
 * It must be borne in mind, that to the farmer's profit arising 
 from the sale of his produce, should be added the value of the 
 possession of a rent-free dwelling house. 
 
318 FREE TRADE. 
 
 not be the case. But one-sixth less money would 
 be required for seed, and for the purchase and keep 
 of cattle, and as cattle could not be rendered cheaper 
 without a proportionable increase in their number, 
 the cost of manure would also be reduced one 
 sixth. With the price of food, the cost of main- 
 taining the poor, and the amount of poor's rates, 
 would decrease, and tithes also would be eventually 
 regulated by the price of corn. The sum total 
 of all these savings would be not much less 
 than 14^., reducing the expenses of cultivation to 
 4:1. 10s. 9c?., exclusive of 5s. for the farmer's profit. 
 After deducting these two sums from 61. 8s. 4J., 
 the supposed value of the produce of an acre, there 
 would remain 12s. Id. instead of 11. to be paid to 
 the landlord ; so that the reduction of rent would 
 be rather less than three-eighths. In heavy clay 
 soils of the same annual value, the produce of an 
 acre in four years, in one of which the land was 
 left fallow, might be 85 quarters of wheat, 4| 
 quarters of beans, and 6 quarters of oats, besides 
 straw, stubble, &c., and might be worth 251. 10s. 
 altogether. The average annual proceeds would 
 therefore be 61. Is. 6^., which, by a deduction of 
 one-sixth, would be reduced to 51. 6s. 3d. The 
 annual expenses of cultivation would average 51. 2s., 
 which, by a decrease of one- sixth in all the items, 
 except that of manual labour, would be reduced to 
 4tl. 9s. 6d. This sum taken from 51. 6s. 3d. would 
 leave 16s. 9c?., of which five shillings would be 
 taken as profit by the farmer, and 11s. 9d. would 
 remain for the landlord. It is not necessary, how- 
 
FREE TRADE. 319 
 
 ever, to let land lie fallow so often as once in four 
 years. In every alternate quadrennial period, one 
 green crop and three of grain might be advantage- 
 ously taken ; and, by this means, half-a-crowri at 
 least might be added to the annual rent, raising it 
 very nearly to fifteen shillings. These examples 
 seem to warrant the inference, that the unrestricted 
 importation of foreign provisions would, on an ave- 
 rage of different soils, reduce rents nearly one- 
 third; and, with every confidence in the inestimable 
 advantages of free trade, I cannot persuade myself 
 that, unless a great change took place in the prac- 
 tice of agriculture, rents would not fall to some- 
 thing like that extent. It is vain to urge that corn 
 and dairy produce are the only articles of food that 
 would be largely imported, and that the price of 
 meat would be little affected by direct foreign com- 
 petition. Supposing this to be true, if the cheap- 
 ness of corn rendered its cultivation less profitable 
 than the management of live stock, the former 
 business would be contracted and the latter would 
 be extended, until the relation between the prices 
 of corn and cattle became the same as before. In 
 this manner a fall in the price of corn must occa- 
 sion an equal fall in the price of almost every sort 
 of agricultural produce ; and, if the one becomes 
 one-sixth cheaper in consequence of foreign impor- 
 tation, the others almost without exception must 
 do so likewise. It will be impossible to prevent a 
 decrease in the value of the produce of the land by 
 merely changing the sort of produce. 
 
 To one of the two classes of persons whom the 
 
320 FREE TRADE. 
 
 depreciation of agricultural produce would really 
 affect to leaseholders, who would, nevertheless, 
 be bound to continue their accustomed payments 
 to their landlords, the diminution of their pecuniary 
 receipts would be a most serious evil, from which it 
 might, perhaps, be proper to protect them by a 
 legislative enactment, compelling a suitable reduc- 
 tion of rents to be made. Such a measure, how- 
 ever unprecedented, would be the less objectionable, 
 as the reduction which it would effect in the income 
 of landowners would not place the latter in a much 
 worse position than before. Money is only valuable 
 for what it will purchase; and if, in the. altered 
 circumstances, in which rents were reduced one- 
 third, a corresponding reduction of taxation, and 
 in the price of commodities, should take place, 
 landlords would still possess the same power of 
 purchasing. Now, it may be taken for granted 
 (for upon this assumption the preceding calculations 
 respecting the probable fall of rents are based), that 
 the repeal of duties on the various foreign provisions 
 enumerated above would make them nearly as cheap 
 here as on the Continent, the expense of conveyance 
 to this country constituting the only difference of 
 price. Many other articles, only second in im- 
 portance to these, would be cheapened in as great 
 or a still greater degree. When monopoly has been 
 driven from the citadel, she will not be suffered to ' 
 linger at the outposts. British landowners, when 
 deprived of their unjust privileges, will no longer 
 be disposed to make common cause with colonial 
 proprietors, but, being forced to sell cheap them- 
 
FREE TRADE. 321 
 
 selves, will be anxious to buy cheap from others, 
 and will zealously join in an attack on their present 
 allies. Coffee and sugar will then, assuredly, be 
 admitted here on equal terms, from whencesoever 
 they may come ; and the former will be sold nearly 
 as cheap, and the latter much cheaper in our 
 markets than in France or Germany. This will be 
 effected, too, not only without any loss to the state, 
 but with an increase of revenue, which will allow 
 of the total repeal of the duties on tallow, soap, 
 candles, bricks, and timber. We shall then have 
 food, the requisites for light and cleanliness, and 
 materials for building, almost as cheap as our 
 neighbours. Moreover, with duty-free timber, 
 ships may be built at less expense in England than 
 in any other part of Europe ; and by the cost of 
 ships the price of all imported articles must neces- 
 sarily be affected. The only important articles of 
 desirable consumption (for tobacco and spirits 
 should rather be classed among poisons) which will 
 then be much dearer here than elsewhere, are wine and 
 tea ; and the difference in the price of these and of other 
 things would be partly, if not entirely, compensated 
 by the superior cheapness of clothing and of manu- 
 factures in general. On the whole, it does not 
 seem too much to expect that, by the abolition of 
 provision-duties, and by the other financial reforms 
 indicated above, the cost of living in Great Britain 
 might be brought as low as in France, where it is 
 notorious that an equal share of luxuries and com- 
 fort, as well as of the necessaries of life, may be 
 enjoyed, with two-thirds of the income which is 
 
 Y 
 
322 FREE TRADE. 
 
 needed to procure them in England. It may be 
 thought strange that such a result should be sup- 
 posed capable of attainment without a reduction of 
 the amount raised by taxation ; but it is a mistake 
 to imagine, that the necessity of levying so large a 
 sum for the service of the state, is the cause of the 
 extraordinary dearness of England. Our public 
 expenditure, enormous as it is, is certainly not so 
 great in proportion to our resources as that of the 
 French : it is certainly easier for us to pay fifty-five 
 millions than for them to pay forty-three millions 
 sterling annually. But the most grievous of our 
 taxes are imposed, not for the sake of revenue, but 
 for the protection of particular classes, and are de- 
 signed to exclude foreign grain, sugar, coffee, and 
 timber. The abolition of the discriminating duties 
 on the second and third of these articles would 
 furnish the means of repealing between two and three 
 millions sterling of other taxes, without causing the 
 smallest diminution in the revenues of the state. We 
 should then pay a greater amount of taxes, but we 
 should not be more heavily taxed than the French. 
 We should pay more, simply because we were richer. 
 The taxes on commodities would not be higher, nor 
 in many cases so high, but they would produce 
 more, because more of the commodities would be 
 used. 
 
 The emancipation of trade, then, although it 
 might occasion a fall of rents, would raise the value 
 of money in the same proportion, and would enable 
 landlords, in spite of the decrease of their incomes, 
 to live in much the same style as at present. 
 
FREE TRADE. 323 
 
 "But," exclaim certain statesmen, with an art- 
 lessness truly engaging, "landed estates are in 
 general heavily mortgaged, or otherwise incum- 
 bered, and their owners, with reduced pecuniary 
 receipts, would be unable to make the annual 
 payments for which they are responsible." Cer- 
 tainly nothing can show more clearly how low the 
 advocates of the provision laws are sunk, than that 
 they should stoop to such an argument as this. 
 Because country gentlemen have got into debt, the 
 rest of the nation, forsooth, are to contribute to 
 their relief, and be punished for their extravagance ! 
 To save them from the consequences of their im- 
 prudence, others are to be placed on a short allow- 
 ance of food, and restricted to three-fourths of the 
 quantity which they both urgently require and can 
 afford to buy ! Upon what plea do landlords pre- 
 sume thus to place their own burthens on other 
 men's shoulders ? Why should not they, like every 
 one else, be left to get out of debt as they can, and 
 to satisfy their creditors, even by selling their pro- 
 perty, if no other means present itself ? Is the fear 
 of their being driven to such an extremity a sufficient 
 reason why other people should be prevented from 
 buying food where they please, and compelled to 
 deal only at dear shops established for the land- 
 lords' benefit ? Is there indeed any conceivable 
 motive that would justify so audacious an abuse of 
 power? In the preceding pages an attempt has 
 been made to show that the emancipation of trade 
 would not be injurious to landowners, at least to 
 such as were unincumbered by debt. Supposing, 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 FEEE TRADE. 
 
 however, this opinion to be erroneous supposing 
 that the fund from which rents are paid would be 
 completely swept away by the repeal of the taxes 
 on food, even that would be no valid objection to 
 the measure. What is sought is not a boon or an 
 indulgence which may be honestly withheld it is 
 merely the redress of long-endured injustice. The 
 people ask permission to buy provisions where they 
 are to be found cheapest. Is this a request to be 
 denied? Why, the very fact of its being made is 
 in itself disgraceful to the legislature. Can the 
 poor be much longer deprived of a right so incon- 
 testable for the aggrandisement of a particular 
 class ? If its concession be incompatible with the 
 maintenance of existing rents, no further proof is 
 requisite that those rates are iniquitous and ought 
 not to be maintained. Fiat justitia, ruat ccelum. 
 Let the people keep their own, though landlords be 
 the sufferers. 
 
 Country gentlemen appear, from the language 
 they are in the habit of using, to imagine that they 
 are entitled in all circumstances to certain incomes 
 proportioned to their estates, which must be raised 
 at other people's expense, if the amount cannot be 
 otherwise obtained. Enough has been said already 
 to point out the absurdity of such a notion. The 
 only portion of the annual returns from his land, 
 which the proprietor ought to expect, is what re- 
 mains after the expenses of cultivation have been 
 fully paid. The husbandman and farmer should 
 first be satisfied, and what they leave (if they 
 
FREE TRADE. 325 
 
 leave any thing) may be taken by the landlord, and 
 very thankful he ought to be for it. However 
 small the amount, " 'tis an honest portion," as Bishop 
 Latimer says, " to have gratis of another man's 
 sweat and labour." But to insist that people per- 
 fectly independent of him shall buy the produce of 
 his fields dearer than they can buy similar articles 
 elsewhere, merely that out of the enhanced price 
 he may appropriate a larger sum to his own use, is 
 a pretension so preposterous, that shouts of laughter 
 would be the only fitting reply to it, if dire expe- 
 rience had not proved it to be any thing but a 
 laughing matter. 
 
 A plea sometimes set up for monopoly is, that, 
 however unjust in itself, it cannot be subverted 
 without injury to the interests that have been per- 
 mitted to grow up under its shelter. Much of the 
 land in this country, for example, has been bought 
 by the present owners or their predecessors during 
 the existence of high prices, and larger sums have 
 been given for it in consequence ; a fall of prices 
 would diminish its value, and would thus be pre- 
 judicial to the last purchasers. It is a droll thing 
 to say, however, that because injustice has already 
 lasted long, it should be suffered to last longer ; it 
 should seem, on the contrary, that the longer it has 
 continued the sooner it ought to be redressed : if it 
 would be a hardship to the few to receive lower 
 rents than usual, it would be a still greater hardship 
 to the many to be prevented from receiving as much 
 food as is offered for their money. The unwitting 
 
 Y 3 
 
326 FREE TEADE. 
 
 purchaser of stolen goods may grumble at having 
 the property taken from him by the rightful owner ; 
 but the latter would have still more cause to com- 
 plain, if he might not seize upon his own wherever 
 he found it. 
 
 Apprehensions as to the effect which the establish- 
 ment of free trade might have on the interests of 
 landowners, would not then, even if well founded, 
 afford, except to landowners themselves, any motive 
 for opposing that measure. The propriety of re- 
 dressing a grievance does not depend upon the 
 certainty that those with whom the injustice 
 originated will not suffer from the loss of their 
 usurped privileges ; it is sufficient that those who 
 are labouring under oppression will be relieved by 
 its removal. The present question is not whether 
 the unrestricted importation of food would diminish 
 the incomes of landlords, but whether the cheapness 
 which would result from it would be really bene- 
 ficial to the rest of the community. The only class 
 about which there can be any doubt, is that of 
 agricultural labourers. This class would gain more 
 perhaps than any other from the low price of pro- 
 visions, provided the rate of wages remained unal- 
 tered, and wages could not fall unless the demand 
 for labour were diminished. But it has been sup- 
 posed that if British agriculture were deprived of 
 legislative protection, a good deal of land would be 
 thrown out of cultivation, and that the amount of 
 employment and the rate of wages would thus be 
 reduced. Now it is no answer to this argument, 
 that although the demand for labour might be di- 
 
FREE TRADE. 327 
 
 minished in agriculture, it would be augmented in 
 manufactures, and that those who were dismissed 
 from one occupation might betake themselves to the 
 other. Carters and ploughmen are not easily con- 
 verted into spinners and weavers, and experience 
 has shown that they are not in general to be starved 
 into taking up a business so incompatible with their 
 tastes and habits ; husbandry is almost the only 
 occupation suitable for husbandmen : if they lose 
 this, they commonly lose their only livelihood ; so 
 that if it could be proved that the repeal of the pro- 
 vision laws would lessen the demand for agricul- 
 tural labour, the objection would perhaps be fatal 
 to free trade. It is not, however, pretended that 
 this effect could take place unless land were thrown 
 out of cultivation, and it is obvious that no land 
 would be suffered to become waste for which any 
 amount of rent, however small, was obtainable. 
 Now it has been shown that tjie probable reduction 
 in the rent of land of average quality would be less 
 than one-third ; and there is no reason to think that 
 the reduction on inferior land, would exceed this 
 proportion ; on the contrary, as poor lands require 
 an extra quantity of manure, the price of which 
 would fall with the price of agricultural produce, 
 the decrease of the cost of cultivation would pro- 
 bably be greater than elsewhere, and would more 
 forcibly counteract the fall of prices. No land, 
 therefore, would become wholly incapable of paying 
 rent, or be abandoned as worthless. Even the 
 poorest would continue to be let, though at a reduced 
 rent, and would be employed in some sort of pro- 
 
 T 4 
 
328 FREE TRADE. 
 
 duction. The important question is, to what par- 
 ticular purpose it would be applied. Grain would 
 most likely cease to be grown upon it, and would 
 be cultivated only on the more fertile soils, but 
 tillage would not be contracted in consequence. 
 Poor land, upon which corn could not be profitably 
 grown, would be found still less adapted for pasture, 
 and would in fact be almost unproductive in such a 
 state. The only way to obtain valuable returns 
 from it, would be to make it bear green crops, such 
 as turnips, clover, or mangel-wurzel ; but for this 
 purpose as much human labour would be required 
 as when a crop of grain was obtained every other 
 year. It thus appears certain, that neither the 
 amount of employment for agricultural labourers, 
 nor their money wages, would be at all diminished 
 by free trade in food. It is very probable that both 
 one and the other would be increased ; it is very pro- 
 bable that a change would take place in the practice 
 of agriculture, which would not only afford the 
 labourer more work and better remuneration, but 
 would also effectually protect the landlord against 
 a reduction of rent. 
 
 The terms upon which land is let in this country, 
 depend very much upon the tenant's social position : 
 the holder of a thousand acres pays only twenty 
 shillings for land for which the holder of fifty 
 acres would have to pay thirty, and of which a 
 cottager would be unable to obtain the smallest 
 portion at a lower rate than forty shillings an acre. 
 As large farmers are perpetually exclaiming, and 
 very justly too, of the great difficulty they have in 
 
SUBDIVISION OF FAKMS. 329 
 
 paying their rents, while no rents are more punc- 
 tually paid than those of cottage allotments, it is 
 pretty clear that land is able to pay better when 
 divided among several occupiers, than when united 
 into one extensive holding. Nevertheless landlords 
 are generally partial to the system of large farms, 
 which gives them least trouble, and offers them the 
 security of considerable capitalists ; but these con- 
 siderations would scarcely reconcile them to a 
 further reduction of rent. Kather than submit to 
 this, which might be ruinous to such as were them- 
 selves bound to large periodical payments, they 
 would not hesitate to split their farms. The repeal 
 of the" corn laws might thus cause the race of large 
 capitalists to disappear from the occupation of the 
 soil, arid to be replaced by small farmers, holding 
 on an average, perhaps, not more than fifty acres 
 each. Very eminent writers contend that a change 
 like this would be highly detrimental to agri- 
 culture : by these, large farms and large capitals 
 are held to be essential to good farming, without 
 which it is said there cannot be effectual drainage, 
 nor sufficient manure, nor judicious rotation of 
 crops, nor can expensive implements be procured, 
 or labour properly husbanded. Now, without 
 stopping to controvert these assertions, let it be 
 asked, In what does the value of improved agricul- 
 tural processes consist ? Are they esteemed for 
 some intrinsic merit of their own, for some pleasure 
 which is found in adopting them, or solely for the 
 effect they produce ? The one thing needful is ob- 
 viously to make land yield the largest possible 
 
330 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 surplus, after adequately remunerating the culti- 
 vator ; and that small farms can afford a larger 
 surplus than similar portions of a large one, is 
 evident from the fact of their paying higher rents. 
 Further proof may be found in Flanders and 
 Lombardy, where the densest populations in Europe, 
 and those in a large proportion town populations, 
 are maintained in comfort by land divided amongst 
 small farmers. How this end is attained, is surely 
 of comparatively little importance : even if it were 
 true that the implements and methods of small 
 farmers are clumsy and defective, that they disdain 
 the aid of science, and require twice as much 
 labour as would suffice under a different system, it 
 would still be manifest that they possess some ad- 
 vantage which more than compensates for all these 
 drawbacks. In spite of their adherence to old 
 practices, they manage to get more from the land 
 than the large capitalist with all his improvements, 
 and after reserving sufficient for their own con- 
 sumption, they have a larger residue left for sale. 
 They might, perhaps, do better still by imitating 
 some of the methods of the large capitalist ; but even 
 as it is, they do better than he does, and their plan 
 must, on the whole, be preferable to his. Nothing 
 can be more unjust, however, than to stigmatise the 
 culture of small farms, as necessarily rude and in- 
 artificial. The small holdings of the Flemish 
 peasantry not only bear heavier crops than land of 
 the same quality in the best farmed districts of 
 England or Scotland, but the land is kept much 
 cleaner, is much better drained, and much more 
 
SMALL FARMS. 331 
 
 abundantly manured. It may be true that in Great 
 Britain large farmers are almost the only improvers ; 
 but this is because few, except large farmers, have 
 leases, and consequently any motive for improve- 
 ment. Where small farmers have a firmer hold 
 upon the land, as in Norway, Belgium, Swit- 
 zerland, and France, they combine to raise funds 
 for any project that promises to be generally bene- 
 ficial. In this way channels many miles in length 
 are made for irrigation or drainage ; and a 
 dozen owners of three or four cows, or occupiers 
 of as many acres, contrive to make cheeses as large 
 and fine as any that Cheshire can produce ; and 
 even to establish a beet-root sugar manufacture, the 
 most extensive and scientific of all modern agricul- 
 tural operations. Mutual co-operation thus places 
 within the reach of small farmers almost every ad- 
 vantage possessed by their wealthy rivals. The 
 principal difference in their modes of procedure is, 
 that the former being less able to purchase exten- 
 sive machinery, employ a larger relative quantity of 
 human labour. This, however, is the reverse of 
 disadvantageous, either to themselves or to the 
 public. The agricultural class constitutes the 
 nerves and sinews of a nation, and its increase, so 
 generally deprecated by political economists, only 
 becomes an evil when it encroaches on the nourish- 
 ment which might be reserved for other classes. If 
 additional agricultural labourers can procure sub- 
 sistence without detracting from that of other 
 people, their existence is a national advantage. If 
 by the labour of two men the produce of a piece of 
 
332 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 ground can be so much augmented as to furnish 
 ample subsistence for both, and yet to leave as 
 great a surplus as when only one cultivator was 
 employed, the double application of labour increases 
 both the strength and the wealth of the country. 
 If the surplus be greater than before, it increases 
 also the income of the proprietor of the land. Now 
 this, and much more than this takes place on small 
 farms. Labour there is much more productive 
 than on large ones. Most of the work' is done 
 under the master's eye, and much of it by his own 
 hands, or those of his family. All the labourers have 
 motives for exertion unknown to hired servants, or at 
 least are subject to a vigilant supervision which a 
 large landholder cannot exercise. They bestow on 
 their work a care, patience, and assiduity, which can- 
 not be purchased at any price ; and these qualities 
 much more than compensate for any waste of labour 
 occasioned by bad tools or injudicious arrangement. 
 The produce of the soil is so much increased in 
 consequence, as not only to provide for the con- 
 sumption of the additional cultivators, but to leave 
 a larger quantity remaining, than if fewer labourers, 
 without the same motives for industry, had been 
 employed. If then the merits of a system may be 
 judged of from its results, the subdivision of farms 
 would be favourable instead of injurious to agri- 
 culture. It would certainly occasion a change of 
 practice, and would cause more labour to be em- 
 ployed, but it would increase the produce of labour 
 in a much greater degree. A larger proportion 
 would thus become applicable to the payment of 
 
SMALL FARMS. 333 
 
 rent, and to the consumption of the non- agricul- 
 tural part of the community ; provisions would 
 grow cheaper, but landlords, notwithstanding, would 
 receive incomes as large, if not larger, than at 
 present. 
 
 The principal benefit, however, would accrue to 
 the agricultural labourer. With the increased 
 demand for his services, his wages would of course 
 rise, and he would have more money to spend, as 
 well as. be able to buy more food, &c. with the same 
 money. A great improvement would also take 
 place in his relations towards his employer. The 
 wide gulf which now separates the holder of a 
 thousand acres from the workpeople in his pay 
 would no longer exist. The occupier of a farm, 
 not a twentieth part that size, would associate 
 familiarly with his servants, and would not scruple 
 to dine with them at the same table, or to lodge 
 them under his roof. He would rather prefer 
 doing so, because he could so both keep them at 
 less expense, and would have them always at hand 
 to assist in the minute and garden-like cultivation, 
 on which the extraordinary productiveness of small 
 farms mainly depends. Single labourers would in 
 general be permitted to live in the farm-house, and 
 in such comfortable quarters would be content to 
 wait, until they could marry without imprudence. 
 When that time arrived, the intimate connexion 
 and kindly feelings subsisting between themselves 
 and their employers would not be broken off. On 
 every farm of moderate size, it would be convenient 
 to have one or more cottages, and when one of 
 
334 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 these became vacant, the master would naturally 
 offer it to some expectant couple among his ser- 
 vants, whose union had been postponed for the 
 occurrence of such an opportunity. He might also 
 allot to them in part payment of wages, a small 
 plot of land, and perhaps likewise grass for a cow. 
 By so doing, he would confer a signal favour on 
 them without any loss to himself, and would, at 
 the same time, attach them firmly to his service ; 
 for the use of a bit of ground is invaluable to a day 
 labourer. Its cultivation costs him nothing, but 
 serves rather as an amusement for the leisure of 
 himself and his family, enabling all but the very 
 youngest to make themselves useful. Abundance 
 of manure is found in the refuse and scraps of all 
 kinds, that would otherwise be thrown away. No- 
 thing is wasted, and habits of thrift and industry 
 are formed. The produce being proportioned less 
 to the extent of the ground, than to the care and 
 attention bestowed upon it, is infinitely greater 
 than a larger occupier could have obtained from the 
 same space ; and besides the direct addition which 
 it makes to the labourer's means of subsistence, 
 enables him to keep pigs, poultry, &c. at little or 
 no expense. He enjoys a variety, as well as 
 an abundance of articles of diet, which, even -if he 
 possessed their value in money, it would be scarcely 
 possible for him to buy, and he has besides a re- 
 source on which he may rely when other means of 
 livelihood temporarily fail. A day labourer is 
 always liable to be thrown out of work by a number 
 of causes, when, if he be entirely dependent on 
 
SMALL FARMS. 335 
 
 wages, he may become involved in inextricable 
 difficulties, whereas with the help of a stock 
 of food of his own raising, he might easily strug- 
 gle through his embarrassment. The occupancy 
 of a little land does away with much of the pre- 
 cariousness, which is the worst feature in the 
 labourer's condition ; and this is particularly the 
 case when the land is the labourer's own property, 
 as it would not improbably become, in circumstances 
 such as those supposed, when he might often be 
 able to save a little money. He then feels himself 
 sufficiently independent not to be over-anxious 
 about the future ; but not so much so as to grow 
 careless of obtaining work, or of satisfying his em- 
 ployer. On the contrary, finding that he has been 
 admitted into a higher order of society, he uses 
 every exertion to maintain his new position. Men 
 of this class are commonly the most diligent and 
 trustworthy, as well as the most respectful servants. 
 In opposition to these assertions, the misery of 
 the Irish peasantry will probably be urged. The 
 example of Ireland is very commonly cited as a 
 decisive proof that small farms and the possession 
 of land by labourers powerfully promote over- 
 population, and that this in turn occasions a further 
 partition of the land, until the smallness of the 
 separate portions equally prevents the wretched 
 cultivators from growing sufficient food on their 
 own land, and from obtaining it in the service of 
 larger occupiers. In reply, it might be sufficient to 
 refer once more to those districts on the continent 
 of Europe, in which the most thriving peasantry in 
 
336 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 the world have subsisted for ages on farms not 
 much larger than the generality of Irish holdings. 
 The inhabitants of those districts have not mul- 
 tiplied beyond the means of subsistence ; their 
 farms are not continually decreasing in size, or 
 divided into patches too small for the comfortable 
 maintenance of a family. Directly opposite effects 
 cannot spring from precisely the same cause. The 
 subdivision of the soil, iron which so much happiness 
 arises in Flanders and Switzerland, cannot of itself 
 have produced misery in Ireland. In an earlier 
 portion of this Essay, however, the over-population 
 of Ireland has already been traced to the universal 
 poverty which existed while the whole country was 
 still in the hands of an inconsiderable number of 
 occupiers : having been antecedent to, it cannot 
 have proceeded from, the subdivision of farms. 
 The keen competition for land which it has oc- 
 casioned, has indeed been the sole reason why the 
 subdivision of farms has not been beneficial to the 
 present tenants. An Irish cottier is not miserable 
 because he has two or three acres of land attached 
 to his dwelling, but because he has to pay for this 
 land three or four times as much as it would be let 
 for in England. How is it possible that, after paying 
 six pounds an acre, he should have more than 
 enough left to keep body and soul together, more 
 especially as his poverty prevents his adopting any 
 but the rudest and most defective modes of culture ? 
 It is not the occupation of land, but the landlords' 
 exactions which make and keep him poor. The 
 Irish peasantry have always been grievously over- 
 
SMALL FARMS. 337 
 
 rented. The farmer of forty or fifty acres never, 
 except in rare instances, was able to live in any 
 thing like comfort, and his children commonly grew 
 up as regardless as savages of the conveniences 
 and decencies of life. On their father's death, the 
 law permitted them to divide his farm amongst 
 them, and, provided the share of each individual 
 were sufficient to supply him with all he had been 
 accustomed to, viz., potatoes enough to fill his sto- 
 mach, they did not hesitate to do so. Their example 
 was followed by their successors, until at last the 
 whole island became parcelled out amongst the pre- 
 sent multitude of petty tenants. Such a phenomenon 
 could scarcely occur, except in a country prepared 
 for it by a combination of circumstances, such as is 
 rarely to be found, and which certainly does not 
 exist in England. When free trade shall have 
 given the English labourer high wages and cheap 
 food, he will be little disposed to pay more for 
 the use of land than it is worth. Instead of 
 being, like the Irish cottier, absolutely dependent 
 upon it for subsistence, he will desire it only as a 
 means of employing his leisure profitably, and will 
 not offer a rent that will deprive him of any part 
 of the just reward of his industry. To him there- 
 fore, and to others who obtain land under similar 
 circumstances, the possession will be decidedly 
 beneficial, and they will be able to live more com- 
 fortably in consequence. To the children of these 
 first occupiers, however, the consequences, it is 
 feared, might be very different. Keliance upon the 
 produce of the paternal domain might perhaps seduce 
 
338 COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 
 
 them into premature marriages, for in it they might 
 fancy they possessed a certain, although a scanty 
 source of income. Or on their father's death, they 
 might divide his tenement amongst them, and 
 trusting to their separate portions for security 
 against starvation, might thereupon venture to 
 marry forthwith; whereas, without land they would 
 have to wait, at least until they got into some kind 
 of service. A somewhat similar opinion has been 
 recently advanced by a distinguished political 
 writer, who maintains that the allotment of land to 
 labourers would lead inevitably to a reduction of 
 wages. u Every shilling," he says, " which it 
 bestows as a supplement to wages, it subtracts 
 from the wages themselves. . , . By giving la- 
 bourers an extra means of support in addition to 
 wages, you merely enable them to exist upon still 
 lower wages than before. Wherever there is al- 
 ready an excess of labourers above employment the 
 reduction of wages will be immediate ; wherever 
 there is not, a surplus will speedily grow up."* 
 This argument, if valid, is equally applicable to 
 every increase of a labourer's income from whence- 
 soever derived. Its meaning is, that by augmenting 
 the resources of the poor, you only enable them to 
 bring up more children, whose competition soon 
 reduces them to the poverty from which their 
 parents had emerged. It is hoped that there is no 
 necessity for entering in this place into a lengthened 
 opposition to this conclusion, since it is the very 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, No. 164. pp. 523, 524. 
 
COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 339 
 
 reverse of that, which much of the reasoning of the 
 present volume has been designed to establish. 
 Like the objection first mentioned, it is based upon 
 the assumption that persons of the lower orders are 
 unrestrained by prudential considerations, and re- 
 quire only the prospect of a bare subsistence to 
 induce them to marry. But this is true only of 
 the very poor. If, by augmenting their incomes, 
 you raise them from poverty, you cure them also 
 of improvidence. The more they have to lose, the 
 more afraid they become of losing it. It is admitted 
 that a high standard of comfort is really a most 
 effectual preventive of thoughtless marriages, and 
 that labourers are not more disposed than other 
 people to forfeit by their rashness, advantages to 
 which they have been accustomed. Now the 
 standard of comfort would, cceteris paribus, be much 
 higher in a family possessing the produce of an 
 allotment in addition to its earnings, than in one 
 subsisting on wages alone. In the former case, 
 therefore, a young man would be least likely to 
 marry early. He would wait until he could do so 
 without altering his style of living for the worse. 
 He would see clearly that the same income which 
 sufficed for the support of the family to which he 
 belonged, could not maintain half a dozen ad- 
 ditional members in equal comfort, and he would 
 not presume to bring a wife into his father's house 
 without bringing likewise a corresponding accession 
 of revenue. Neither would he seek a habitation 
 elsewhere until he could afford to live there 
 as comfortably as he had been accustomed to 
 
 z 2 
 
340 COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 
 
 do in his former home. As for the parti- 
 tion of a labourer's tenement after his death, 
 this could only take place if the land were the 
 labourer's own; for in England landlords have 
 always been careful to retain the power (which, 
 with the fear of increasing pauperism and poor's 
 rates before their eyes, they would not fail to 
 exercise) of preventing the division of land by 
 lessees. Supposing, however, a labourer to be a 
 small landowner, he might if he pleased bequeath 
 his estate to all his children indiscriminately, and 
 it is important to ascertain how the latter would 
 dispose of their inheritance. Would they divide 
 it into portions too small to contribute materially 
 towards the maintenance of a family, or would 
 they hold it in common, or sell or let it, and divide 
 the proceeds? Mr. M'Culloch thinks that the 
 former alternative would be most commonly 
 adopted. " The strong predilection," he says, " en- 
 tertained by the great bulk of the children of per- 
 sons engaged in the business of agriculture for 
 the pursuits of their fathers, has been remarked 
 by every one in any degree familiar with rural 
 affairs," and it is obvious " that the equal division 
 of an estate among the proprietor's children must 
 afford the greatest facilities for gratifying this 
 natural inclination. It will give them the power 
 of continuing in that line of life for which they 
 have been educated, and which must in conse- 
 quence be endeared to them by all those early 
 associations which exercise so strong an influence 
 over future conduct. The possession of a small 
 
COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 341 
 
 piece of ground gives a feeling of independence to 
 a poor man that he cannot otherwise experience. 
 It is very rare, indeed, that a possession of this 
 sort will afford him the means of becoming com- 
 fortable in his circumstances, but it gives him a 
 security against want. It furnishes him with a 
 cottage, and unless it be unusually small it will 
 enable him to raise such a supply of potatoes as 
 will go far to support himself and his family. In 
 no way, therefore, can a poor man be so indepen- 
 dent. The possession of a piece of ground renders 
 him in some measure his own master. It exempts 
 him from the necessity of severe labour and unre- 
 mitting application, though it condemns him to 
 perpetual poverty, and extinguishes every hope of 
 rising in the world." Consequently, " in the great 
 majority of cases," the children of petty landowners 
 " will continue to reside on the little properties 
 they have obtained from their ancestors, and the 
 process of division and subdivision will continue 
 until the whole land has been parcelled out into 
 patches, and filled with an agricultural population 
 equally destitute of the means and the desire of 
 rising in the world." * 
 
 Without altogether denying the force of these 
 observations, it may be permitted to refuse assent 
 to the conclusion involved in them. Fondness for 
 rural pursuits, and the desire of independence, may 
 induce a labourer's sons to keep their patrimony in 
 their own hands, but cannot cause them to divide 
 
 * M'Culloch's edition of the Wealth of Nations, vol. iv. 
 pp. 462464. 
 
 z 3 
 
342 COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 
 
 it. Unless any of them wish to sell their shares, 
 they cannot, in general, have any motive for making 
 a partition of their common property until they 
 are about to marry. Until then, it would be 
 much better for them to live together in the family 
 cottage, subsisting, as before, partly on the joint 
 wages of their hired labour, and partly on the 
 produce of their own field, than to form separate 
 establishments. But young men who had enjoyed 
 ease and plenty in their father's lifetime, and who, 
 if they remained single, might still live as comfort- 
 ably as ever, would seldom sacrifice these advan- 
 tages by marrying without any other certainty 
 than that of having potatoes enough to eat. They 
 would wait until they could hope to keep a wife 
 and children in the style in which they had been 
 brought up themselves, that is to say, until the 
 death of a relation or neighbour either increased 
 their property, or promoted them to a better paid 
 situation in another man's service. They would 
 then be guided by circumstances in the disposal of 
 their hereditary plots of ground ; but these, whether 
 retained or sold by them, would, in general, be 
 annexed to other plots, so that properties would 
 continue to be of the same average size. This 
 representation is not merely conjectural, but is con- 
 firmed by almost universal experience. Wherever 
 small landholders, whether owners or tenants, 
 are in the enjoyment of a fair measure of com- 
 fort, the average size of their tenements under- 
 goes little variation, the agricultural population 
 retains the same proportion to the means of sub- 
 
COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 343 
 
 sistence, and poverty is almost unknown. In 
 Belgium, Switzerland, Tuscany, or, to take examples 
 nearer home, in Guernsey and Jersey, a peasant 
 does not think of marrying until he finds himself 
 in as good a situation as was occupied by his father 
 before him. If only a part of the latter' s property 
 have descended to him, he may> perhaps, sell his 
 share, and establish himself in some business with 
 the proceeds, or he may leave it in the hands of 
 his brothers, receiving some consideration from 
 them in return ; or if he be himself strongly bent 
 on a rural life, he may reside with them in their 
 common habitation until some favourable change 
 takes place in his circumstances. It is only in 
 Ireland that people marry the moment they get a 
 scrap of land to settle upon, and they do so there, 
 not because they are landholders, for if they had 
 more land, or derived a better income from it, they 
 would be more prudent, but simply because they 
 are poor. It is misery that makes them reckless, 
 and no inference drawn from their habits can be 
 applicable to a race of substantial yeomanry. 
 
 Happily the question at issue need not be de- 
 cided by theoretical reasoning, nor by an appeal to 
 analogous conditions in other countries. We have 
 the results of experiments tried before our own 
 eyes, to assist in guiding us to a right conclusion. 
 England, as we have seen, was once a country of 
 landholders, and although the connexion of the 
 great body of agricultural labourers with the soil 
 has long been severed, there are still some districts 
 in which the labourers have always been occupiers 
 
 z 4 
 
344 COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 
 
 of land, and others in which the practice of grant- 
 ing them allotments has of late been revived. In 
 many parishes of Rutland and Lincolnshire, es- 
 pecially, the cottagers have never been dispossessed 
 of their little tenements. What has been the con- 
 sequence ? Have their fields been divided into 
 minute patches by never ceasing partition? Has 
 population become excessive, or has pauperism 
 extended more rapidly than elsewhere ? On the 
 contrary, the peasantry of these counties stand out 
 in most pleasing relief from the melancholy picture 
 which must be drawn of the generality of their 
 brethren. So comfortable, contented, and well- 
 conducted a race can scarcely be found in any 
 other part of the kingdom. The quantity of land 
 occupied by a family is, in general, as large as that 
 of its predecessors centuries ago, and enables it to 
 keep a cow or two, as well as pigs and poultry, and 
 sometimes a few sheep. The paupers, instead of 
 being extraordinarily numerous, were maintained 
 by a poor's rate averaging about 9d. in the pound, 
 at a time when in some of the southern counties, 
 where the labourers had nothing beside their wages, 
 the poor's rates absorbed more than half the rent. 
 So far, indeed, is the " allotment system " from 
 encouraging the growth of pauperism, that its 
 abolition has invariably been followed by a great 
 increase of poor's rates. There are instances on 
 record of parishes in which until the cottagers 
 were deprived of their plots of land, it was scarcely 
 possible to find any one who would deign to accept 
 parochial relief, in order to protect his birthplace 
 
COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 345 
 
 from the obligation of contributing to the support 
 of the poor of neighbouring villages. One of these 
 parishes came by purchase into the hands of a 
 single proprietor, who took away the cottagers' 
 gardens, and annexed them either to the adjoining 
 farms, or to his own pleasure-grounds. Before 
 another generation had passed away, a poor's rate of 
 3s. in the pound had come into existence. In 
 another parish, the rates were raised by similar 
 means, in seven years, from Is. 9 d. to 3s. in the 
 pound, and in a few years more to 6s. In a third 
 parish, containing fifty-eight landholders, of whom 
 twenty-two were cottagers, the poor's rates were 
 6d. in the pound. Forty years afterwards, the 
 cottagers had lost their land, and the rates had 
 risen to 4s. in the pound.* Nay, the introduction 
 of the allotment system, when properly conducted, 
 has been found almost a specific for the cure of 
 parishes already infected with pauperism. Nor 
 can this be wondered at, when the value of a field 
 or garden to a poor man is duly estimated. It has 
 been mentioned that a small farm, properly cul- 
 tivated, is much more productive than an equal 
 quantity of land in the hands of a large farmer; 
 but few persons are aware how vast the difference 
 is in a farm small enough to be entirely cultivated 
 by the occupier's family. Three hundred bushels 
 of potatoes per acre are commonly considered a 
 very good crop ; but a cottager will obtain, at 
 least, one hundred bushels from a quarter of an 
 
 * Quarterly Review, No. 81., Article ix., on the Condition 
 of the English Peasantry. 
 
346 COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 
 
 acre, besides turnips and cabbages enough to pay 
 his rent. Eight quarters of wheat would be 
 thought a very large quantity for a farmer to get 
 from an acre, but fourteen quarters an acre 
 have been got from land dug with the spade. 
 The average profit derived from cottage allot- 
 .ments is at the rate of 20. per acre, and an 
 instance has occurred of a man growing a crop 
 worth 51. on the eighth part of an acre of very 
 indifferent land.* Equal quantities of produce are 
 obtained year after year from the same ground, 
 which is never suffered to lie fallow. Even wheat 
 and potatoes, the most exhausting of crops, and 
 which would soon impoverish the land of an or- 
 dinary farmer, have been grown alternately for 
 twenty years together on cottage allotments, with- 
 out any diminution of the returns. These results 
 are owing, in a great measure, to the unremitting 
 industry and attention of the cultivators, but still 
 -more to the use of the spade, a much more efficient 
 instrument, at least on heavy soils, than the plough, 
 and to the abundance of manure which a cottager 
 can collect for his patch of ground. Rent is the 
 only deduction to be made from the value of the 
 crop ; all the rest is clear profit, for the cultivation 
 costs absolutely nothing. It does not draw the 
 labourer from work for which he is paid, nor does 
 it even cause him to tire himself before he sets 
 about his employer's business. It is performed 
 partly by his wife and children, who would other- 
 
 * Evidence before Committee on Allotments of Land, 1843. 
 
COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 347 
 
 wise be idle, and partly by himself, but only in the 
 evening, when his daily task is done, or on whole 
 days, not exceeding two or three in the year, when 
 he is either not wanted for his master's work, or 
 gets leave to stay at home. Thus nine-tenths of 
 what he raises are clear profit to him, and a single 
 rood of land will yield him a supply of vegetables 
 worth an additional income of 2s. a week, besides 
 enabling him to keep a pig or two, worth, perhaps, 
 one half as much. His home-raised provisions 
 are, indeed, worth to him far more than their 
 market value, for they come into use principally in 
 the winter, when work is slack, and when, but for 
 them, he might be thrown upon parish assistance. 
 But an accession of comfort is only one of many 
 advantages which the possession of an allotment 
 affords. Its moral effects are not less important. 
 It gives the labourer a feeling of independence and 
 self-respect, and at the same time the strongest 
 incentives to diligence. It makes him prudent 
 and thrifty, and assists him in instilling similar 
 habits into his children, and in training them for 
 the particular calling for which they are destined. 
 Thus, while it raises the labourer's social position, 
 it endows him with the very qualities most re- 
 quisite to keep him in his new station. It draws 
 him also from the temptation to debauchery and 
 crime ; teaches him to respect the rights of pro- 
 perty ; interests him in the preservation of order, 
 and checks his disposition to regard his wealthy 
 neighbours with envy and animosity. In a word, 
 
348 COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 
 
 it contributes more than any other single cause 
 whatsoever, to his physical and moral improve- 
 ment, and to convert him from a burden and a 
 pest both to himself and others, into a contented, 
 upright, and useful member of society. 
 
349 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 REMEDIES FOR OVER-POPULATION IN ENGLAND AND WALES 
 
 f (continued). 
 
 Certainty of the early Repeal of the Provision Laws. Im- 
 portance of the subsequent Conduct of Landowners, in de- 
 termining how Rent and the Remuneration of Labour will be 
 affected. Certainty of considerable Benefit to Agricultural 
 Labourers from the establishment of Free Trade. Ability 
 of Landlords to improve their Condition forthwith. Ex- 
 pediency of their preparing for the approaching Change in 
 their own Position. Identity of the Means of promoting the 
 Interests both of themselves and their Dependents. Pecu- 
 liar Obligation of Landowners to provide for their Poor 
 Neighbours. Recent Movements of Parliament in behalf 
 of the Peasantry. Mr. Cowper's "Field-Gardens'" Bill, 
 and Lord Lincoln's "Commons' Enclosure" Act. Ob- 
 jectionable Provisions of the latter. Advantages obtainable 
 from it. Suggestion of other Expedients for the Extension 
 of the " Allotment System." Estimate of the Amount of 
 Benefit derivable by Agricultural Labourers from Free Trade 
 and Cottage Allotments. Probable Permanence of the Im- 
 provement in their Condition. Auxiliary Means of pro- 
 moting their Welfare. Payment to Farm Servants of fixed 
 Proportions of the Crop. Location of them on the Farm 
 Premises. Education. Its general Advantages. Inap- 
 plicability to the Labouring Classes of the ordinary Modes of 
 Teaching. Oral Instruction. Sorts of Knowledge most 
 useful to the Poor. Expediency of a National Provision 
 for Education. Obstacles to its Establishment in England. 
 Secondary Importance of Scholastic Education. Improve- 
 ment of the Habitations of the Peasantry. Retardation of 
 the Progress of Population consequent on Improvement of 
 the Condition of the People. Moderation of the necessary 
 Restraints upon Marriage. Means of ameliorating the Situ- 
 
350 COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 
 
 ation of Town Labourers. Insufficiency of High Wages 
 alone to render them comfortable. Paramount Importance 
 of Education, and of proper Lodgings. Limitation of the 
 Labour of Females and Young Persons. Probable Conse- 
 quences of Legislative Interference. 
 
 THE distribution of land among our agricultural 
 labourers seems to be not only entirely free from 
 the dangerous consequences with which many 
 writers imagine it to be fraught; it is, perhaps, 
 indispensable to the restoration of that noble 
 yeomanry, the strength and honour of England, of 
 that bold peasantry, their country's pride, whose 
 decay was so feelingly described by Ascham and 
 Goldsmith, and whose almost utter extinction is 
 now the subject of such frequent lamentation. It 
 appears to be the only means by which an ade- 
 quate body of farm- servants can be maintained in 
 comfort. Wages alone can scarcely suffice for 
 the purpose. The nature of husbandry requires 
 the employment of many more labourers at some 
 seasons than at others, but a farmer cannot be 
 expected to keep a number of persons throughout 
 the year whose assistance he needs only in spring 
 and harvest. Though he cannot keep them him- 
 self, however, he may enable them to keep them- 
 selves by assigning to them small portions of land 
 which yield little to him, but from which their 
 labour can extract plentiful supplies. 
 
 This course must be adopted almost necessarily 
 if the repeal of the provision laws do really lead 
 to the subdivision of farms. The demand for labour 
 being then much increased, the market will be so 
 
COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 351 
 
 far from overstocked, that farmers, in order to have 
 a sufficient quantity constantly at command, will 
 find it expedient to attach labourers to their 
 service by giving them solid reasons for remaining 
 in it. Besides the unmarried servants who will be 
 lodged in the farm-house, two or three cottagers 
 will probably be permitted, and even invited to 
 settle on the farm, in order that the assistance of 
 their families may be obtainable when required in 
 busy seasons. Wh ether these agricultural arrange- 
 ments will result from the repeal of the provision 
 laws, will depend entirely on the landlords, and on 
 the choice they may make between an increase of 
 trouble and a decrease of income. If they attempt 
 to maintain the present system of large farms, 
 rents must inevitably fall ; but if they will let their 
 land in portions not exceeding fifty acres, rents 
 will certainly not recede, and will very possibly 
 advance. If they choose the latter alternative, 
 free trade in food will be deprived of all its terrors 
 for their particular class, and will prove an un- 
 alloyed national blessing. Its immediate effect, 
 cheapness of the first necessaries of life, from which 
 all men, without exception, will benefit as consum- 
 ers, will result less, perhaps, from importation 
 from abroad, than from increased productiveness at 
 home; and this circumstance will create a new fund, 
 from which both labourers and landowners, without 
 taking a penny from any other class, will derive an 
 accession of revenue. Free trade, unaided and alone, 
 will then have safely delivered the labouring portion 
 of the peasantry from their slough of despondency. 
 
352 COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 
 
 Heads of families will subsist in comfort, partly on 
 the produce of their little domains, and partly on 
 the high wages of their labour, raised still higher in 
 effect by the fall of prices. Their children, when 
 old enough to leave home, will be distributed 
 amongst the houses of the neighbouring farmers, 
 until they succeed by inheritance to the possession 
 of the cottages of their seniors. All will have been 
 placed in circumstances in which happiness may in 
 general be secured by good conduct, and it must be 
 admitted in favour of human nature, that men 
 seldom require any other encouragement. 
 
 That all these consequences will flow from the 
 repeal of the provisionjaws seems but little doubt- 
 ful ; but it would be rash to indulge in predictions 
 which a few months may riot improbably afford the 
 means of testing. No one is now so blind as not to 
 see that the days of the landlords' monopoly are 
 numbered. When even the landowners' chosen 
 champion imitates the policy of King Stork, and 
 seeks to maintain his political strength by pecking 
 at his devoted constituents, the latter can scarcely 
 hope for protection from any other quarter. The 
 legal meshes in which they have long kept the rest 
 of their countrymen entangled, are already 
 grievously rent, and only a few vigorous efforts 
 are wanting to tear them completely away. Sir 
 Robert Peel is the mouse that is now nibbling at 
 the net ; but he must ply his teeth more vigorously, 
 unless he would have the Anti-Corn-Law League 
 forestall him in his task. By whatsoever party 
 effected, the establishment of free trade cannot be 
 
COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 353 
 
 much longer delayed, and it will then be decided 
 whether cheapness of provisions will be the only 
 advantage which the labourer will derive from it, 
 or whether the same cause will not likewise create 
 an additional demand for his services, and restore 
 his ancient connexion with the soil. To a greater 
 or less extent he will unquestionably be benefited ; 
 but although the prospect of early relief be en- 
 couraging, the prolongation of his distress, even 
 for a limited period, cannot be regarded without 
 anxiety. It is in the power either of farmers or land- 
 lords to do much at once towards palliating the 
 evil ; and it would be well, both for their own sake, 
 and for that of their unfortunate dependents, if 
 they would universally avail themselves of the 
 means they possess for so good a purpose. It is 
 not unusual for farmers to let potato gardens to 
 their labourers ; but the exorbitant rent charged 
 for them renders, the possession a curse instead of 
 a blessing. Eight pounds an acre is a common 
 rate of charge for land underlet in this manner, for 
 which the real proprietor receives about thirty 
 shillings. Lust of gain is of course the farmer's 
 sole motive in such a transaction, which, so far 
 from affecting to have the labourer's welfare in 
 view, is the best course that could be taken for 
 reducing him to the level of the Irish cottier. If 
 instead of grinding the faces of the poor, the 
 farmer would be content to receive for his labourer's 
 allotment the same sum which he himself pays, he 
 might lose a few pounds in the first instance, but 
 he would be abundantly repaid. A saving equal 
 
 A A 
 
354 COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 
 
 to his loss would in most cases be effected merely 
 by the reduction of poor's rates, when able-bodied 
 men were furnished with the means of maintaining 
 themselves, and a positive gain of much greater 
 amount would result from the conversion of idle 
 desperadoes into cheerful and industrious servants, 
 too busy and too happy in their own gardens to 
 think of setting fire to his barns. In all the ad- 
 vantages arising from this change, the landlord 
 would have a principal share, and it is for his 
 interest to provide allotments for labourers who 
 cannot obtain them on equitable conditions from 
 their employers. Farmers, for the most part, are 
 strongly prejudiced against the allotment system; 
 and if they were favourable to it, it would still be 
 very preferable that the poor man should hold 
 land directly of the proprietor, rather than of the 
 farmer. In the former case he has a degree of 
 independence which it is ridiculous to suppose he 
 will venture to abuse, but which is necessary to 
 protect him against a sordid and narrow-minded 
 master. The apportionment of a field or two for 
 the poor demands not the smallest sacrifice from 
 the proprietor, for it is not requisite, nay, it is 
 exceedingly undesirable that labourers should hold 
 land on easier terms than farmers. The only 
 personal objection that the proprietor can have is 
 to the additional trouble which a number of small 
 occupiers may occasion. This additional trouble, 
 it may be observed, is purely imaginary, for allot- 
 ment-tenants are the most punctual of rent payers, 
 not falling into arrear once in a hundred times, and 
 
COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 355 
 
 rarely waiting even to be called upon for what they 
 owe. Some personal inconvenience, besides, might 
 well be borne for the sake of cancelling one half of 
 the poor's rates and of making some dozens of 
 fellow-creatures happy. If these considerations are 
 unavailing, still in every English village may be 
 found at least one just person, who from love to 
 God and man will voluntarily take upon himself the 
 duties of property, and make himself responsible 
 for the obligations of the poor. Let but a land- 
 holder announce his willingness to set apart ground 
 for allotments, and either the clergyman of the 
 parish, or some other benevolent individual or as- 
 sociation, will become security for the whole rent, 
 and will gratuitously undertake the superintendence 
 of the land and of the sub-tenants. Offers of this kind 
 have already been made in many instances, and the 
 little attention which has been paid to them, and 
 the consequently slow progress of a system which 
 has been proved by experience to be admirably 
 calculated to benefit the labouring class, evince 
 an extraordinary indifference on the part of the 
 owners of the soil to the welfare of their inferiors. 
 
 The same apathy, it must be owned, makes land- 
 lords negligent of their own interests also. If they 
 were wise, they would prepare betimes for the 
 change in their circumstances which will be occa- 
 sioned by free trade. As leases fell in, they would 
 detach portions of fifty acres or thereabouts from 
 their overgrown farms, and let them separately on 
 lease and at corn-rents. In return for conditions 
 so advantageous to the farmers, increased rents 
 
 A A 2 
 
35 6 REDUCTION 
 
 might be obtained, which, when the prices of agri- 
 cultural produce fell, would admit of considerable 
 reduction without sinking below their present 
 amount. Practical knowledge of the working of 
 small farms would also be acquired, and the re- 
 source offered by them would be estimated at its 
 true value. If landlords refuse to try this experi- 
 ment, and persist in keeping their extensive farms 
 intact, it is the more expedient for them to con- 
 sider how the cost of cultivation may be lessened. 
 The extension of the allotment system, by lowering 
 the poor rates, would have some effect in dimi- 
 nishing the farmer's expenses ; but in spite of all 
 that could be done with this view, it would be 
 scarcely possible to evade the necessity of sooner 
 or later reducing the rent of large farms. The 
 sooner this is done, indeed, the better ; for an im- 
 mediate abatement of the landlord's claim might 
 prevent the reduction from becoming permanent. 
 One cause of the defectiveness of English farming 
 is the deficiency of farming capital. Even the 
 modes of tillage actually practised require for 
 their successful prosecution more labour than is 
 commonly bestowed upon them. Almost every 
 farmer would employ more men if he could afford 
 to do so, but the money with which he would have 
 paid them has already gone for rent. The con- 
 sequence is, that the land is not sufficiently attended 
 to, and the produce is proportionably small. In 
 this way avarice defeats itself, and the landlord 
 (to use a rustic proverb) kills the calf in the cow's 
 belly. If his claim were limited to what the 
 
OF RENTS. 357 
 
 farmer could satisfy without detriment to his busi- 
 ness, his income would at first, of course, be 
 smaller, but the difference in his receipts would 
 not be a permanent loss. It would be a loan re- 
 payable with enormous interest money entrusted 
 to the farmer's care is fructify for the owner's use. 
 Of the increased produce arising from increased 
 expenditure upon the soil, the largest portion 
 would eventually be taken by the landlord; his 
 rent would rise above the point from which it had 
 fallen, and would abundantly recompense him for 
 his temporary sacrifice. This would be- the case 
 even if the practice of agriculture remained 
 unaltered. But farmers who had noticed the ex- 
 traordinary crops of cottage allotments would 
 naturally be desirous of trying the same mode of 
 culture, if they could spare the necessary outlay. 
 This is quite out of their power at present. An 
 acre of land, when dug, will often produce twice as 
 much as if ploughed ; but it costs about fifty shil- 
 lings to dig it, and not more than six or eight to 
 plough it, and a farmer who can scarcely contrive 
 to pay for one man's work, cannot venture to hire 
 half a dozen merely to do the same job more effec- 
 tually. If by an abatement of his landlord's claim 
 upon him he were enabled to try the experiment, 
 the result would soon give him the means of paying 
 a higher rent than before. 
 
 Whichever of the courses here indicated were 
 adopted with the view of enabling agriculture to 
 make head against foreign competition, the effects 
 would be not less beneficial to labourers than to 
 
 A A 3 
 
358 DUTIES 
 
 landlords. Neither the subdivision of farms nor 
 the temporary reduction of rent can occasion an 
 increase of produce, except through the employ- 
 ment of additional labour, which must be attended 
 by a rise of wages. The fortunes of agricultural 
 labourers for some time to come are in fact in the 
 hands of the owners and occupiers of the soil, and 
 particularly of the former. Free trade, in spite of 
 all opposition, must bring them relief at last ; but 
 landlords have it in their power to restore them at 
 once to a position not inferior to that occupied by 
 their forefathers four centuries ago. Landlords 
 can do this, too, without the smallest sacrifice. 
 They are not called upon to give any thing. It is 
 only requisite that they should condescend to deal 
 with the poor, and suffer them, as well as the rich, 
 to hire land. They are quite at liberty to exact 
 from allotment-holders payment at the highest 
 rates which they can obtain from any other class 
 of tenants, higher rates, that is, than are com- 
 monly paid by large farmers. Their own revenues 
 would be augmented instead of being diminished 
 by the very measures best adapted to promote the 
 welfare of their inferiors. Even if, besides letting 
 allotments to cottagers, they consented to reduce 
 the present rents of extensive farms, the loss would 
 be only temporary. Agriculture, relieved for a 
 while from the burthens which now impede its 
 growth, would soon gather strength enough to 
 support still heavier burthens. 
 
 Lords of the soil, who imagine they have nothing 
 more to do with its cultivators than to live in idle- 
 
OF LANDOWNERS. 359 
 
 ness on the fruits of their industry, are little aware 
 how wide a field of enjoyment their selfishness ex- 
 cludes them from. They might see happiness take 
 the place of misery, and know that they were its 
 authors, and without trying, they really cannot 
 appreciate the exquisite luxury of doing good. 
 Smiles would then greet them instead of scowls, 
 and blessings instead of muttered curses. If they 
 have eyes and ears, to say nothing of hearts, the 
 change could not be otherwise than pleasant. A 
 good conscience would cheer them by day and lull 
 them to sleep at night. Wine and down beds are 
 not half so efficacious. True wealth, according to 
 that most original of moralists, Mr. Carlyle, consists 
 in those things only in which the owner takes an 
 interest. Country gentlemen could not then hit 
 upon a much better way of growing rich than by 
 surrounding themselves with a happy and contented 
 peasantry. Many of them take great delight in 
 experimenting on live stock. Improving the breed 
 of men would apparently be quite as interesting an 
 occupation. How to make a pig too heavy to bear 
 its own weight, and to spoil good wholesome beef by 
 overloading it with fat, are possibly very fitting sub- 
 jects for philosophical investigation, but it would be 
 quite as gratifying, one would think, to efface the 
 famine lines from a poor man's face, to rekindle 
 cheerfulness in his downcast eyes, and to restore 
 the vigour of his muscles. Amateur graziers are 
 fond of making visiters go the round of their cow- 
 houses and piggeries, to remark the neatness and 
 order that prevail there. Did it never occur to 
 
 A A 4 
 
360 COMMONS' 
 
 them that a visit to their labourers' cottages would 
 be equally satisfactory to themselves, if they were 
 sure of finding there the same admirable arrange- 
 ments for drainage, ventilation, and warmth, equally 
 clean and comfortable beds, and inmates as well fed 
 and thriving ? 
 
 It is not intended by these remarks to cast a 
 stigma on landowners as a class, or to deny that 
 many of them make a worthy use of the vast power 
 placed in their hands. Still it is indisputable 
 that too many are utterly regardless of the 
 duties of their position, and incapable of being 
 awakened to a proper sense of them by any con- 
 siderations of benevolence or justice, or even of 
 self-interest. For the neglect of such as these, the 
 legislature alone can make adequate provision, and 
 it has of late shown some disposition to exert itself 
 for the purpose. 
 
 The extension of the allotment system was a 
 professed object of two bills proposed during the last 
 session of parliament those, viz., respecting Field 
 Gardens and Commons' Inclosure. The first of 
 these, if enacted, would have been chiefly valuable 
 as a monument of the genuine philanthropy of its 
 author ; for, except in so far as it authorised " field 
 wardens " to assume, for allotment purposes, the 
 tenancy of land held by parish authorities, it would 
 have enabled the friends of the poor to do little or 
 nothing, which they could not do equally well 
 without its aid. Lord Lincoln's bill has become 
 law, and is calculated to produce results of much 
 greater moment. While affording extraordinary 
 facilities for the inclosure of common land, it pro- 
 
INCLOSUKE ACT. 361 
 
 vides for the appropriation in every parish in which 
 it may come into operation, of a space, not less than 
 four, nor more than ten, acres in extent, for the 
 exercise and recreation of the inhabitants, and for 
 the investiture of trustees (to be styled " allotment 
 wardens ") with a further space sufficiently large 
 to allow of one quarter of an acre being allotted to 
 every poor householder. Very valuable advantages 
 are by this means promised to the poor. Wherever 
 there is any waste land worth inclosing, the 
 landowners will take care to lose no time in 
 giving effect to the law ; and every cottager who 
 desires to have an allotment will be enabled to 
 procure one. Moreover, the tract set apart for 
 the benefit of the poor will be incapable of being 
 diverted to any other purpose. The improvidence 
 or misfortunes of the actual tenants will not afford 
 to their wealthy neighbours opportunities of buying 
 up their little tenements. The property will be 
 placed inalienably in trust for a special purpose, 
 and the same extent of ground will always remain 
 available for distribution among successive gene- 
 rations of labourers. Good management alone will 
 be requisite to make this a most useful auxiliary 
 in the repression of pauperism, and in the form- 
 ation and maintenance of a thriving and contented 
 peasantry. Considered by itself, therefore, and 
 without reference to the conditions annexed, the 
 boon accorded to the poor by Lord Lincoln's Act 
 is one of great value. Whether it might not have 
 been granted on easier terms is a very different 
 question. The whole quantity of waste and com- 
 mon land still existing in England and Wales is 
 
362 COMMONS' 
 
 estimated at about eight millions of acres, of which 
 at least one half is supposed to be reclaimable. 
 It is barely possible that so many as two hundred 
 thousand acres may be set apart for play-grounds 
 and gardens for the poor, and every inch of the 
 remaining 3,800,000 acres may be seized upon by 
 the neighbouring landowners for their own ex- 
 clusive use. They may fence round every heath 
 and moor where the untravelled Englishman can 
 still catch a glimpse of nature, may bid the grum- 
 bling tourist keep the road, even among the Welsh 
 mountains and the Cumberland lakes, and may 
 leave the landless multitude without a scrap of 
 turf to set their feet upon, except in city parks and 
 village greens. They may totally extinguish any 
 still surviving rights of common, and pound the 
 unfortunate goose or donkey that may venture 
 back to its old feeding place ; they may forbid boys 
 to gather nuts or blackberries in the woods, and 
 confiscate stray cricket-balls struck beyond the 
 prescribed four acres. Nevertheless, the act which 
 enables them to do all this originated, as the 
 framer assures us, in a sincere regard for the poor. 
 It is from purely generous motives that landlords 
 have consented to the addition of one-seventh to 
 the size of their estates. Excess of conscientious- 
 ness, no doubt, a punctilious sense of justice to 
 themselves, prevented their abandoning their use- 
 less rights over a few acres of waste land without 
 abundant compensation. Then, at least, the trans- 
 fer to the poor is made absolutely, and without 
 reservation. No benefit surely is derived by the 
 
LXCLOSUKE ACT. 363 
 
 landlord from the tracts entrusted to allotment 
 wardens ? Not so. The latter may be required 
 to pay rent equal to the full annual value of the 
 land at the time of its occupation; so that land- 
 lords may positively draw larger profit from 
 cottage allotments than they did before resigning 
 their common rights over the site. No additional 
 compensation, therefore, can really have been 
 wanting to reconcile them to the sacrifice they have 
 made. In order to induce them to let small por- 
 tions of waste for their full actual value, it was not 
 necessary to permit them to appropriate nearly 
 twenty times as much for themselves, to seize upon 
 what the rapacity of ages has spared, and to exclude 
 the public from what have always in effect been 
 national domains and public pleasure-grounds. The 
 poor man might have had his garden without losing 
 his right of pasture, and the power of walking a 
 mile or two straight on end without being stopped 
 by a hedge. 
 
 It is too late now, however, to complain of what 
 has been done. The bargain is struck, and nothing 
 remains but to make the best of it. In every 
 parish containing any considerable quantity of 
 common land, we may expect speedily to see the 
 cottagers in possession of gardens ; but whether 
 they will derive therefrom all the benefit expected, 
 or any benefit at all, will depend greatly on the 
 position and size of the gardens, and on the rent 
 for which they are let. Experience has shown that 
 a labourer may be greatly benefited by an allotment 
 of land to which he has to walk three or four miles ; 
 
364 COMMONS' 
 
 but in order perfectly to answer the intended pur- 
 pose to afford profitable occupation for his own 
 and his family's leisure, the allotment should be 
 near his dwelling, and, if possible, close to it. No 
 time will then be lost in passing backwards and 
 forwards ; every spare minute may be usefully spent 
 in weeding, watering, or something of the sort, and 
 a good deal of work may thus be got through 
 without an effort, and as a pastime instead of a 
 task. With respect to the size of cottage gar- 
 dens, allotment wardens, according to the original 
 bill, were to have been prohibited from forming any 
 larger than half an acre, and as this is probably as 
 much on an average as a labourer in full employ- 
 ment has time to manage, the limitation might have 
 been proper. By the act, as it now stands, the size 
 of allotments is restricted to one quarter of an acre, 
 which is certainly too little. At any rate it is of 
 as much consequence that the gardens should not 
 contain less than a quarter of an acre each, as that 
 they should not contain more ; and it is of still- 
 greater importance, that having once been made of 
 a certain size, they should not afterwards be dimi- 
 nished, in order to accommodate a larger number 
 of applicants. An allotment cannot do much to 
 improve the tenant's condition, unless it is large 
 enough to yield him a considerable supply of food ; 
 and there can be no fear of over-population result- 
 ing from the minute partition of land, if the land 
 distributed among the first generation of tenants is 
 not allowed to be subdivided afterwards. Again, 
 as it is ordained that the rent demanded by the 
 
INCLOSUKE ACT. 365 
 
 wardens for the allotments let by them shall not be 
 less than the annual value of the land for farming 
 purposes, so assuredly it ought not to be more. It 
 may be right to make the labourer pay for his 
 garden at the rate at which land of the same qua- 
 lity is usually let in the neighbourhood, but not a 
 farthing more can be exacted from him consistently 
 with the object for which allotments are designed. 
 
 If these considerations be properly attended to, 
 every objection to the allotment system will disap- 
 pear. Farmers will soon discover that a labourer, 
 assisted by his wife and children, can 1 easily culti- 
 vate a rood of land without neglecting his master's 
 work ; and it is obvious that gardens of that size. 
 let at rents worth not a fourth part of the crops, 
 and indivisible, cannot have any tendency to reduce 
 their tenants to the condition of Irish cottiers, to 
 whom the landlord leaves nothing but the bare 
 means of subsistence. As for the danger of farmers 
 making the profits of allotments a pretext for 
 reducing wages, it is clear that they can do so only 
 where the supply of labour exceeds the demand, and 
 where the employer is able in consequence to dictate 
 his own terms. But allotments would give labourers 
 a resource independent of the hire of their services, 
 and enable them to resist the depreciation of their 
 labour. With a stock of provisions of their own 
 raising, they would be able to hold out for better 
 wages, instead of being obliged to accept whatever 
 was offered. 
 
 It is only, however, in places containing much 
 waste land that legislative interference has as yet 
 
366 COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 
 
 provided for the formation of allotments. In pa- 
 rishes already completely inclosed, the matter is 
 still left entirely to the pleasure of the landowners, 
 and it deserves to be inquired whether some artifi- 
 cial stimulus ought not to be applied to the sluggish 
 sympathies of persons of that class. To compel 
 them to let land in any particular manner would 
 seem an unjust, and would certainly be an injudi- 
 cious invasion of the pretensions of property. But 
 although the compulsory formation of cottage gar- 
 dens on private estates cannot be recommended, a 
 less objectionable method may be mentioned of 
 producing the same effect indirectly. By an act 
 passed in the reign of Henry the Seventh, and not 
 repealed till the middle of the last century, it was 
 provided, that no cottage should be built without at 
 least four acres of ground attached ; and such a 
 precedent would amply justify the enactment of a 
 new law, ordaining that in parishes not containing 
 any waste land available for allotment purposes, no 
 cottage should be built in future without having at 
 least half an acre unalienably annexed to it. The 
 operation of such a law would be slow, but it would 
 be sure. In the course of time it would (to use 
 Lord Bacon's language respecting an act of a some- 
 what similar character) " amortise a great part of 
 the lands of the kingdom unto the hold and occu- 
 pation" of the peasantry, very much to their ad- 
 vantage. For " houses being kept up, would of 
 necessity enforce a dweller ; and the proportion of 
 land for occupation being kept up, would of. neces- 
 sity enforce that dweller not to be a beggar, but a 
 
COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 367 
 
 man of some substance." * All cottages would at 
 last have their gardens, and the number of the lat- 
 ter being made equal to the demand for them, they 
 could not be let except on fair and moderate terms. 
 Every cottager would be a small landholder, and 
 would be able to keep the greater part of his pro- 
 duce for his own use. Further than this it is not, 
 perhaps, desirable for the legislature to interfere. 
 In consequence either of the in closure of commons, 
 or of the building of new cottages, there would very 
 soon be few villages without a sufficient number of 
 cottage allotments to demonstrate their good effects, 
 and the example of forming them, when once set, 
 would no doubt be voluntarily imitated. 
 
 The reader has by this time discovered that the 
 measures chiefly relied on for improving the con- 
 dition of the peasantry are two : the repeal of the 
 Corn Laws and of all other restrictions on the im- 
 portation of foreign provisions, and the general 
 adoption of cottage allotments. The first, by 
 making food and other necessaries cheap, would 
 raise the value of the labourer's actual earnings, 
 and it would probably increase the demand for 
 labour, and with it the rate of wages; and the 
 second would supply the labourer with a consider- 
 able stock of food, in addition to what he might be 
 able to buy. By the two together, it seems certain 
 that the means of every labouring family in rural 
 districts might be increased one-half at least, and, 
 in many instances, they would more probably be 
 doubled. Poor creatures who are now pining on 
 
 * Bacon's Hist, of Hen. VII. : Works, vol. v. p. 62. edit. 1824. 
 
368 COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 
 
 seven shillings a-week, would , independently of 
 any increase of money wages, be as well off as if 
 their present pittance could be immediately raised 
 to eleven or twelve shillings ; and the fortunate few 
 who earn as much as fourteen shillings a-week, 
 would enjoy an annual income worth as much as 
 fifty pounds at the present moment. If in this 
 manner adequate relief were afforded to the priva- 
 tions of the labouring class, not only would the 
 symptoms of over-population be removed the dis- 
 ease itself might also be regarded as radically cured. 
 When the question of cottage allotments was dis- 
 cussed just now, it was not proposed that they 
 should ever be more numerous than the applicants 
 for them, at the time of their first institution, Not 
 only was no mention made of a provision for a 
 subsequently increased number of claimants ; it was 
 even declared that the first allotments should on 
 no account be divided to satisfy future claims. It 
 must not, however, be supposed that allotment 
 holders would, after a while, become a favoured 
 class, and that, as population advanced, there would 
 necessarily rise up labouring families desirous of 
 obtaining land, but unable to procure any. The 
 probability is, that unless some peculiar causes in- 
 tervened, population would not advance at all. If 
 all the labourers now living in any place were to 
 be raised to a prosperous condition, their children 
 also would become used to new comforts, and would 
 not marry until they could keep their families as 
 well as they had been brought up themselves. If 
 an allotment were needed to assist a man in doing 
 
COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 369 
 
 this, he would remain single, living most likely 
 either with his relations or in his master's house 
 until the death of one of his elders left an allotment 
 vacant for him. The number of families would 
 thus continue to correspond with the number of 
 allotments, unless, from some rise in the price of 
 labour, a man's earnings became sufficient for the 
 comfortable maintenance of a family without the 
 aid of a piece of ground. Population might then 
 advance without lowering the condition of the peo- 
 ple, but otherwise it would remain stationary for 
 ages without any permanent increase. In either 
 case successive generations would inherit at least 
 the same proportional amount of wealth from their 
 immediate predecessors; subsistence would retain 
 at least the same relation to the number of con- 
 sumers. In short, as was observed in a preceding 
 Chapter, nothing more is wanting to cure over- 
 population than to make people comfortable, and 
 to make the continuance of their comforts dependent 
 on themselves. They will then take care not to let 
 their numbers increase beyond their means of live- 
 lihood. Their happy lot will not be forfeited by 
 any act of their own. If their numbers again be- 
 come excessive, it will be owing to some extraneous 
 circumstance, over which they have no control, 
 such, for example, as a decrease of the demand for 
 labour, which has absolutely diminished their re- 
 sources. 
 
 The expedients for the cure of over- population 
 which seem most worthy of confidence have now 
 been pointed out ; but there are other means, sup- 
 
 B B 
 
370 
 
 ASSOCIATION OF 
 
 plementary and auxiliary, which ought not to be 
 neglected. The obligation of landowners to assist 
 in providing additional employment for the poor 
 has already been discussed ; but farmers have it in 
 their power, without aid from their landlords, and 
 without resorting to the allotment system, to im- 
 prove the condition of their labourers most materi- 
 ally, not only without any loss, but with immense 
 benefit to themselves. One principal cause of the 
 extraordinary productiveness of land under the 
 management of small occupiers, is, that all or most 
 of the cultivators are directly interested in the 
 success of their labour : they work for themselves, 
 and consequently work with an ardour which can- 
 not be expected from hired labourers. Every farmer 
 might, however, make his servants almost equally 
 zealous in his cause, by altering the mode of remu- 
 nerating them. If, instead of being paid at a fixed 
 rate of wages, they were entitled to a 1 certain pro- 
 portion of the crops, they would strive to make the 
 crops as abundant as possible. They would be 
 engaged as partners in their master's business, and 
 would look upon his interests as their own. Know- 
 ing that their reward depended on their exertions, 
 they would exert themselves accordingly. From 
 increased diligence corresponding results would 
 doubtless proceed, and something like the fertility 
 of gardens would be exhibited in extensive farms. 
 Part of the increased produce would of course be 
 appropriated by the labourers ; but they would 
 draw their recompence out of a new fund of their 
 own creation, which, after supplying them with a 
 
FARMERS WITH LABOURERS. 371 
 
 plentiful subsistence, would leave an ample residue 
 to be added to the ordinary profits of their em- 
 ployers. Here is another method in which the 
 peasantry might be raised from poverty, not only 
 without subjecting any other class to expense, but 
 even admitting others to participation in their gains. 
 The pecuniary advantage, too, which farmers would 
 obtain by taking their labourers into partnership, 
 is only one among many good consequences of such 
 an arrangement. Nothing else would tend so much 
 to repair the rents so visible in the framework of 
 society, and to substitute affection and esteem for 
 the jealous mistrust and malignancy with which the 
 poor have long regarded their superiors in station. 
 Another expedient which farmers would do well 
 to adopt is, that of again taking their unmarried 
 labourers as inmates into their own dwellings, 
 u Gentlemen farmers " men of cultivated minds 
 and refined feelings, cannot indeed be expected to 
 resume the obsolete patriarchal familiarity of olden 
 times, and to treat their rude unlettered dependents 
 as messmates and companions; but they might, 
 without any sacrifice of gentility, provide comfort- 
 able lodgings and a plentiful table for their servants, 
 either in or immediately adjoining the farm-house. 
 The duties of superintendence would not be oner- 
 ous, and might be performed by deputy, and the 
 expense might be defrayed by a deduction from the 
 wages of the labourers, smaller than what they 
 would have to pay elsewhere for the most wretched 
 shelter, and the coarsest and scantiest food. They 
 would palpably benefit by the arrangement; and 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 EDUCATION. 
 
 besides the obvious advantages of better quarters 
 and diet, an enlightened and benevolent master 
 might easily furnish them with the means of spend- 
 ing their leisure time both agreeably and profitably. 
 The desire of retaining so comfortable a situation 
 would very generally preserve them from early 
 marriages; and the same motive would make them 
 anxious to please their master, and act as a power- 
 ful incentive to good conduct. 
 
 Much stress is laid by many persons upon the 
 efficacy of education to arrest the progress of popu- 
 lation. Habits of foresight and self-restraint may, 
 it is supposed, be communicated by precept and 
 direct mental instruction. In the largest sense of 
 the word, every one of the measures already recom- 
 mended in these pages for the advancement of the 
 labouring class, may be regarded as contributing to 
 education ; for it is only by its influence on the 
 mind, that an accession of comfort can tend to dis- 
 suade people from premature marriages. Even 
 mere schooling, however, is calculated to have 
 some effect of the same kind. Whatever exercises 
 the mind, develops its powers : mental power can 
 only be expended in thought ; and a man who 
 thinks at all, is never so likely to think as when he 
 is about to act. To whatever sort of culture, there- 
 fore, the mind be subjected, there is every proba- 
 bility that more or less of forethought will be 
 among the products. The same result may be 
 looked for more certainly, and in larger measure, 
 if pains be taken not only to employ the mind, but 
 to awaken its thirst for knowledge, to store it with 
 
EDUCATION. 373 
 
 information, and with materials for investigation 
 and comparison. The habit as well as the power 
 of reflection will then be created, and will naturally 
 lead to conclusions which will be adopted as rules 
 of conduct. Still better security for the practice of 
 self-government will be taken, if the pupil's atten- 
 tion be particularly directed to the evil conse- 
 quences of vice and folly, if he learn to appre- 
 ciate the peace and satisfaction which virtue ensures 
 to her votaries, and if he be made acquainted 
 with the ek*fc^ of subduing his passions, and keep- 
 ing his inclinations in check. 
 
 To dwell longer on the importance of mental 
 culture in the formation of character, would be 
 waste of time ; for it is denied by none, and none 
 are now opposed to the extension of the blessings 
 of education to people of all ranks. In order, how- 
 ever, that much good should arise from the instruc- 
 tion of members of the labouring class, a peculiar 
 method should be adopted. As almost any kind of 
 intellectual exercise is better than none at all, it is 
 no doubt better that the poor should be taught the 
 elements of reading, writing, and reckoning, than 
 that they should be taught nothing. As even the 
 alphabet cannot be learned without some applica- 
 tion and exertion, a child who has got to the end of 
 his A B C is probably a trifle more intelligent than 
 before he began it ; but the difference is so mere a 
 trifle, that the sagacious Mr. Weller was perfectly 
 warranted in questioning whether it is worth any 
 one's while to go through so much to gain sa little. 
 Nevertheless, very little more proficiency is at- 
 
 B B 3 
 
374 EDUCATION. 
 
 tained by the majority of pupils at dame and 
 charity schools. Few, after passing through the 
 usual course of study at such seminaries, can do 
 more than spell through a page of easy words, at 
 the rate of a line in two minutes, and scratch a few 
 shapeless hieroglyphics on the false pretence of 
 signing their names. Even those extraordinary 
 geniuses who can read pretty fluently, have, in 
 general, only learnt to do so like parrots, without 
 understanding much more of the meaning of the 
 sounds they utter. The art so painfully acquired 
 is rarely afterwards of any use to its possessors. 
 Their faculties may have been somewhat sharpened 
 in pursuit ; but the prize itself, when caught, turns 
 out to be of little or no value. An opinion very 
 prevalent among worthy persons of more benevo- 
 lence than discernment, is, that when the poor have 
 been taught to read, they will enter voluntarily 
 upon studies which must make them intelligent, 
 moral, and religious. It is forgotten that, in gene- 
 ral, they have neither inclination nor time to do 
 any thing of the sort. They have indeed the key 
 of the temple of knowledge, but they have no curi- 
 osity to enter ; so the key soon becomes rusty from 
 disuse. This can scarcely be wondered at. The 
 man of business or pleasure, who has been sitting 
 in his office or counting-house from ten till four, or 
 who has spent the day in hunting or shooting, or 
 paying visits, feels himself too much exhausted 
 after dinner for any harder reading than a novel 
 or a newspaper, though the mere act of reading 
 does not cost him an effort : yet the poor hus- 
 
EDUCATION. 375 
 
 bandman, who, from dawn till dusk, has been 
 trudging in the mire of a ploughed field, or 
 mowing under a blazing sun, is expected, after all 
 his toil, to be ready, not simply for reading, but for 
 poring over a book, syllable by syllable, with more 
 difficulty than a tolerable scholar would find in 
 translating Pindar, or solving a proposition of 
 Euclid. It is all very well fo* children of the 
 middle and upper ranks to commence their educa- 
 tion by learning to read, for they have plenty of 
 time left for reading, after they have learnt the art. 
 But the children of the poor are no sooner strong 
 enough to be of use, than they are set to work. 
 The few vacant years -which intervene between in- 
 fancy and labour, are all that they can spend at 
 school. The interval is too precious to be wasted 
 upon an acquirement of which they do not perceive 
 the value, and of which they will have little leisure 
 to avail themselves. Instead of being employed in 
 teaching them to read in giving them the means 
 of obtaining knowledge, it should be spent in giving 
 them the knowledge itself, and a desire to procure 
 more. Their minds should be filled and expanded 
 with useful and interesting information; their 
 curiosity awakened, their reasoning powers ani- 
 mated and assisted, and their taste cultivated. Is 
 it asked how this can be done for children who do 
 not even know their letters ? By the same means 
 as were practised before printing made books cheap, 
 and when a single volume sold for the price of an 
 estate, by the method which taught an Athenian 
 mob to appreciate the sublimity of ^Eschylus and 
 
 B B 4 
 
376 EDUCATIOK. 
 
 the eloquence of Demosthenes, which made thou- 
 sands of indigent scholars competent to discuss the 
 subtleties of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, and 
 which is even now successfully employed by Faraday 
 to communicate a smattering of chemistry to fa- 
 shionable audiences. In a word, by oral instruction. 
 A national schoolmaster's proper business is that of 
 a lecturer. Instead of merely teaching his boys 
 the arbitrary symbols of unmeaning sounds, and 
 disgusting them with study by confining them to 
 so dry a subject, he should strive to imbue them 
 with ideas at once. He should tell them stories of 
 the world and its inhabitants, of the different cus- 
 toms of different nations, and of the habits of 
 animals ; he should relate to them the most striking 
 events in the history of their own and other coun- 
 tries, and the actions of illustrious persons; he 
 should reveal to them the structure of the universe ; 
 and, if permitted, he should, above all, instruct them 
 in the principles of morality, and the truths of re- 
 ligion. Pupils made to commit to memory interest- 
 ing facts, would have gained something of real value 
 at school. The difference between them and children 
 who had merely learnt to read, would be the same 
 as that between a person who had just enjoyed a 
 hearty draught, and another who stood parched 
 with thirst beside a concealed spring. Even if they 
 made no addition to their knowledge after leaving 
 school, the stock already accumulated would serve 
 permanently to occupy and enlarge the mind, to 
 exercise and assist the judgment, and to please the 
 fancy. But intellectual wealth can scarcely remain 
 
EDUCATION. 377 
 
 without variation in amount. The appetite for 
 knowledge, when once awakened, grows by what it- 
 feeds on. A peasant, who had once listened with 
 interest to tales of the Laplander and his reindeer 
 sledge, whose enthusiasm had been kindled by the 
 mention of Thermopylae or the Spanish Armada, or 
 who had been initiated into the sublime mysteries 
 of the celestial mechanism, would not rest satisfied 
 without seeking further acquaintance with such 
 attractive topics. Books would be looked upon as 
 the most agreeable resource for his spare time. For 
 it must not be supposed, that because he had learned 
 much by catechism and conversation, he might not 
 also have learned to read. The education of the 
 poor, though based upon oral instruction, should 
 not be restricted to it alone. Eeading and writing 
 need not be neglected because other things, of more 
 immediate value, are first taught. There is ample 
 time for all. In fact, the quickest way of teaching 
 children to read, would be to begi by teaching 
 them how much delight reading is capable of af- 
 fording. They would then apply themselves with 
 voluntary ardour as well as with quickened faculties, 
 and might certainly learn to read as fluently in two 
 years as they now do in the five or six commonly 
 spent at national schools. 
 
 Further, the matter taught is of as much conse- 
 quence in the education of the poor as the method 
 of teaching. It is not sufficient to communicate 
 information, it is also important that a portion of 
 the information should be of a particular kind. 
 The object of education is not merely to improve 
 
378 EDUCATION. 
 
 the mind of the pupil, but also to qualify him for 
 the situation which he is destined to fill, and the 
 nature of the instruction should vary accordingly. 
 If it be good to be well informed on almost any 
 subject, it is particularly desirable to understand 
 thoroughly one's own business. It may be thought 
 that an agricultural labourer can learn enough of 
 his occupation after he begins to practise it; but his 
 services would certainly be of greater value if he 
 were acquainted with the theory of husbandry- if 
 he understood the mode of nutrition of plants, and 
 the qualities of different soils and manures. It 
 would be very possible, without plunging him into 
 the mysteries of physiology and chemistry, to give 
 him such a knowledge of this subject, as, if it did 
 not procure for him better wages, would enable 
 him to manage his own garden more skilfully and 
 profitably. As peasant boys should be instructed 
 in the principles of horticulture, so girls should be 
 taught to sew and to cook. A knowledge of these 
 arts would be of more practical advantage to them 
 in the ordinary business of life than any mere book 
 learning. It would even tend more to promote their 
 moral improvement, for it would assist them in mak- 
 ing home comfortable, and a comfortable home is still 
 more essential to morality than mental culture. Both 
 boys and girls should be carefully impressed with 
 the necessity for foresight and self-restraint, and 
 no pains should be spared to convince them that 
 upon their exercise of these qualities their future 
 welfare mainly depends. No more valuable lesson 
 can be taught to the poor than that their condition 
 
EDUCATION. 379 
 
 is regulated principally by their own behaviour, 
 and that, without exertion on their part, it cannot 
 be permanently ameliorated. 
 
 Education of the superior character alluded to 
 cannot, it need scarcely be said, be afforded by 
 schools supported solely by the working classes. 
 Illiterate parents seldom appreciate duly the ad- 
 vantages of learning; and even when they do, 
 those who cannot supply their children with food 
 enough for the body, are still less able to purchase 
 any for the mind. Many, too, may be far enough 
 raised above material want, without having the 
 means of procuring suitable instruction for their 
 families. A tutor capable of communicating the 
 rudiments of geography, history, and natural 
 philosophy, would not be satisfied with such fees 
 as the ordinary patrons of a hedge school can 
 afford to pay. If he is to teach the poor, he must 
 derive his recompence principally from the rich. 
 The latter, it must be owned, are not backward in 
 contributing to the education of the poor ; but an 
 object so important ought not to depend entirely 
 upon voluntary aid. It is a matter in which all 
 ranks of the community are interested, and for 
 which national provision ought to be made. So 
 far there is no difference of opinion. No one now 
 denies that proper schools for the lower orders of 
 people ought to be founded and maintained at the 
 cost of the state. The expense no doubt would be 
 considerable, but it would scarcely be so great as 
 that already incurred for prisons, hulks, and convict 
 ships ; and it is certainly better economy to spend 
 
380 EDUCATION. 
 
 money in training up people to conduct themselves 
 properly, than in punishing them for their mis- 
 deeds. Still, although all men are agreed as to 
 the expediency of adopting a scheme of national 
 education, nothing is done towards its establish- 
 ment. Our miserable religious dissensions are 
 allowed to stand in the way. Conflicting sects 
 differ as to the nature and amount of the religious 
 instruction which ought to be administered ; church- 
 men, for the most part, contending, that in schools 
 established by the state, the state religion only 
 should be taught ; while their opponents plead 
 that children of all sects should be allowed to share 
 in the advantages of national education, without 
 having doctrines instilled into them from which 
 their natural guardians conscientiously dissent. 
 Unanimity upon such a subject is not to be hoped 
 for, so long at least as the prolonged agitation of 
 the question continues to exasperate existing pre- 
 judices. In the mean time, because it cannot be 
 settled how religion shall be taught, no arrange- 
 ments are made for teaching any thing; and but 
 for the exertions of individuals, the mass of the 
 people would be suffered to remain in utter ig- 
 norance. Is not this the extreme of absurdity ? 
 The great truths of Christianity are held in 
 common by all GbriGtioas. The most bigoted 
 churchman can scarcely suppose that the peculiar 
 tenets by which the Church of England is dis- 
 tinguished are essential to salvation. He will at 
 least admit that men are the better for under- 
 standing the doctrine of the atonement, even if 
 
EDUCATION. 381 
 
 they understand nothing else. Might he not, 
 therefore, allow them to be instructed in uni- 
 versally admitted articles of faith, without requiring, 
 as a condition of their receiving this measure of 
 enlightenment, their assent to the spiritual su- 
 premacy of the sovereign, and to the divine origin 
 of bishops ? If, however, no plan for religious 
 instruction can meet with general approbation, 
 why should not opportunities be offered to the 
 poor of obtaining the elements of human learning 
 at least ? Is there anything startling in this 
 proposition ? Is education from which religion is 
 excluded necessarily godless ? Is all learning im- 
 pious which does not conduce to piety ? Of the 
 two great branches of knowledge which it is the 
 business of education to teach, religious and se- 
 cular the first is no doubt immeasurably the 
 most important. To say this, is nothing more 
 than to say that the soul is superior to the body, 
 or that eternity is more lasting than time. But it 
 does not follow that the second also may not 
 possess great value. Surely, even pagans and 
 atheists are all the better for being -well informed. 
 The great business of life is to prepare for futurity ; 
 but few persons think it possible to take too much 
 pains to make even this life comfortable ; and since 
 secular education tends to promote men's temporal 
 happiness, and to make them useful, moral, and 
 orderly members of society, it would be worth 
 while to establish schools even of secular education. 
 Undoubtedly the matter of most moment is to 
 make men pious ; but if this primary object cannot 
 
382 EDUCATION. 
 
 be attained, must all secondary ones be voluntarily 
 relinquished ? If the spiritual instruction of the 
 poor be obstructed, must they therefore be left in 
 total ignorance ? Must they remain savages be- 
 cause they cannot be made saints ? 
 
 From the way in which this subject is sometimes 
 discussed, one might almost suppose that children 
 attending schools where religion is not taught, 
 must be in consequence deprived of opportunities 
 of spiritual instruction which they would otherwise 
 have enjoyed. But they may still be sent to church 
 or chapel quite as much as if they did not go to 
 school ; their parents may teach them what they 
 know of religion, and their pastor may converse 
 with and catechise them. All the knowledge of 
 divine things acquired in these ways maybe miser- 
 ably insufficient, but its amount will not be lessened 
 because the children are taught something of worldly 
 matters also. It is certainly not necessary that the 
 teachers of every art and science should be teachers 
 of religion. People in easy circumstances find it 
 useful to place themselves and their children under 
 a variety of tutors, and, without requiring their 
 classical and mathematical masters, their professors 
 of music or drawing, to be doctors of divinity, are 
 content to learn from each what he is competent to 
 teach, and apply to other quarters for spiritual ad- 
 vice. Let equal facilities be granted to the poor. 
 Let national schools be established for supplying 
 them with the knowledge essential to their tempo- 
 ral welfare, and if it be impracticable to afford re- 
 ligious instruction in the same establishments, let 
 
EDUCATION. 383 
 
 the pupils be left in spiritual matters to the guidance 
 of instructors selected by their natural guardians. 
 
 Nothing, it is to be hoped, need be added to 
 these remarks, to guard them from misconstruction. 
 Their object is, not to recommend the exclusion of 
 religious instruction from national schools, but 
 merely to show, that if some plan of communicating 
 that instruction cannot be agreed upon, the estab- 
 lishment of schools to teach human learning alone 
 would not only be far better than total neglect of 
 popular education, but would be productive of 
 public advantages that cannot be too highly esti- 
 mated. Their substance is simply this : Educate 
 the poor, religiously, if you can, but at all events 
 educate them: if you are permitted, make them 
 pious, prepare them for eternity ; but if you are 
 prevented from doing this, do not sullenly refuse 
 to do any thing whatever; do not withhold the 
 knowledge calculated to make them happy in this 
 life, because you are not at liberty to assist in 
 making them happy hereafter. 
 
 The advantages of education, however, are very 
 apt to be over-rated. It is not, as its advocates too 
 often fondly imagine, all-sufficient for social and 
 moral regeneration. As an auxiliary, indeed, it is 
 invaluable, but of itself it avails little. By making 
 people more intelligent, it enables them to make 
 the most of their resources, but it cannot rescue 
 from destitution those whose means of living are 
 positively inadequate. The one thing needful is to 
 cure the poverty of the poor. Then, and not till 
 then, are they in a fit state to benefit by mental 
 
384 HOUSE ACCOMMODATION. 
 
 culture ; but as long as they suffer from want, in~ 
 creased intelligence is quite as likely to make them 
 dangerous rebels against their ill fortune as patient 
 endurers of it. If knowledge is to bring forth good 
 fruit in them, they must be well lodged, clothed, 
 and fed first, and taught afterwards. 
 
 Another observation remains to be made before 
 this part of our subject is dismissed. It is absurd 
 to inculcate maxims which circumstances render it 
 impossible to practise, and to talk of cleanliness, 
 neatness, and decency to persons condemned to live 
 in places little better than pigstyes. Civilisation 
 cannot be expected among people who are very 
 badly housed. Inhabitants of hovels with floors 
 ankle- deep in mud, who have no water but what 
 they bring from a distance, nor any receptacle for 
 refuse but the dungheap beside the door, and who 
 are obliged by want of space to sleep half a dozen 
 in one room, cannot but become filthy and coarse- 
 minded. In such circumstances it is likewise im- 
 possible for them to have very exalted ideas of 
 comfort. They cannot be very apprehensive of 
 forfeiting a position that has so little to recommend 
 it, nor is such fear likely to make them combat 
 strong temptation. This is a source of evil which 
 landowners alone can remove, and those who will 
 not do so voluntarily, ought to be compelled by 
 legislative interference. A Building Act is nearly 
 as much wanted in the country as in towns. No 
 cottages ought to be built without proper arrange- 
 ments for drainage and for the supply of water, or 
 without accommodation for the separation of the 
 
"MORAL" RESTRAINT. 385 
 
 sexes. With untaxed bricks and timber a commo- 
 dious dwelling might be built for a sum of money 
 upon which the average rent paid by a Dorsetshire 
 peasant for his miserable hut would be very liberal 
 interest. 
 
 At the risk of being made to smile, the reader 
 must now be reminded, that the final purpose for 
 which free trade, the allotment system, education, 
 and sundry other expedients, have been so strongly 
 recommended, is neither more nor less than to di- 
 minish the frequency of marriage. The immediate 
 object is indeed to improve the condition of the 
 poor; but the improvement would be very short- 
 lived, if it did not serve to check the progress of 
 population. No community can long remain pros- 
 perous, if marriage does more than preserve the 
 proportion between the numbers of the people and 
 their means of subsistence, if the former increase 
 more rapidly than the latter, or if the former 
 increase at all, when the latter are stationary. In 
 this last case, population should altogether cease to 
 advance, and ought only to be prevented from re- 
 ceding. The poor are therefore to be placed in a 
 situation of comfort, in order that they may ab- 
 stain from marrying until they can do so without 
 imprudence. So hard a condition may seem per- 
 haps to destroy the value of the boon. That may 
 appear a very dull, prosaic state of existence, in 
 which marriages are only permissible in order to 
 prevent depopulation ; in which youths and maidens 
 can only gaze at each other " through the grate of 
 
 c c 
 
386 "MORAL" RESTRAINT. 
 
 the preventive check*;" and no one can succeed to 
 the privilege of matrimony, except by the death of 
 another. Such, however, is the inevitable fate re- 
 served for mankind ; for, if they do not voluntarily 
 restrain their power of multiplication, the time 
 must at last come when the earth will be unable to 
 maintain more than the actual number of inha- 
 bitants, and when some must die before room can 
 be made for any new comers. We should long ago 
 have been reduced to this necessity, if men had 
 always blindly obeyed their natural appetites. Five 
 hundred, instead of six thousand years, would have 
 sufficed to stock the world with eight hundred 
 millions of human creatures, if Noah and his de- 
 scendants for twenty or thirty generations had 
 done their utmost for the propagation of the 
 species. So, likewise, to take our own country as 
 an example, England, supposing her to have con- 
 tained two millions of inhabitants before the Nor- 
 man invasion, would have become, at the accession 
 of Edward the First, as well peopled as at present, 
 if population had advanced as rapidly during the 
 two centuries immediately succeeding the Conquest 
 as it has done during the last fifty years. It is 
 clear then, that, in every part of the world, popu- 
 lation must often have remained nearly stationary 
 for ages together ; and that our own ancestors, at 
 certain epochs, were as rigid practical Malthusians 
 as the rest. What man has borne, man may bear. 
 
 * This expression is Colonel Perronet Thompson's. See his 
 Political Exercises, vol. iii. p. 164. 
 
" MORAL " RESTRAINT. 387 
 
 We cannot be less able to practise moderation in 
 matrimony than our forefathers. The restraints to 
 which they submitted cheerfully cannot, after all, 
 be so very intolerable. History tells us of no 
 period in which marriage was confined to the 
 elderly and middle-aged, and in which youth was 
 forbidden to indulge in dreams of love ; and Eng- 
 land would certainly never have obtained the name 
 of merry England, if the bonds of celibacy had sate 
 very heavily upon her people. General abstinence 
 from marriage is not required to keep population 
 stationary. After submitting to every needful 
 delay, a fair proportion of couples might annually 
 reach the altar long before the light of romance 
 was extinguished by the cold realities of life, and 
 quite as soon as they had acquired experience and 
 steadiness enough to manage a house and a family. 
 , The truth of this assertion will become manifest on 
 closer examination. The necessity for greater mo- 
 deration in connubial affairs has been represented 
 as applicable to the poor only ; not because the 
 wealthy are entitled to greater indulgence, but 
 because they are already sufficiently subject to 
 self-control. People in the enjoyment of compe- 
 tence are found by experience not to multiply be- 
 yond the means of subsistence. Over-population 
 does not originate with them. It is even believed, 
 with apparently good reason, that the rich do not 
 keep up their own numbers ; and that, unless re- 
 cruited from the lower grades of society, their 
 ranks would gradually fall off.* Yet most mem- 
 
 * See ante, p. 121. 
 c c 2 
 
388 
 
 bers of the upper and middle classes, who desire to 
 marry, find the means of doing so some time or 
 other, and seldom have to wait till they have past 
 the age of thirty, or thereabout. No doubt a good 
 many of them die bachelors or old maids ; but the 
 former are generally such from choice, and the lat- 
 ter, though possibly without an invincible aversion 
 to marriage, would prefer remaining single to losing 
 their position in society. It is then at least clear, 
 that, by the most intelligent part of the com- 
 munity, the deficiencies of single-blessedness are 
 less dreaded than the consequences of imprudent 
 unions, and nothing more is sought tfyan to per- 
 suade all to take the same view of the matter. It 
 is not desired to deprive the poor of the privilege 
 of matrimony, but merely that, for their own sakes, 
 they should not avail themselves of it more freely 
 than the rich, who can so much better afford the 
 expense. The most ardent Anti-Malthusian may 
 be safely challenged to show upon what grounds 
 such an object can be stigmatised as unnatural and 
 odious. 
 
 In the consideration of remedies for over-popu- 
 lation, attention has hitherto been directed almost 
 exclusively to the condition of the peasantry. The 
 reason for this has been stated in a preceding 
 Chapter, in which the opinion was hazarded, that 
 the natural increase of the species never proceeds 
 too rapidly except in rural districts, and that the 
 redundant population of towns consists almost en- 
 tirely of overflowings from the country. If this 
 view be correct, it is clear that it is only necessary 
 
TOWN LABOURERS. 389 
 
 to confine the population of the latter within due 
 bounds, in order to make that of the former return 
 to its proper level. Make the country people happy, 
 and they will not flock in to partake of the misery 
 of towns. Although, however, in the treatment of 
 a malady, the removal of its causes principally 
 demand our care, the alleviation of its symptoms 
 must not be neglected. Among the inhabitants of 
 almost every considerable town, are to be found 
 numbers without adequate means of livelihood, ill 
 fed and clothed, and worse lodged, who pass the 
 day in a vain search for work, and take shelter at 
 night in wretched cellars and garrets, crowded, 
 filthy, and noisome, very hotbeds of vice and 
 disease. It is not sufficient to take measures for 
 preventing future generations from being placed in 
 such circumstances : no exertion should be spared 
 to extricate those who are already subject to so 
 much misery. To this end some of the measures 
 suggested for the benefit of the peasantry would 
 largely contribute. Free trade would supply poor 
 townsfolk with cheap food, and by creating an in- 
 creased demand for manufactures to be exchanged 
 for foreign provisions, would likewise furnish them 
 with additional employment. The high value of 
 land in the neighbourhood of large towns seems to 
 forbid the adoption of the allotment system in such 
 situations, except as a means of amusement rather 
 than of profit to the tenants, but great numbers of 
 hand-loom weavers, stocking makers, and operatives 
 of some other classes, reside in the villages of the 
 manufacturing districts, and there is no body of 
 
 c c 3 
 
390 TOWN LABOURERS. 
 
 men to whom the possession of moderate portions 
 of land would prove of such signal service. A very 
 important distinction between the country-bred 
 and the town-bred workman must here be pointed 
 out. To the former, high wages are almost always 
 an unalloyed advantage. Their effect is commonly 
 to enable him to live and to bring up his family in 
 greater comfort than before. His business, especi- 
 ally if he be an agricultural labourer, fills up his 
 time so completely and so agreeably, that he has 
 not much leisure or desire for any other relaxation. 
 Unless he were previously a man of dissolute habits, 
 he is not seduced into intemperance and debauchery 
 merely because he has greater means of indulging 
 his appetites. Instead of spending his surplus 
 earnings at the alehouse, he prefers buying some 
 piece of furniture for his cottage, or a Sunday coat 
 or gown for himself or his wife, and he is too happy 
 in his little garden, or by his fireside, with his chil- 
 dren about him, to seek any other diversion for his 
 evenings. With the townsman the case is different. 
 After several hours' close application to a dull mo- 
 notonous task, he is naturally eager for recreation. 
 Home possesses no attraction for him, for in the 
 crowded neighbourhood in which he is obliged to 
 live, the only habitation he can afford to hire is 
 probably a dark, close apartment in a narrow alley, 
 infested by thieves and prostitutes. Without water 
 or other conveniences for cleanliness, and in a 
 murky pestilential atmosphere, no pains could 
 make such a dwelling comfortable, and there is 
 often no one to take any pains about the matter, 
 
EDUCATION. 391 
 
 for if the man be married, his wife as well as himself 
 is probably engaged all day in a factory. From such 
 a home then he flies to the tavern and the theatre, 
 and the more money he has to spend at such places, 
 of course the more welcome he is there. Thus, 
 high wages, instead of contributing to his happiness, 
 may only serve to promote his moral debasement, 
 by enabling him to revel more freely in sensual 
 excesses. To withdraw him from these allure- 
 ments, education, which is highly useful to the 
 countryman, is absolutely indispensable to the 
 town labourer. A person in his situation cannot 
 be expected to resist the temptations that surround 
 him, unless he have been early imbued with a taste 
 for intellectual pleasures, and with sentiments of 
 piety and virtue. In every town, schools ought to 
 be founded, at which education should be so far 
 compulsory, that all the inhabitants who did not 
 otherwise provide for the instruction of their 
 children should be required to send them there. 
 The most careful mental culture, however, could 
 not by itself, nor even in conjunction with high 
 wages, do much to improve the condition of the 
 poorer inhabitants of towns. Whatever their in- 
 clinations may be, if they are forced into daily con- 
 tact with vice and misery, they must suffer from 
 the intercourse. No one can touch pitch without 
 being defiled, or live in a filthy den, with the vilest 
 of the vile for fellow lodgers, without acquiring 
 something of the habits and character of his asso- 
 ciates. Of all the expedients suggested for the 
 benefit of the poor, one of the most urgent is to 
 
 c c 4 
 
392 TOWN LABOURERS. 
 
 furnish them with decent habitations. Until they 
 have homes capable of being made comfortable, it 
 is impossible for them to practise the domestic 
 virtues, or acquire a taste for domestic happiness. 
 But, as the working classes in large cities are neces- 
 sarily confined within bounds very disproportioned 
 to their numbers, it is impossible that they can be 
 accommodated there, except in buildings of a pecu- 
 liar plan. Families cannot be furnished each with 
 a separate house, nor yet with a separate suite 
 of rooms in houses of the present construction. 
 Adequate space can be obtained for them only in 
 large edifices, occupying altogether no more ground 
 than their present habitations, but raised to a much 
 greater height, if necessary, to that of seven or 
 eight stories, and divided internally into separate 
 lodgings, of various sizes, suitable for families and 
 single persons. In mansions of this sort, if proper 
 arrangements were made for sewerage, and for the 
 supply of water, the crowds who are now huddled 
 together in close courts and alleys might be ad- 
 mitted to the privilege of breathing a comparatively 
 pure air, and find means of practising cleanliness 
 and neatness, and attending to the decencies of life. 
 These blessings might, moreover, be afforded to 
 them gratuitously. The rents actually paid, in the 
 worst quarters of a large city, for the most wretched 
 abodes, are monopoly rents, and would amply re- 
 munerate a speculator for whatever extra expense 
 might be necessary to provide suitable habitations 
 for 1:he poor. But although town labourers are well 
 able to pay for good houses, no rich builder is anxious 
 
HOUSE ACCOMMODATION. 393 
 
 to have the poor for his tenants: he dislikes the 
 harsh measures he must employ, or at least the 
 trouble it will cost him, to recover his dues. As a 
 matter of profit and speculation, then, the project 
 is not very likely to be undertaken, nor can indivi- 
 duals be prompted to works of such magnitude by 
 motives of philanthropy only ; and charitable asso- 
 ciations, which might be moved by such considera- 
 tions, are pretty sure to fail whenever they attempt 
 any thing of the sort. There is, however, a class 
 of persons the master manufacturers whose be- 
 nevolence and self-interest may be equally appealed 
 to. Men, whose yearly gains are counted by thou- 
 sands and tens of thousands of pounds, cannot but 
 acknowledge that their operatives have a special 
 claim to their sympathy. The enjoyment of their 
 wealth must be disturbed by the reflection, that 
 those by whose toil they are enriched, are exposed 
 to evils and perils from which a little exertion of 
 theirs would deliver them. It would be easy for 
 the iron kings and cotton lords of Birmingham and 
 Manchester to provide comfortable habitations for 
 their workpeople ; and in so doing, they would be 
 only very imperfectly imitating the example set to 
 them on the other side of the Atlantic, by persons 
 of much smaller means. When the founders of 
 Lowell had determined to erect factories, they 
 thought themselves bound to provide dwellings for 
 the factory girls. Every firm has consequently 
 constructed upon its premises a number of board- 
 ing-houses, appropriated entirely to their use. 
 There they are placed under the protection of ma- 
 
394 TOWN LABOURERS. 
 
 trons, who are answerable for their boarders, and 
 who are themselves subject to a very strict control 
 in every thing that concerns the management of 
 their little community * A plentiful table is pro- 
 vided, and the utmost neatness and regularity per- 
 vade every part of each establishment. Nor is the 
 physical comfort of the inmates alone considered; 
 equal attention is paid to their moral and intellec- 
 tual welfare. The outward observances of religion 
 are strictly enforced ; no indecorum and still less 
 any immorality is tolerated ; and literature is cul- 
 tivated with a success of which English readers are 
 enabled to judge by the recent publication of the 
 u Lowell Offering." Many of the regulations adopted 
 at Lowell might be inapplicable to the operatives 
 of Great Britain, but the employers of the latter 
 might at least endeavour to place them in habitations 
 fit for human beings. Any trouble which they 
 might take for this purpose would be abundantly 
 rewarded. What the admirers of past ages most 
 affect to regret, in the abrogation of feudalism, is 
 the separation of the affectionate tie which once 
 connected the peasant with his lord ; and what is 
 found to be the greatest practical inconvenience of 
 the modern factory system, is the total absence of 
 any such bond between the manufacturer and his 
 operatives. If the former imagine that his duty to 
 his workmen is amply discharged when he has paid 
 them their wages, the latter, whenever a prospect 
 offers of obtaining better pay, do not fail to show 
 
 * Chevalier, Lettres sur 1'Amerique, torn. i. p. 212. 
 
HOUSE ACCOMMODATION. 395 
 
 that they care as little what becomes of their master 
 as he does about them. For the slightest cause, or 
 for no cause at all, they are ever ready to strike work 
 and to involve themselves and him in one common 
 ruin. No surer method of averting this danger can 
 be adopted, than that of making operatives the 
 tenants as well as the servants of their employer. 
 They would not be so ready to leave the factory, if 
 they could not do without losing their homes at the 
 same time, and had to exchange the quiet and com- 
 fort of airy, clean, and roomy apartments, for the 
 disorder and filth of a damp, crowded cellar. Thus, 
 by becoming the benefactors of their dependants, 
 manufacturers would immensely increase their 
 own influence over them, and that by a means to 
 which the most punctilious stickler for liberty could 
 not object. 
 
 High wages, education, and commodious dwell- 
 ings are not, however, all that are necessary to place 
 the working classes of towns in a satisfactory posi- 
 tion. Another thing, not less requisite, is to re- 
 lieve women and young persons from the obliga- 
 tion of excessive labour. In most large towns in 
 Great Britain, textile manufactures furnish occupa- 
 tion to a large portion of the inhabitants. Of the 
 persons so employed, not much less than one half 
 are females, nearly as many are under sixteen years 
 of age, and an eighth part are less than thirteen 
 years old. The labour to which very young chil- 
 dren in factories are set is comparatively light, but 
 after completing their thirteenth year, they, as well 
 as adult females, commonly work, for twelve hours 
 
396 REDUCTION OF 
 
 out of the twenty-four, at occupations requiring for 
 the most part a good deal of bodily exertion. It 
 is barely possible that labour so early begun, and 
 almost incessant, may not, if carried on in spacious 
 well- ventilated apartments, be seriously detrimental 
 to health ; but it is at least clear, that women who 
 spend the whole day in a factory can know nothing 
 of household management, and would have no 
 time, if they did, to attend to their families. How 
 is it possible for them then to discharge their duties 
 as wives and mothers ? Besides, the vigilant in- 
 spection to which factories are now subject, pre- 
 vents the same abuses from being committed in 
 them as are elsewhere perpetrated with impunity. 
 Children are employed not only in textile, but in 
 .all other manufactures, and in many of the latter 
 they are not only excessively overtasked, but ill 
 fed, and otherwise cruelly treated. From such dis- 
 cipline only the worst consequences can proceed. 
 The children who survive it grow up more brutal, 
 if possible, than their oppressors. These evils can- 
 not perhaps be corrected, except by legislative in- 
 terference. It is not always necessity, nor the im- 
 possibility of procuring a livelihood otherwise, that 
 sentences the weakest portion of the working class 
 to such unnatural exertions. Even if the means 
 of subsistence were more easily procurable, the de- 
 sire of gain would still, no doubt, tempt many 
 women, as well as men, to overtask themselves, and 
 selfish parents would still tax the powers of their 
 children to the uttermost, in order to be able to live 
 in idleness at their expense. Nevertheless, although 
 
HOURS OF LABOUR. 397 
 
 the evils are undeniable, and although compulsory 
 measures alone can correct them, there are few 
 questions on which differences of opinion are more 
 allowable than on that of the expediency of re- 
 sorting to compulsion in this case. A shocking 
 thing it is, most certainly, that children should be 
 deprived, almost from their birth, of a mother's 
 care, exposed during their earliest years to all sorts 
 of malignant influences, and, as soon as they have 
 acquired a little strength, removed to situations in 
 which their constitutions are undermined by con- 
 finement and toil, or shattered by ill-usage, that 
 women should abjure the duties and gentleness of 
 their sex, and be distinguishable chiefly by their 
 greater coarseness and shamelessness. The picture 
 needs not the high colouring which has sometimes 
 been used for political ' purposes ; however faintly 
 drawn, it is sufficiently revolting. But, bad as all 
 this is, there may still be something worse. Even 
 slavery will be instinctively preferred to starvation, 
 and it would be misplaced kindness to those who 
 must strain every nerve in order to get a living, to 
 prevent them from working too hard, lest they 
 should injure their health, or be obliged to neglect 
 their families. If the hours of labour be contracted, 
 it is reasonable to expect that the produce of labour 
 will be proportionately diminished, and it is evi- 
 dent that the employers of labour cannot pay the 
 same wages for a smaller quantity of work, unless 
 a corresponding advance take place in the price of 
 their goods. But a rise in the price of British 
 manufactures is forbidden at present by foreign 
 
398 REDUCTION OF 
 
 competition, which would immediately cause them 
 to be undersold. If then the daily labour of British 
 operatives were shortened, it is very possible that 
 their wages would fall. If Lord Ashley's proposi- 
 tion, that women and young persons should not be 
 allowed to work more than ten hours a day, had 
 been adopted, it has been calculated that their 
 wages would have fallen about a fourth part. Now, 
 as the wages of operatives, although liberal enough 
 in prosperous times, are certainly little more than 
 adequate for their maintenance, it may fairly be 
 questioned whether the daily enjoyment of two 
 hours' additional leisure would have fully compen- 
 sated for so great a decrease of income. But al- 
 though, as an isolated measure, the limitation of the 
 hours of labour is of very doubtful expediency, 
 a simultaneous arrangement might easily be made, 
 which would free it from every objection. A fall 
 of wages would be of no consequence if the price of 
 provisions and other necessaries fell at the same 
 time, so as to enable the operative, notwithstanding 
 the decrease of his earnings, to purchase as much 
 as before of every article required. It has been 
 shown that free trade would reduce prices one- 
 third. Suppose then that wages should fall one 
 quarter, the operative would, notwithstanding, be 
 really better off than before. Besides, it is possible 
 that the unrestricted entry of foreign provisions 
 might serve to prevent the occurrence of a fall of 
 wages. It would give a stimulus to foreign agri- 
 culture, which would draw capital to itself, instead 
 of allowing additional quantities to be invested in 
 
HOURS OF LABOUR. 399 
 
 manufactures, so that if the supply of fabrics from 
 Great Britain were diminished, foreign countries 
 might be unable to supply the deficiency. Prices 
 would then rise, and the British manufacturers 
 would be enabled to continue the old rates of wages, 
 notwithstanding the reduction of the hours of 
 labour. Further, it is not quite certain, that a 
 diminution of produce would result from shorten- 
 ing the duration of labour. Persons who are not 
 obliged to work so long, may work harder than 
 before, and may get through the same quantity of 
 work in a short time as formerly occupied them for 
 a longer period. The business of the eleventh and 
 twelfth hours is most likely very languidly done, 
 and might perhaps, without very great difficulty, 
 be despatched in the preceding ten. If so, the 
 limitation of labour to ten hours daily would 
 not in any circumstances reduce wages, and at all 
 events the reduction might be either prevented or 
 neutralised by the establishment of free trade in 
 food. With this precaution, the adoption of Lord 
 Ashley's plan, or even of one still bolder, would 
 be an experiment of little hazard, which, if suc- 
 cessful, would, by partially, at least, reinstating 
 woman in her proper domestic office, contribute 
 more than any other single means to the welfare of 
 the labouring population of large towns. 
 
400 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 'REMEDIES FOR OVER-POPULATION IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. 
 
 Similarity of the Measures required in England and in the 
 Lowlands of Scotland. Defects of the Scotch Poor Law. 
 Inadequacy of the recent Attempt to amend it. Necessity 
 for an efficient Poor Law in the Highlands. Restoration of 
 the Class of Crofters. Probable Advantages of that Course 
 both to Landlords and Tenants. Little Benefit to Ireland 
 to be expected from the Redress of her political Grievances. 
 Inapplicability to Ireland of most of the Measures recom- 
 mended for Adoption in Great Britain. Necessity of pro- 
 viding additional Employment for the People. Uncer- 
 tainty of permanent Results of this kind from Expenditure 
 on public Works or on the Reclamation of waste Land. 
 Sufficiency of the Land at present under Cultivation for the 
 full Employment of the Peasantry. Defectiveness of the 
 present Tenure of Land. Exorbitance of Rents. Want 
 of Leases. Profit experienced from the liberal Application 
 of Labour to Agriculture. Baselessness of Prejudices 
 against Cottier Tenantry. Necessity for Leases. Ex- 
 pediency of legislative Interference to enforce the Grant of 
 them. Location of Poor on waste Land. Happy Effects 
 already obtained from this Measure. Possibility of pro- 
 viding for the whole Body of Peasantry by means of a Par- 
 tition of waste Land. Duty of Parliament to adopt a 
 Scheme for that Purpose. Repeal of the Union with Great 
 Britain. Chances of its being effected. Speculations on 
 its eventual Consequences. 
 
 MOST of the measures which have been recom- 
 mended for adoption in England would prove 
 
KEMEDIAL MEASURES. 401 
 
 equally beneficial in Scotland. In the southern 
 half of that country, the condition of the peasantry 
 is at least tolerable. All who can work have plenty 
 of employment, at wages somewhat above the ave- 
 rage rate of England ; heads of families have com- 
 monly some accessory sources of income, and un- 
 married farm servants are generally lodged and 
 boarded by their masters. Few who possess health 
 and strength, and a moderate stock of prudence, 
 suffer from want. No very great change is re- 
 quired to make this state of things perfectly satis- 
 factory. Free Trade would most probably bring 
 farmers and their servants into closer connection, 
 and raise the price of labour, and at all events, by 
 cheapening food and other necessaries, would greatly 
 increase the value of present wages. This, and an 
 extension of the allotment system, are perhaps all 
 that are needed to raise agricultural labourers in 
 the Lowlands to an equality in all social respects 
 with the same class in Norway, Belgium, or Switzer- 
 land. Intellectually, they are even now superior. 
 The parish schools, which have been in existence 
 nearly a hundred and fifty years, have sharpened 
 the natural shrewdness of the Scottish character, 
 and have assisted largely in giving the lowest orders 
 of people their well-deserved reputation for en- 
 lightenment, good sense, and clearheadedness. Un- 
 doubtedly, there are serious defects in the existing 
 plan of national education. The, teachers are very 
 inadequately remunerated, and are not subject to 
 proper supervision ; and the close connection of 
 parish schools with the established church, closes 
 
 D D 
 
402 SCOTCH POOR LAW. 
 
 them against a large portion of the community. 
 Still, machinery which works so well, and has pro- 
 duced such palpable benefit, cannot be very ill con- 
 trived; and although it may be very capable of im- 
 provement, is at least quite as deserving of praise 
 as of censure. 
 
 Even in the Lowlands, however, and in the rural 
 districts too, destitution is not unknown. The able- 
 bodied are pretty well fed and housed, but worn- 
 out ploughmen, widows, and orphans, who cannot 
 maintain themselves, and have no friends to help 
 them, obtain very little aid from the parish funds. 
 Eighteen-pence a week is very nearly the largest 
 allowance ever made to a single person from this 
 source. In towns, where great numbers of poor 
 are collected together, the deficiency of public 
 charity is still more obvious. In only a few of the 
 largest are there poor-houses ; which, moreover, 
 where they exist, are far too small for one quarter 
 of the applicants for admission, and the weekly dole 
 allotted to the majority of out-door paupers, even 
 with the aid of begging and stealing, only enables 
 them to struggle hard against starvation. Yet in 
 the Lowlands, both in town and country, a poor 
 law, which recognises the right of the poor to 
 public assistance, and directs the assessment of their 
 wealthier neighbours for their relief, is in partial 
 operation. If even there the provision for their 
 wants is so inadequate, what can be said of districts 
 in which the same law, though equally applicable, 
 has never yet exerted the smallest influence? In by 
 far the greater number of Highland parishes, com 
 
SCOTCH POOR LAW. 403 
 
 pulsory assessments have never been adopted, and 
 the sums collected at church, and the other funds 
 of every description placed at the disposal of the 
 Kirk Session for charitable purposes, are so insigni- 
 ficant in amount, that two-pence or two-pence half- 
 penny a week is the average allowance made to the 
 " impotent, legally entitled to relief," that is to say, 
 to the bed-ridden, and to widows seventy or eighty 
 years old. 
 
 It is unnecessary to repeat, in this place, the rea- 
 sons which have been already adduced in favour 
 of a public provision for the poor. So far as the 
 aged and infirm are concerned, no novel principles 
 of legislation need be recommended. It is only re- 
 quisite that existing statutes should be duly en- 
 forced. Ever since the year 1579, the Scottish 
 law has acknowledged the right of destitute per- 
 sons, incapable of labour, to needful sustenance, and 
 has directed that when adequate funds are not 
 otherwise forthcoming, the heritors or landowners, 
 and the householders of the parish, shall be assessed 
 to produce them. No one will have the effrontery 
 to assert, that " needful sustenance" for a human 
 being can be procured with two-pence a week. It 
 is obvious, therefore, that the poor Highlanders are 
 debarred of their legal rights, and that landlords 
 and householders neglect their legal obligations. 
 The law is set at defiance, and a legislature which 
 does not constrain obedience to its decrees, exists 
 to very little purpose. 
 
 A tacit acknowledgment of its apathy has at 
 length, been forced upon parliament. During the 
 
 D J> 2 
 
404* SCOTCH POOR LAW* 
 
 last session , a bill brought in by the Lord Advocate 
 was passed, the professed object of which is to 
 amend the previous law. This it proposes to do in 
 the following manner. The chief subjects of com- 
 plaint of the Scotch poor are two ; first, the diffi- 
 culty of substantiating a claim to relief, and 
 secondly, the inability to procure sufficient relief 
 when the claim is admitted. It is now enacted, that 
 when a claim is rejected by the Kirk Sessions, to 
 whom it is in the first instance submitted, an ap- 
 peal may be made to the sheriff of the county, 
 whose decision is binding, pending a further appeal 
 to the supreme court. Whether any good will re- 
 sult from this change, will depend altogether on the 
 personal character of the sheriff. If, like English 
 justices of the peace, he be disposed to be liberal 
 with other people's money, he will be very likely to 
 admit ill-founded claims, and to encourage indolence 
 and pauperism. If, on the other hand, his pre- 
 judices are in favour of the rich, he will assist the 
 parish authorities to get rid of their just liabilities. 
 He will be no more infallible than the Kirk Sessions 
 themselves, and he will not have the same means 
 of getting at the facts of a case. At beat he can 
 only be guided by appearances, and may frequently 
 be greatly deceived. Still it is doubtful whether a 
 better umpire could be found. What is wanted is 
 an unerring test of destitution, such as a work- 
 house affords ; and if it be, as it very probably may 
 be, inexpedient to incur the expense of building 
 workhouses all over Scotland, there is nothing left 
 for it but to decide according to inferior testimony. 
 
SCOTCH POOR LAW, 405 
 
 The great grievance, however, is that a claim, 
 even when admitted, is not satisfied. Hitherto, the 
 only means of compelling landowners to provide 
 for the maintenance of their poor neighbours has 
 been by an appeal to the Court of Session ; but such 
 a process was too tedious and troublesome, or too 
 little understood, to be often resorted to, and the 
 Highland gentry have very generally evaded the law 
 with complete impunity. A Board of Supervision 
 is now established at Edinburgh, which will receive 
 periodical reports of the treatment of the poor in 
 every parish, and no appeal will be permitted to the 
 Supreme Court without the sanction of the Board. 
 How this limitation of the privilege of appeal can 
 benefit the poor, is not very obvious ; but it is per- 
 haps supposed that the Board's recommendation will 
 have great weight with the Court, and that an 
 appeal which it has declared to be well founded, 
 will be rarely unsuccessful. It is further intended 
 that the Board shall publish the reports it receives, 
 and it is expected that the fear of exposure will 
 deter the parish authorities from persisting in neglect 
 of the destitution around them. The publicity 
 attainable by a further annual issue of blue books, 
 is not, however, much to be dreaded ; and, more- 
 over, nine- tenths of the Highland lairds are absen- 
 tees, scattered all over the world, and are not likely 
 to be much affected by the most indignant expres- 
 sion of public opinion. Besides, the information 
 upon which the Board of Supervision must act, is to 
 be furnished by local inspectors, who, being appointed 
 by the authorities of their respective parishes, cannot 
 
 D D 3 
 
406 SCOTCH POOR LAW. 
 
 be expected to take part very zealously against their 
 patrons. Their reports will most probably rather 
 serve to prejudice the Board against the poor, and 
 induce it to put its veto on well-founded appeals. 
 The suspicious character of the testimony by which 
 the Board must be guided, renders the limitation of 
 the powers entrusted to it a matter of less regret. 
 It cannot in any case decide finally, and can only 
 forward an appeal of which it approves to the Court 
 of Session ; but, while judgment is pending, it is 
 empowered to award such aliment as it may think 
 proper to the complainant, at the expense of hi& 
 parish. This, which might have been a really 
 valuable provision, if the Board were well fitted for 
 the investigation of abuses, is likely to prove in 
 actual circumstances as futile as the other clauses 
 of the bill. Whatever may have been the real object 
 of the framers of the latter, it certainly has very 
 much the appearance of an attempt to cheat the 
 poor by a false show of doing something for them. 
 What was really wanted, was the adoption of some 
 means of enforcing obedience to the law, but the 
 new authority set up is calculated to interpose only 
 in order to set aside complaints against evasions of 
 the law. Such a flimsy subterfuge will not, how- 
 ever, be long tolerated. The bill of last session 
 was brought forward in deference to a very gene- 
 rally expressed denunciation of the ill-treatment of 
 the Scottish poor. Should it fail, as there can be little 
 doubt that it will, of its professed ends, the same 
 public opinion which led to its enactment will equally 
 ensure the adoption of a more vigorous measure. 
 
EMIGRATION. 407 
 
 A thorough reform of poor-law administration 
 must be the first step towards a cure of Highland 
 destitution. It will not only relieve existing dis- 
 tress, but, by placing the burden of pauperism upon 
 the rich, it will give the latter a motive which they 
 have never yet had, for assisting the poor to main- 
 tain themselves. Among the expedients which may 
 be suggested with this view, emigration has already 
 been tried with success. One at least of the islands 
 on the western coast, the nominal rental of which 
 twenty years ago was 300/., has been converted 
 into an estate worth 800/. a year, by means of an 
 expenditure of only 600/. for conveying the surplus 
 population to America.* There can be no doubt 
 that the emigrants have profited quite as much as 
 their quondam landlord by this change, but it is 
 perhaps unnecessary to resort to such means to 
 produce equally or much more beneficial results. 
 To provide employment as hired labourers for the 
 multitudes collected in particular parishes, is indeed 
 out of the question. Their only wealthy neigh- 
 bours are sheep farmers, who do not require more 
 than a score or two of shepherds for the manage- 
 ment of twenty thousand acres. But it is not 
 necessary that agricultural labourers should serve 
 any other master than themselves. There is land 
 enough in the Highlands to allow of every family 
 being furnished with a portion large enough for its 
 maintenance in comfort. Four or five acres of moss 
 or heath would be quite sufficient, with proper 
 
 * Evidence before Highland Emigration Committee, 1841, 
 p. 71. 
 
 D D 4 
 
408 RESTORATION 
 
 management. It is true that, at present, occupiers 
 of crofts of this extent are scarcely able to get 
 a living, but this arises from their not daring to 
 make the most of their resources. They are heavily 
 rented tenants-at- will, who fear to make any improve- 
 ment, lest their rents should be raised or they 
 themselves ejected. The poorness of the soil is not 
 the cause of their poverty. How poor soever the 
 land may be, it cannot be worse than the original 
 soil of the Pays de Waes, in which, while his 
 carriage wheels sink axle deep, the traveller looks 
 over the hedge upon fields of the most luxuriant 
 vegetation that even the Netherlands can boast. 
 This district has been brought into its present state 
 of fertility by small-allotment holders working for 
 themselves ; and Highland crofters, with the same 
 motives to exertion, would no doubt effect an 
 equally wonderful metamorphosis. Let it not be 
 said that Highlanders are "incurably idle," and 
 that no reward can rouse them into activity. Most 
 men are naturally indolent, and if the Highlanders 
 are worse than others, it is because their natural 
 propensity has been artificially strengthened, and 
 has become a confirmed habit. What is there at 
 present to make them industrious ? The cottier 
 who is driven from the interior to the coast, and 
 obtains a plot of rock, strewn with moss or heather, 
 in exchange for the little farm which had been held 
 by his family for centuries, knows that his new 
 allotment also will be taken from him as soon as it 
 is sufficiently reclaimed. He works just so much 
 therefore as he must do in order to pay his rent and 
 
OF CROFTS. 409 
 
 keep himself alive, and very wisely remains idle the 
 rest of his time, rather than labour for his own 
 ruin. Prolonged inactivity, whether forced or vo- 
 luntary, seldom fails to beget an aversion to exer- 
 tion ; and when the poor man, who in general can 
 find no work worth doing, at last gets a job, he will 
 very probably set about it rather lazily. The only 
 way to conquer his antipathy to labour is to conti- 
 nue to hold out incentives to industry. Convert 
 the Highlander from a tenant-at-will into a lease- 
 holder ; assure him that whatever he can add to the 
 annual produce of his croft shall be his own, and 
 he will soon learn to work as hard as the Norwegian 
 bonder, and will obtain an equally abundant recom- 
 pence for his toil. 
 
 Let us now inquire how landlords would be 
 affected by the proposed partition of some small 
 portions of their estates. Their object in creating 
 such immense sheep farms was, of course, an in- 
 crease of rent. Has this end been attained ? The 
 average rent in Sutherland is at present only 
 sixpence an acre ; about 1000/. a year are obtained 
 from a farm of 20,000 or 30,000 acres. The rent 
 paid by the dispossessed crofters of former days was 
 assuredly at least as much as that, and those who 
 are still permitted to exist pay about twenty times 
 as much. In one instance 5L are paid for two 
 acres and a half of land on the hill side, originally 
 covered with moss, and reclaimed by the present 
 tenant ; and in another the rent of between three 
 and four acres of land, likewise reclaimed by the 
 tenant, and consisting chiefly of peat-moss mixed 
 
410 RESTORATION 
 
 with gravelly loam, and interspersed with stony 
 hillocks, is 51. 4s.* The eighteen families " cleared 
 out " of Glencalvie, in Ross-shire, last spring, paid 
 the almost incredible sum of 55/. 10s. annually 
 for less than twenty acres of very poor land, dotted 
 over with cairns of stone and rock, and for a right 
 of common on the adjoining hills.f Is it expected 
 that this glen will be worth more as pasture than 
 when it was under the plough ? Why, its value 
 arose principally from cultivation, and will disappear 
 now that cultivation has ceased. In a short time 
 the heather will have crept over it, as it has done 
 over twenty similarly deserted sites of extinct 
 communities ; the arable fields will be covered with 
 bogs and wire grass, and when no longer dis- 
 tinguishable from the neighbouring moor will be- 
 come equally dear at sixpence an acre. 
 
 The truth is, that in making men give way to 
 sheep, Highland lairds have been labouring under 
 a gross delusion, and have sacrificed their own 
 interests not less than the welfare of those whom 
 it should have been their pride to cherish, to a 
 false and not very specious agricultural theory. 
 They were assailed, no doubt, with the usual com-, 
 parison between the ignorance, indolence, and im- 
 providence of small farmers, and the intelligence, 
 enterprise, and economy of large capitalists. They 
 yielded to arguments which they did not under- 
 stand ; the results of the policy they adopted are 
 obvious to the meanest capacity. Let them count 
 
 * Times, June 13. 1845. f Ib J d - May 20. 1845. 
 
OF CKOFTS. 411 
 
 their gains, and be guided by past experience in 
 their future conduct. 
 
 " Improvement " in Sutherland began in the 
 year 1811, or thereabouts. Four years later, or in 
 1815, the rental assessed to the property tax was 
 33,878/. In 1842- it was 35,567/., being an in- 
 crease of 1700/. in 27 years. Thickly-peopled 
 valleys had been made desert, and fertile spots had 
 become barren ; but, on the other hand, sheep had 
 been sent to browze on hills beyond the limits to 
 which the cattle of the old crofters were accustomed 
 to stray. The deterioration of the soil in some 
 places has been compensated by its enhanced value 
 in others, and an addition of about 5 per cent, 
 has been made to the gross rental. It is obvious 
 that this increase is in no degree attributable to 
 the expulsion of the crofters, and that, on the con- 
 trary, the glens formerly inhabited by them have 
 become comparatively worthless. It is entirely 
 owing to the conversion of barren hills and wastes 
 into sheep pastures, which might have taken place 
 quite as well if the cultivators of the valleys had 
 not been molested. Still, a slight, though only a 
 slight, augmentation of the landlord's revenue has 
 been effected; and, this is all that can be set off 
 against the desolation of a territory of 1800 square 
 miles, and the universal misery to which the 
 peasantry have been reduced. 
 
 The natural advantages of Caithness, the adjoin- 
 ing county, are not much greater than those of 
 Sutherland. Three-eighths of its surface are barren 
 and mountainous, and the remainder the best 
 
412 RESTORATION OF CROFTS. 
 
 portion, though perfectly flat, is so bleak and ex- 
 posed that trees will not grow, and though con- 
 taining a few fertile spots, consists chiefly of moss 
 and moorish soil covered with heath. Instead, 
 however, of being converted into interminable 
 sheep walks, it has been divided amongst a nu- 
 merous body of small farmers, occupying on an 
 average not more than twenty acres each, which 
 they hold on moderate terms and on lease. What 
 is the consequence ? The annual rental assessed 
 to the property- tax, which in 1815 was only about 
 3 5, GOO/., very little more than that of Sutherland, 
 is now about 76,000/., or considerably more than 
 double its former amount. Surely no better proof 
 can be required of the advantages of small farms, 
 so far as landlords are concerned. The evidence 
 respecting their influence on the peasantry is not 
 less satisfactory. Instead of the turf-built, mud- 
 floored, chimneyless hovels of Sutherland, the great 
 plain of Caithness is dotted with good stone cot- 
 tages, with signs of comfort about them, and fre- 
 quently with prim little flower gardens in front. 
 The whole land seems to be under cultivation. 
 Instead of dawdling about for want of work, every 
 one is busily employed. Scarcely a field can be 
 seen without men and horses labouring in it, and 
 labour is so well rewarded, that even women can 
 earn sixpence or eight-pence a day, in weeding and 
 stone -picking.* It must be evident from this that 
 
 * Times, 17th and 23d June, 1845. The readers of the Times 
 will at once perceive the extent of my obligations to the author 
 of the very able reports which lately appeared in that journal, 
 
REMEDIES FOR IRTSH DESTITUTION. 41 & 
 
 the best method of promoting the interests of land- 
 lord and tenant is the same for both, that the 
 unsparing clearance of so many estates has at best 
 only had the effect of keeping the rent-roll nearly 
 stationary, while it has utterly ruined the peasantry, 
 and that Highland lairds might put an end to 
 the destitution which surrounds them, and obtain 
 means at the same time of paying off their own 
 mortgages, if they could be prevailed upon to de- 
 tach a few slips of moorland from their favourite 
 sheep-walks, and re-establish the unfortunate out- 
 casts of the northern and western coasts in their 
 ancient position of crofters, at equitable rents and 
 with the security of leases. 
 
 Ireland, " the great difficulty " of Sir Robert, is 
 that also of more humble inquirers, and of the pre- 
 sent writer amongst the rest. If it be no where a 
 very easy matter to discover an unobjectionable 
 method of largely increasing the resources of a 
 community, how much harder must it be to show 
 how they can be made equal to the wants of the 
 people in a country in which extreme destitution is 
 almost universal? So intricate a subject demands 
 long and special preparation, and cannot be ade- 
 quately treated within moderate bounds. In this 
 place a detailed discussion of it is impossible, and 
 little more will be attempted than to point out the 
 
 on " the Condition of the Poor in the Highlands of Scotland." 
 Within the compass of a few newspaper columns he has col- 
 lected and arranged as large a quantity of valuable information 
 as can be gleaned from a "whole volume of the evidence taken 
 by the Scotch " Poor Enquiry " Commissioners. 
 
414 REDRESS OF 
 
 great principles that must be kept in view in every 
 scheme for relieving the Irish from the reproach of 
 being the most miserable of free and civilised 
 nations. 
 
 Whatever degree of diffidence, however, may be 
 proper, in commenting on the evils under which 
 Ireland labours, one thing at least may be asserted 
 pretty confidently, viz., that the redress of her poli- 
 tical grievances would contribute very little to the 
 welfare of her people. If the Established Church 
 for instance were to be overthrown, and her re- 
 venues restored to the Romish Church, from which 
 they were long since unjustly withdrawn, the 
 clergy of the latter would be almost the only 
 gainers. The poor would not be one farthing the 
 richer, except in so far as they might be exempted, 
 in consequence, from their present payments to 
 their own religious instructors. The latter, indeed, 
 when endowed with liberal stipends, and relieved 
 from dependence on the contributions of their 
 flocks, would probably become less solicitous in the 
 discharge of their pastoral duties, and less anxious 
 to prevent any of their sheep from being lured 
 away by rival shepherds. Enlightened Roman 
 Catholics, too, would no longer be restrained by 
 considerations of honour from renouncing a,n erro- 
 neous creed, after it had ceased to be persecuted, 
 and so the very endowment of Popery might hasten 
 its downfall. The priests, besides, would certainly 
 value their own ease too much to stir up their fol- 
 lowers to acts of violence, and would rather use all 
 their influence for the maintenance of order. Too 
 
POLITICAL GRIEVANCES. 415 
 
 much importance has, however, been attached to 
 such a change in their dispositions. It is urged, 
 that the want of capital is the great cause of the 
 inadequacy of employment in Ireland, and that 
 capital is prevented from flowing into the country 
 by the insecurity of property. The frequent out- 
 rages by which property is endangered, do not, 
 however, originate in priestly instigation, and could 
 not be prevented by priestly authority. Where 
 the requisites for spontaneous combustion exist in 
 such abundance, no torch is wanted to kindle them. 
 The flames of sedition would burst forth quite as 
 freely and as frequently without any such aid. 
 The lawlessness of Ireland is really attributable to 
 the wretchedness and desperation of the great mass 
 of the people. The law is disobeyed because, to the 
 multitudes who have nothing to lose, it can afford 
 no security, while it withholds from them every 
 thing they covet. Self-preservation is the first law 
 of nature, and those that cannot keep their lives by 
 any other means must fight for them. To an Irish 
 cottier a writ of ejectment is equivalent to a sen- 
 tence of starvation, and he not unnaturally endea- 
 vours to keep possession of his land by sending a 
 bullet through the head of every competitor. It is 
 destitution, sheer bodily destitution, that goads the 
 lower orders of Irish on to crime. In such a 
 temper they are no doubt more easily led away by 
 factious demagogues, and morbidly alive to national 
 insults ; but as long as they remain miserable, the 
 most persuasive eloquence will fail to keep them 
 quiet. Before Ireland can have peace, her people 
 
416 INAPPLICABILITY TO IRELAND 
 
 must be better fed and better clothed, and this is 
 not to be done by merely paying the priests, nor 
 yet by demolishing the detested establishment that 
 has been built up with the ruins of the national 
 faith. 
 
 But not only would the concession to Ireland of 
 perfect political equality fail to relieve the misery 
 of her people, some of the remedies which would 
 probably prove specific in most parts of Great Bri- 
 tain, would be found utterly ineffectual in the sister 
 island. The repeal of the Corn Laws would make 
 bread cheap, but the low price of bread would do 
 no good to people who eat nothing but potatoes of 
 their own growing. As little can be hoped from 
 the mere splitting of farms in a country where 
 nearly half of them already are of less than five 
 acres in extent. As for allotments, the bulk of the 
 Irish peasantry are already allotment holders, and 
 nothing else, so that an extension of the particular 
 " allotment system" with which they are connected 
 would evidently be merely an extension of human 
 wretchedness. One palliative of national distress 
 has been applied with success to Ireland by the 
 recent establishment of ^ poor law, which, in ordi- 
 nary seasons at least, secures the poorest from 
 danger of dying of want. But a poor law can only 
 relieve distress, and cannot cure poverty; or at 
 best can only help to do so indirectly, by interest- 
 ing landowners and other rate-payers to exert 
 themselves for the poor. Emigration may be tried 
 on a small scale, but as its operation, in order to be 
 effectual, must be partial, it cannot be considered a 
 
OF ORDINARY REMEDIES. 417 
 
 national resource, however useful it may prove in 
 small districts. A good deal has been done of late 
 years for the instruction of the young by the Go- 
 vernment Education Board, which has now under 
 its control about 3000 schools, attended by about 
 350,000 children. The good effects of these schools 
 are gradually overcoming the prejudices entertained 
 against them on account of their being open to 
 children of every Christian sect, and affording 
 moral and literary instruction to all without forcing 
 upon them any particular religious doctrines ; and 
 it is to be hoped that they will lead, ere long, to 
 the adoption of a more comprehensive and equally 
 liberal scheme of national education. It cannot, 
 however, be too often repeated, that the poor have 
 many wants far more pressing than that of educa- 
 tion. Whatever the old adage may affirm, learning 
 is no longer the same thing as house and lands, and 
 the best-taught pupils must have wherewithal to live, 
 if they are to profit by their mental acquirements. 
 As Mr. O'Connell lately exclaimed in the House of 
 Commons, his countrymen are starving, and must 
 be fed before they are educated; and the remark 
 deserves notice as one of the very few statesman- 
 like notions to which the Irish Cleon ever gave 
 utterance. 
 
 Every scheme, in short, for the benefit of Ireland 
 must fail of success, which does not furnish addi- 
 tional remunerative employment for the poor ; and 
 the all-important question is, How is this desidera- 
 tum to be supplied ? Many recommend a large 
 expenditure of public money in the formation of 
 
 E E 
 
418 PUBLIC WORKS. 
 
 roads, canals, railways, and bridges ; in the em- 
 bankment of rivers, and other similar works. While 
 these were in progress, they would afford occupation 
 to great numbers of persons, and would raise wages 
 and diminish the competition for land; and it is 
 imagined that their completion would be followed 
 by a development of the resources of the country, 
 and by a consequent increase of employment, which 
 would make the rise in the price of labour perma- 
 nent. There can be no doubt that the possession 
 of improved means of internal communication 
 would be, in many respects, exceedingly beneficial 
 to Ireland, and it is even possible that the mere 
 pecuniary results might speedily afford abundant 
 compensation for the money laid out in procuring 
 them. If, however, the main object of the forma- 
 tion of public works were, to effect a permanent 
 improvement in the condition of the poor, the mea- 
 sure would be of very doubtful expediency. Unless 
 the increase of employment were sufficient to create 
 an entire change in the habits and ideas of the 
 people, it would only serve to give a fresh impulse 
 to population, and however great the rise of wages 
 might be while roads, &c. were being made, it would 
 be very unlikely to last after they were finished. 
 By the creation of convenient means of intercourse 
 with tracts previously of difficult access, great en- 
 couragement might no doubt be given to several 
 branches of industry; but although individuals 
 might thus be enriched, it does not follow that any 
 benefit would accrue to the main body of labourers. 
 Fisheries, for example, might be carried on more 
 
PUBLIC WORKS. 419 
 
 vigorously when better markets were opened for 
 their produce, but fisheries cannot afford regular 
 occupation except to inhabitants of the coast. 
 Manufactures might spring up in some places, but 
 manufactures do not seem to draw away the surplus 
 hands from other occupations, but rather to create 
 a fresh population for themselves. Farming 
 would become a more profitable business, and more 
 capital might be invested in it, but what is com- 
 monly termed improvement of agriculture, by no 
 means implies the employment of additional la- 
 bourers, but rather the very reverse. The drainage 
 and inclosure of bogs and wastes, indeed, would 
 set a good many people to work for a time ; but the 
 land, when reclaimed, would require comparatively 
 few for its cultivation, in the mode most approved 
 by modern agricultural authorities. The produce 
 would, of course, be an addition to the present 
 annual stock of the country, but the increased 
 abundance of food would not necessarily benefit the 
 labouring class. The evil from which Ireland is 
 suffering is not, properly speaking, scarcity of food. 
 Quite enough is annually produced for the com- 
 fortable maintenance of all the inhabitants ; but the 
 misfortune is, that most of the latter are too poor 
 to buy what they require, and their share is con- 
 sequently sent abroad. If an increase of produce 
 were to take place, unaccompanied by an augmen- 
 tation of the earnings of the working class, the 
 principal effect would be, that a larger quantity 
 would become available for exportation. How little 
 dependence can be placed on public works and in* 
 
 E E 2 
 
420 TENURE OF LAND. 
 
 closures for any amelioration of the condition of the 
 poor, has been proved most conclusively, within the 
 present century, in the Scottish Highlands and in 
 England. During the last forty or fifty years, 
 nearly two millions sterling have been expended in 
 the former on roads and canals, and about four 
 million acres of waste land have been brought int6 
 cultivation in the latter ; yet, in the mean time, the 
 Highland peasantry have sunk to the lowest state 
 of destitution, and their English brethren, also, have 
 been continually and rapidly declining. 
 
 Besides, it is not precisely an extension of the 
 field of employment that is most needed. Large as 
 the number of agricultural families in Ireland may 
 appear, it is not so great but that all might be fully 
 occupied upon the land actually under cultivation 
 which, if equally divided amongst them, would allow 
 at least fourteen acres to each. Fourteen acres are 
 certainly quite enough for one family to manage, 
 and one-third of the quantity would enable a family 
 to live comfortably, and to pay an ample rent be- 
 sides. It is not want of space, then, that prevents 
 the whole of the peasantry from being comfortably 
 provided for, either as small occupiers or as hired 
 labourers : the true cause is, the defectiveness of the 
 tenure by which land is held. The greater part of 
 the tenants are tenant s-at- will ; uncertainty of posses- 
 sion and exorbitant rents cramp the cottier's energy, 
 and rob him of his needful sustenance; and the 
 former cause prevents the larger holder, also, fron^ 
 making improvements, and from employing the la- 
 bour required for. the proper cultivation of his farm. 
 
WANT OF LEASES. 421 
 
 Nothing but leases, on moderate conditions, is re- 
 quisite to make the Irish cottage farmers happy. 
 At present they are a most miserable race, but their 
 wretchedness arises entirely from their being rack- 
 rented tenants-at-will. With proper protection for 
 industry, they would become industrious, and would 
 derive a plentiful subsistence from the land on 
 which they are now starving, and all the labourers 
 without land, or without enough for their support, 
 would be almost equally well provided for, if the 
 larger farmers possessed the capital, knowledge, 
 and confidence needful for the proper management 
 of their holdings. Irish landlords, however, are 
 not in general very likely to grant leases, at least 
 to their cottier tenantry. They are, for the most 
 part, strongly impressed with the idea that the 
 clearance of an estate is the first step towards its 
 improvement, and they are much more bent on 
 consolidating than on perpetuating small farms. It 
 is, therefore, satisfactory to know that their favourite 
 policy is by no means incompatible with arrange- 
 ments for the welfare of the peasantry. When 
 small holdings are united, it does not necessarily 
 follow that the old occupiers must be deprived of 
 the means of livelihood. This must, indeed, 
 happen where the dogmas of the modern school 
 of agriculture are adopted, and economy of hu- 
 man labour is regarded as the test of good farm- 
 ing. But farmers are beginning to discover that 
 human beings are the most productive machines 
 they can use, and such as think so, will erhploy as 
 many labourers as they can keep constantly at 
 
 E E 3 
 
422 MINUTE CULTIVATION. 
 
 Work and can afford to pay. It is certain that the 
 peasantry of Ireland are not at all too numerous 
 for the cultivation, in the most profitable manner, 
 of the land already under tillage. Mr. Thackeray 
 paid a visit to a gentleman in Kildare, who farms 
 four hundred acres, upon which he employs no less 
 than forty families, comprising a hundred and ten 
 persons. Every individual member of this agri- 
 cultural regiment has quite enough to do to keep 
 the land in its elaborate state of cultivation, which 
 gives the whole farm the appearance of a well- 
 ordered garden. The proprietor led his guest into 
 a huge field of potatoes, and made him remark that 
 there was not a weed between the furrows, and 
 that the whole formed a vast flower bed of a score 
 of acres. Every bit of land was fertilised and full 
 of produce, the space left for the plough having 
 afterwards been gone over, and yielding its full 
 proportion of "fruit." In a turnip field were a 
 score or more of women and children, who were 
 marching through the ridges, removing the young 
 plants where two or three had grown together, and 
 leaving only the most healthy, so that every in- 
 dividual root in the field was the object of separate 
 attention. This minute cultivation is found to be 
 highly profitable, for the crops resulting from it 
 are the best that land can produce, and are quite 
 unequalled in the neighbourhood. Neither is it 
 necessary, in order to make the concern profitable, 
 to drive a hard bargain with the people employed 
 in it. On the contrary, the liberality with which 
 the latter are treated, urges them to exert them- 
 
MINUTE CULTIVATION. 423 
 
 selves to the utmost for their kind-hearted master, 
 and is a main cause of his prosperity. Mr. 
 Thackeray, after taking a survey of the farm, pro- 
 ceeded to inspect the cottages and gardens of several 
 of the labourers, which were all so neat, that he 
 almost fancied they were pet cottages, erected 
 under the landlord's own superintendence, and 
 ornamented to his order. But his host declared 
 that it was not so, that the only benefit his la- 
 bourers got from him was constant work and a 
 house rent-free, and that the neatness of the gardens 
 and dwellings was of their own doing. By making 
 them a present of the house, he said, he made them 
 a present of the pig and live stock, with which 
 almost every Irish cottier pays his rent, so that each 
 of them could taste a bit of meat occasionally. 
 With regard to the neatness of the houses, the best 
 way to ensure this, he said, was for the master 
 constantly to visit them, to awaken as much emula- 
 tion as he could among the cottagers, so that each 
 should make his place as good as his neighbour's, 
 and to take them good-humour edly to task if they 
 failed in the requisite care.* 
 
 Let it be remembered, that the scene here de- 
 scribed is in Ireland, in a country devoted in 
 common estimation to irremediable woe. A few 
 years ago, this smiling oasis was probably undis- 
 tinguishable from the dreary wastes around, its 
 happy cottagers were as slothful, and ragged, and 
 famished as the rest of their unfortunate country - 
 
 * Irish Sketch Book, vol. i. pp. 55 58.. 
 E E 4 
 
424 ALTERATIONS IN THE 
 
 men. The amazing transformation has been effected 
 by one man. How one envies the power of doing 
 so much good, yet the power is possessed and ne- 
 glected by hundreds who might establish similar 
 colonies around them, with little or no sacrifice, 
 and often with great advantage to themselves. 
 Either by the letting of crofts of four or five acres 
 in extent, on the same terms as would readily be 
 granted to large occupiers, or by the introduction 
 of the mode of cultivation practised in the Kildare 
 farm just mentioned, the most crowded estate in 
 Ireland might be quickly dispauperised, its wretched 
 inhabitants raised to comfort and content, and its 
 value eventually, if not immediately, augmented. 
 There is nothing to prevent landlords unen- 
 cumbered by debt from at once adopting the 
 former of these courses. There is scarcely one so 
 situated, who would not gladly consent to a con- 
 siderable deduction from the nominal rental, if by 
 so doing he could clear his property of its pauper 
 population, and replace them by a few substantial 
 tenants. He well knows that the apparent reduc- 
 tion would not really cost him very much, for that, 
 although lower rents are offered by wealthy far- 
 mers than by starving cottiers, nearly as much is 
 actually paid. The oppressive engagements into 
 which the latter are compelled to enter, are in fact 
 such as it is quite impossible for them to fulfil, and 
 serve chiefly to paralyse their exertions without 
 adding greatly to the gains of their taskmasters. 
 It is now admitted that their burthens are too 
 heavy to be borne, but surely the load might be 
 
TENUKE OF LAND. 426 
 
 lessened without sending adrift those who have so 
 long submitted to it. They might surely be tried 
 with leases of their land on the same terms as others 
 who have not their claims to consideration. They 
 would then, for the first time, be placed on a foot- 
 ing with the small tenant-farmers of Belgium, with 
 whom they are so often invidiously compared, and 
 it is unjust to doubt that they would soon rival 
 them in industry, skill, thrift, and comfort. It is 
 equally foolish and cruel to prate about inferiority 
 of race, and to pronounce the Irishman incapable 
 of amendment, on account of the defects of his 
 mental constitution. We need only open our 
 eyes to see, that man is the creature of circum- 
 stances, which mould his character, and more or 
 less rapidly modify all his innate and hereditary 
 qualities. Celt as well as Saxon will work hard 
 with an adequate motive, and neither will exert 
 himself without one. The Irish cottier is listless 
 and apathetic, because he has never had an oppor- 
 tunity of showing what he is capable of, but if his 
 landlord can be persuaded to give him a fair trial, 
 no doubt need be entertained of -the result. The 
 case of the landless labourer is not so easily ma- 
 naged. The introduction of an improved mode of 
 cultivation upon large farms does not depend so 
 much on the will of the landlord, but although he 
 cannot compel his tenants to employ as much labour 
 as their business requires, he can remove an ob- 
 stacle which now prevents them from doing so. 
 He can grant them leases, without which it is vain 
 to expect that, even if they possess capital, they 
 
426 LEASES. 
 
 will lay it out at the risk of having their rents 
 raised. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, a very large proportion 
 of Irish landlords are absentees, careless of misery 
 which they do not witness ; as many are deeply 
 embarrassed, and hardly able to meet the expenses 
 incidental to their station in society ; and no small 
 number of estates are still in the hands of middle- 
 men, who are only desirous of drawing as much as 
 possible from the land while it remains in their 
 possession. None of these can be expected to 
 surrender any portion of their revenues for the 
 benefit of others; but although they will not lighten 
 the burdens of their poor tenantry, they might at 
 least grant them leases at the same rents as are now 
 paid. Even this concession would be a most valu- 
 able boon, and would benefit the giver as well as 
 the receiver. The cottier or farmer, when assured 
 that every addition to the average produce of his 
 fields would belong to himself, would have a motive 
 for diligence. As practice makes perfect, industry 
 and attention would impart knowledge and skill. 
 The land would be better cultivated, and would 
 make a return proportioned to the pains bestowed 
 upon it. The husbandman would receive a larger 
 reward for his labour, and besides being able to 
 maintain himself in greater comfort, would be better 
 able to pay his landlord's dues. 
 
 The general adoption of leases would thus of 
 itself, and without any other alteration in the pre- 
 sent tenure of land, be an important step towards 
 the improvement of Ireland; while without it, or 
 
LEASES. 427 
 
 some other measure for giving to the peasantry a 
 firmer hold upon the land, no scheme for their 
 advancement offers much hope of success. It is 
 evident, however, that Irish landowners are not 
 more favourable to leases than their English bre- 
 thren ; and as long as they retain their prejudices 
 on the subject, how shall they be constrained to act 
 against their own judgment? Lord Devon and his 
 colleagues in the recent Occupation of Land Com- 
 mission, abandoned this question in despair, and 
 while avowing that leases are highly desirable both 
 for landlord and tenant, decided that the adoption 
 of them ought still to be left optional with the 
 former. In fact, instead of considering what faci- 
 lities might be afforded for obtaining them, they 
 preferred to inquire whether leases might not be 
 dispensed with, and some substitute provided for 
 them. They proposed that tenants should be 
 enabled to recover compensation of any outlay made 
 by them in the permanent improvement of land, 
 and a bill, founded upon their suggestion, was 
 introduced during the last session of parliament. 
 There is little reason to regret that this bill did not 
 pass into a law. The deep-seated defects of the 
 Irish tenure of land are not to be corrected by such 
 pitiful expedients. Whatever effect the security 
 intended to have been offered might have had upon 
 the few wealthy farmers that Ireland can boast, it 
 would have had none on the great body of the 
 peasantry, and would not have persuaded one of 
 them to use an extra wisp of straw in patching his 
 cottage roof, or to upset an extra barrowful of dung 
 
428 LEASES. 
 
 on his potatoes. If parliament interfere at all, it 
 should do so in a manner likely to be effectual, 
 by a positive prohibition, for instance, of the letting 
 of land except on lease. Such a measure might be 
 scarcely warrantable in ordinary circumstances, but 
 the state of Ireland is too critical for gentle treat- 
 ment, and where the salvation of a whole people is 
 at stake, punctilious deference to forms and cere- 
 monies would be ridiculously out of place. The 
 uncertainty of the tenure of land is the grand cause 
 of the disorders by which Ireland is afflicted, and 
 while this source of mischief is left unabated, it is 
 vain to hope for any sensible improvement. The 
 peasantry are quite right in assuming that some 
 degree of " fixity of tenure," as they call it, is the 
 one thing needful for them, and it would be absurd 
 to withhold the appropriate remedy from any deli- 
 cacy for the sensitiveness of landlords. Its applica- 
 tion would be the reverse of injurious to this class 
 of men. The only compulsion to which they would 
 be subject, would be that of disposing of their pro- 
 perty to the best advantage, and if the interference 
 implied an inability on their part to manage their 
 own affairs, a salve for the insult would be found in 
 the growing value of their estates. A far more 
 violent invasion of property established the reputa- 
 tion of one of the most celebrated of Grecian wor- 
 thies. When the Athenian lawgiver was invited to 
 compose the strife between the nobles and the com- 
 monalty, he did not stop to inquire whether the 
 burthens of the latter were legally imposed or not. 
 He merely satisfied himself that they were far too 
 
OCCUPATION OF WASTE LAND. 429 
 
 heavy to be borne, and then proceeded forthwith to 
 lighten them, and his " disburdening ordinance," 
 which gave peace to his distracted country, has 
 procured for himself the applause of all succeeding 
 ages. If such a man were consulted respecting the 
 state of Ireland, he would doubtless recommend an 
 equally summary course. He would assume as his 
 premises that the people must live, and as they 
 cannot live without land, he would conclude that 
 the use of land ought to be secured to them. Un- 
 luckily, Solon is not archon of the British parliament. 
 Parliament might, however, bring about an 
 amendment of the tenure of land, and provide 
 abundant means of livelihood for the people, by a 
 method more effectual and still less objectionable 
 than a direct enactment respecting leases. The 
 present exorbitance of rents and want of leases are 
 owing to the keenness of competition for land, 
 which enables proprietors to dictate their own 
 terms. Better conditions would of course be ob- 
 tainable, if the competitors were less numerous ; 
 and if those who are unable to procure adequate 
 settlements on the land already occupied were re- 
 moved to a distance, the rest would no longer have 
 to outbid each other, or to submit to any out- 
 rageous demands. Is it then possible that an 
 asylum can anywhere be found for the crowds who 
 are at present without any certain means of sup- 
 port ? The question is a difficult one, but there is 
 at least one spot in Ireland where a satisfactory 
 answer has already been made to it. Two miles 
 from the little town of Kilculler, in Kildare, is a 
 
430 OCCUPATION 
 
 tract of excessively green land, dotted over with 
 brilliant white cottages, each with its couple of 
 trim acres of garden, where you see thick potato 
 ridges covered with blossom, great blue plots of 
 comfortable cabbages and such pleasant plants of 
 the poor man's garden. Two or three years since, 
 the land was a marshy common, which had never 
 since the days of the Deluge fed any being bigger 
 than a snipe, and into which the poor people de- 
 scended, draining and cultivating and rescuing the 
 marsh from the water, and raising their cabins, and 
 setting up their little enclosures of two or three 
 acres upon the land which they had thus created. 
 " Many of 'em has passed months in jail for that," 
 said the describer's informant ; "for it appears 
 that certain gentlemen in the neighbourhood looked 
 upon the titles of these new colonists with some 
 jealousy, and would have been glad to depose them ; 
 but there were some better philosophers among the 
 surrounding gentry, who advised that, instead of 
 discouraging the settlers, it would be best to help 
 them ; and the consequence has been, that there are 
 now two hundred flourishing little homesteads upon 
 this rescued land, and as many families in comfort 
 and plenty." * 
 
 Now, if two or three acres of reclaimed marsh 
 can furnish plentiful subsistence to one family, 
 600,000 acres would do as much for 200,000 fami- 
 lies ; that is to say, for one-fourth part of the Irish 
 peasantry, which is as large a proportion as can 
 
 * Irish Sketch Book, vol. i. p. 46. 
 
OF WASTE LAND. 431 
 
 well be supposed unable to procure a competent 
 livelihood. According to the most recent accounts, 
 there are considerably more than six millions of 
 acres of land lying waste in Ireland ; of which, 
 about three-fifths are acknowledged to be improv- 
 able. These waste lands have long been looked 
 upon as a grand resource for the poor, and almost 
 every one of the numerous parliamentary com- 
 mittees and sets of commissioners successively ap- 
 pointed to deliberate on Irish affairs has strongly 
 recommended their reclamation, as a means of af- 
 fording occupation for the unemployed, as well as 
 of locating vagrant and destitute families. Instead, 
 however, of promoting the work in the manner 
 proposed, viz., by loans to landowners and ambi- 
 tious speculators, who would probably be the sole 
 gainers by their operations, it would be a shorter 
 as well as a surer plan to permit the poor to re- 
 claim the land themselves, and to keep it when 
 reclaimed. No doubt need be entertained of their 
 perfect ability to perform the task proposed for 
 them. Mr. Nicholls tells us, that most of the re- 
 cently recovered bog which he saw in the western 
 counties was reclaimed by small occupiers, who 
 drained and enclosed an acre or two at a time.* 
 The improvement of wastes may perhaps be thought 
 to require a good deal of capital, but capital is prin- 
 cipally useful for its command of labour, and the 
 Irish peasantry have quite labour enough at their 
 own disposal. Their misfortune is, that they have 
 so much. Their labour would not be the worse 
 
 * Nicholl's Three Reports on Irish Poor Laws, p. 18. 
 
432 OCCUPATION 
 
 applied because they worked for themselves instead 
 of for a paymaster. So far is capital from being 
 indispensable for the cultivation of barren tracts, 
 that schemes of this kind, which could only bring 
 loss to a rich speculator, are successfully achieved 
 by his pennyless rival. A capitalist must have a 
 certain return for the money he lays out, but the 
 poor man expends nothing but his own superabun- 
 dant labour, which would be valueless if not so 
 employed ; so that his returns, however small, are 
 all clear profit. No man in his senses would ever 
 have thought of wasting money upon the original 
 sand of the Pays de Waes ; but the hard-working 
 boors who settled there two hundred years ago, 
 without any other stock than their industry, con- 
 trived to enrich both themselves and the land, and 
 indeed to make the latter the richest in Europe. 
 There is no soil so worthless that an English la- 
 bourer will not eagerly accept an allotment of it; 
 and while the green valley, from which some High- 
 land community has been driven, is fast relapsing 
 under the superintendence of a wealthy sheep 
 farmer into its primitive wildness, its former te- 
 nants are forming new patches of arable land on 
 the rock-strewn moors along the sea-coast. The 
 waste lands of Ireland present infinitely slighter 
 obstacles to improvement ; and it can scarcely be 
 doubted that, if the poor were permitted to have 
 free access to them, they might all be speedily pro- 
 vided for in a thousand such colonies as that of 
 Kilcullen. 
 
 It has been said that the colonists ought to be 
 
OF WASTE LAND. 433 
 
 allowed to retain permanent possession of the spots 
 reclaimed by them. To employ them " as labourers, 
 in bringing the land into a remunerative condi- 
 tion *," in order that it may then be let to some 
 one else, while they are sent to shift for themselves 
 where they can, may be an excellent mode of en- 
 riching the landlord, but must eventually aggravate 
 the sufferings of the poor. It is probably because 
 this plan has been generally practised, that the re- 
 clamation of waste land has hitherto done nothing 
 for the benefit of the Irish peasantry. If the latter 
 are to derive any advantage from it, such of them 
 as may be located on the waste, should receive per- 
 petual leases of their respective allotments, should 
 be made freeholders, in fact, or at least perpetual 
 tenants at a quit-rent. Such an appropriation of 
 waste land would of course require that compensa* 
 tion should be made to all who previously possessed 
 any interest in it. But the value of a legal interest 
 in land, which cannot be enclosed or cultivated 
 without permission of the legislature, can only be 
 proportionate to the actual yearly produce ; and as 
 land in a natural state yields little or nothing, all 
 legal claims upon it might be bought up at a trifling 
 expense, or might be commuted for a very small 
 annual payment to be made by the settlers. Of the 
 perfect competence of Parliament to direct some 
 arrangement of this kind, there can be no question. 
 An authority which compels individuals to part 
 with their most valued property on the slightest 
 pretext of public convenience, and permits railway 
 
 * See Report of Land Occupation Commissioners. 
 F F 
 
434 OCCUPATION 
 
 projectors to throw down family mansions and cut 
 up favourite pleasure grounds, need not be very 
 scrupulous about forcing the sale of boggy meadows 
 or mountain pastures, in order to obtain the means 
 of curing the destitution and misery of an entire 
 people. The distribution of a part of the waste 
 lands of Ireland among 200,000 pauper families, 
 would convert them into a body of yeomanry, and 
 would be scarcely less beneficial to the remainder 
 of the peasantry, by destroying the excessive com- 
 petition, which at present lowers wages and raises 
 rent. Industry would then be stimulated by the 
 certainty of adequate remuneration. Industry 
 would introduce plenty, and plenty would be ac- 
 companied by content. Tranquillity would succeed 
 to desperation and violence, and capital would no 
 longer be prevented from flowing wherever a suit- 
 able field was offered for its employment. The 
 resources of the country would be rapidly developed, 
 new wealth would be created for distribution among 
 all classes of the community, and the advance of 
 national prosperity would correspond with that 
 of individual happiness. The whole empire would 
 receive a vast accession of strength, when the gall- 
 ing wound in one of her principal members was at 
 length healed. 
 
 A scheme promising such brilliant results may, 
 perhaps, on that account alone be summarily con- 
 demned as visionary, and, unfortunately, neither 
 this nor any other plan for remedying the disorders 
 of Ireland can be satisfactorily tested, except upon 
 a scale co-extensive with the island. Piecemeal 
 
OF WASTE LAND. 435 
 
 attempts at improvement would have very little 
 chance of success. The destitute inhabitants of a 
 single district, for example, might be located on 
 suitable allotments of waste land, and a means 
 might thus be obtained of judging of the effects of 
 home colonies, on the persons immediately engaged 
 in them ; but the benefit in such a case would pro- 
 bablv be confined to the colonists. As soon as the 
 
 / 
 
 redundant population was thus provided for, immi- 
 gration would probably set in from all the sur- 
 rounding districts, and prevent any permanent or 
 general rise in the remuneration of labour. What- 
 ever remedial measures may be resolved upon, ought 
 to be applied simultaneously to every part of the 
 country, arid their adoption must be based chiefly 
 upon theoretical reasonings, or upon observation of 
 their effects in other countries, uncorroborated by 
 fresh experiments made on the spot. Perhaps it 
 may not be thought presumptuous to add, that in 
 all essential respects they must resemble the mea- 
 sures which have just been recommended. It is 
 universally admitted that want of employment is 
 the immediate cause of Irish destitution ; and it is 
 clear, that little additional employment can be fur- 
 nished, unless either additional capital be brought 
 into the country, or land be given to the people to 
 cultivate. But capital will not enter without better 
 protection for life and property; and violence and 
 outrage, originating as they do in the desperation 
 of want, will not decrease until the people have 
 better means of livelihood. The only present me- 
 thod, therefore, by which they can be furnished with 
 
 P F 2 
 
i36 REPEAL 
 
 additional occupation, is to give them the use of 
 land. Until this condition be complied with, all 
 other efforts will be futile. It would be easy for 
 the legislature to settle this indispensable prelimin- 
 ary. It might allot to every family not possessing 
 adequate means of subsistence, a portion of ground 
 sufficient for their support ; and this, not only with- 
 out doing the smallest injustice to any one, but 
 with advantage to the whole community, as well as 
 to individuals, by bringing into cultivation tracts 
 now lying idle and unprofitable. The legislature 
 may bestow peace and prosperity on Ireland ; but if 
 it continue to neglect its obvious duty, the only 
 remaining hope of the Irish people will be in repeal 
 of the union with Great Britain. That measure 
 may perhaps be impossible of attainment, (though 
 who shall say that the demands of an united and 
 desperate people can be permanently denied,) and 
 it can scarcely be attained without a more san- 
 guinary struggle than the world has ever witnessed. 
 If once effected, however, it is not impossible that 
 Eepeal might eventually prove a real blessing to 
 Ireland. It would certainly for a time overwhelm 
 that unhappy country with a series of indescribable 
 calamities ; but when this troubled period was past, 
 all who had survived the sharp ordeal might find 
 themselves abundantly supplied with all the mate- 
 rials of physical comfort. The change would in- 
 deed be brought about in a manner very different 
 from that imagined by the ranters of Conciliation 
 Hall, whose vigorous fancy conjures up visions of 
 torrents and waterfalls beset with myriads of mills, 
 
OF THE UNION. 437 
 
 and of harbours choked with innumerable ships. 
 Manufactures and commerce flourish only in tran- 
 quillity ; and anarchy and confusion would be the 
 first-born, and probably not short-lived, daughters 
 of Repeal. But although no increase of the de- 
 mand for hired labour would take place for a con- 
 siderable time, it is very possible that the working 
 classes might be rendered independent of that re- 
 source. If ever Repeal be effected, it will be effected 
 mainly by the mass of the people, who will not be 
 content to use their newly-discovered power solely 
 for the benefit of their leaders. It will have been their 
 own sufferings that roused them to action, and for 
 these sufferings they will seek a cure. Their misery 
 arises from their inability to procure land, or from 
 the hard terms on which it is granted to them. 
 They will therefore take it by force, and take it too 
 on their own terms. The phrase, fixity of tenure, 
 will receive a new interpretation, and will signify 
 the fixing of land permanently and unconditionally 
 in possession of the actual tenant. These are no 
 random assertions. Even now the Irish farmer, 
 in defiance of the law, acts as if the land were in 
 some measure his own, and destroys his rival's life, 
 and risks his own, rather than give up possession 
 of the means by which he lives. Is it likely that 
 he will be more moderate in his notions, when he 
 can make laws for himself ? Can it be doubted that 
 the first act of an Irish parliament really repre- 
 senting the majority of the nation, would be a 
 general confiscation of landed property, and that, 
 
 r r 3 
 
438 KE1 J EAL 
 
 even without waiting for such a legal sanction, the 
 occupiers would cease to pay rent as soon as the 
 power of compelling them to do so was removed ? 
 In such proceedings, too, there would be no respect 
 of persons. The infatuated demagogues who are 
 labouring so zealously in the work of agitation, 
 imagine, in the fulness of their self-conceit, that 
 they shall be able to rule the spirit they are evok- 
 ing, to ride upon the whirlwind and direct the 
 storm ; and they will do so even as much as the 
 clods and stones thrown into the funnel of an Ice- 
 landic geyser control the angry fountain that spouts 
 them back into the air. It is a likely matter, truly, 
 that the estates of Catholics will be spared when 
 those of Protestants have been seized upon by the 
 peasantry, and that a Repealer's tenants will conti- 
 nue voluntarily to pay him his dues, when they see 
 their brethren on what was lately the property of 
 an Orangeman self-constituted sovereigns of the 
 soil. Whatever sects and parties there may be 
 amongst Irish landed gentry, in one respect they 
 are all exactly alike. The distinctive pretensions 
 of every one of them rest on precisely the same 
 footing ; their tenants pay rent simply because 
 they are compelled to do so, and for no other rea- 
 son ; and the power which upholds them in their 
 station cannot be withdrawn without involving all 
 indiscriminately, O'Connells and O'Briens as well 
 as Beresfords and Jocelyns, in the same irretrievable 
 ruin. 'Tis an ill wind, however, that blows good 
 to none. No native of Britain, and no right-minded 
 
OF THE UNION, 439 
 
 Irishman, can contemplate without dismay the 
 events by which Repeal must be preceded and fol- 
 lowed the horrors of civil war, the dissolution of 
 the empire, the loss of national greatness, and pos- 
 sibly of national independence. But social happi- 
 ness is still more to be prized than political import- 
 ance, and so far as Ireland alone is concerned, there 
 may be discovered, through a long and dreary vista, 
 eventual compensation for all the disastrous conse- 
 quences of Repeal. Of all kinds of pride there is 
 none so excusable as pride of country, and in poli- 
 tical freedom is the only perfect security for the 
 continuance of material blessings ; but it is simply 
 ridiculous to be proud of a country which does not 
 provide the boaster with the necessaries of life, and 
 the value of that freedom cannot be very great 
 which only leaves its possessor at liberty to starve, 
 and the market price of which would not keep him 
 in potatoes. The mass of the Irish people would) 
 certainly have great reason to rejoice, although! 
 their country should cease to be a component part) 
 of the greatest empire upon earth, and should sink] 
 into a dependency of France or some other foreign f 
 power, provided at the same time they were them- ) 
 selves raised from their present degraded condition/ 
 to a level with the peasantry of continental Europe.) 
 Such a change is promised by Repeal for a future 
 generation, at the expense, it is true, of incalcul- 
 able misery to the present one. Peaceful, gentle, 
 easy means of attaining the same end are at the 
 command of the legislature, but if they are still to 
 
 F F 4 
 
440 KEPEAL. 
 
 remain unemployed, a cool speculator would pro- 
 bably decide it to be better for the interests of 
 humanity that the present race should sustain a 
 tenfold weight of affliction rather than that their 
 heritage of woe should descend unmitigated to a 
 remote posterity. 
 
441 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Concluding Reflections. Chances of the Stability of National 
 Prosperity. 
 
 SUPPOSING now that the labouring class were effec- 
 tually extricated from poverty, it remains to con- 
 sider whether they might not again, after a time, 
 relapse into it. What security is there that 
 their numbers would not again grow out of pro- 
 portion to their resources, or that the latter vsvould 
 not undergo an absolute diminution? To the first 
 of these questions, a satisfactory answer, it is to be 
 hoped, has already been given ; for a principal 
 object of the preceding pages has been to prove, 
 that when people are once in possession of sufficient 
 means of livelihood, they will not, through a mere 
 increase of their numbers, render those means in- 
 adequate to their support. There is not, however, 
 the same certainty that they would not be impo- 
 verished by a decrease of their resources. As the 
 substantial yeomanry of the fourteenth century 
 were reduced to want by the substitution of sheep 
 farming for tillage, so it may be easily imagined 
 that another revolution in industry such, for 
 instance, as the extensive application of machinery 
 
442 CONCLUDING 
 
 to agriculture might once more diminish the de- 
 mand for labour, and deprive the peasantry of their 
 main stay. The best way to guard against such a 
 catastrophe is to raise agricultural labourers from 
 entire dependence on the hire of their services, by 
 immediately furnishing them with allotments of 
 land, and by that and other means enabling them 
 to accumulate wherewithal to purchase land for 
 themselves. Proprietors of four or five acres need 
 have no fear of being thrown out of work, as long 
 as they keep their little farms ; and if the mass of 
 British husbandmen could be converted into pro- 
 prietors of this description, their happiness would 
 perhaps rest on as firm a basis as human foresight 
 could suggest for it. Even without such precaution, 
 the chances of their being hereafter deprived of 
 their occupation are too slight to excite any very 
 lively apprehension. Sufficient for the day is the 
 evil thereof ; and if we can only make agricultural 
 labourers happy for the present, we need not dis- 
 tress ourselves with doubts about their future wel- 
 fare, but may wait tranquilly until the morrow 
 brings with it real matter for anxiety. 
 
 Many persons probably think that the prospects 
 of the urban population offer far juster reason for 
 uneasiness. It seems to be a very general opinion 
 that the downfall of greatness founded on manu- 
 factures, however long delayed, is sooner or later 
 inevitable ; and that the day must come when 
 Britain shall descend from her high estate, and 
 sink into a depth of adversity corresponding with 
 the eminence to which she has been raised by the 
 
REFLECTIONS. 443 
 
 energy and ingenuity of her sons. Admitting that 
 other nations will be content to allow her to manu- 
 facture for them as long as agriculture affords to 
 themselves a more profitable employment, it is fore- 
 seen that cultivation will at length have been ex- 
 tended to the utmost, and that husbandry will no 
 longer allow of the investment of additional capital. 
 It is supposed that capital then must necessarily be 
 applied to manufactures, and that a foreign manu- 
 facturing population will spring up, for whom the 
 supplies of food formerly sent to Britain will be 
 retained. At this rate, all the manufactures any 
 where used will at last be of native workmanship ; 
 the population of every territory will become as 
 great as the whole produce of its soil will maintain, 
 and England and other unfortunate countries that 
 once manufactured for exportation will be left with 
 silent mills, and deserted factories, and a ghastly 
 crowd of starving operatives. 
 
 Let us hastily examine the grounds for these 
 gloomy prognostications. It is said that when the 
 amount of capital exceeds what can be laid out on 
 land, the surplus will almost of necessity be em- 
 ployed in establishing native manufactures. It 
 might be replied that this is by no means certain. 
 England and other manufacturing countries owe 
 their present superiority to certain peculiar local 
 advantages. A capitalist desirous of setting up a 
 rival manufacture in a less favoured land would 
 therefore find it impossible to make head against 
 foreign competition, without the protection of high 
 import duties. But such protection it might per- 
 
444 CONCLUDING 
 
 haps be impossible to obtain. An agricultural 
 community could not shut out the goods of a people 
 with whom they had been accustomed to deal, 
 without at the same time shutting themselves out 
 of a market for an equal quantity of their own 
 produce; and they would surely not suffer their 
 corn to lie rotting in the granaries, merely in order 
 that they might have the trouble of weaving worse 
 cloth for themselves than they could procure, with- 
 out any trouble at all, by the sale of their useless 
 grain. The agricultural capitalist, therefore, ben't 
 on engaging in manufactures, would find that he 
 could not do so with advantage at home, and would 
 either remove to some other countrv better fitted 
 
 / 
 
 for his purpose, or would send his money there, 
 and live at home on the interest or profits. 
 
 But before speculating on the mode in which 
 foreign agriculturists would employ their surplus 
 capital, it would have been well first to ascertain 
 whether that surplus capital can ever really come 
 into existence. Capital is but another name for 
 wealth ; and the constituents of wealth, with the ex- 
 ception of metals, minerals, and a few other articles, 
 are all originally the produce of the earth's surface. 
 If, therefore, the whole earth were fully peopled, 
 if the annual produce of its soil were just sufficient 
 for the maintenance of its inhabitants, barely sup- 
 plying them with food and with the means of 
 making good the annual consumption of manu- 
 factures, it is obvious that the growth of wealth 
 would almost entirely cease. What is true of the 
 whole earth is also true of a part. In a single 
 
REFLECTIONS. 445 
 
 country, isolated and fully peopled, no considerable 
 increase can take place of native produce, nor con- 
 sequently of capital. Now, an assemblage of 
 countries connected together by commerce may be 
 regarded, for the purpose of our argument, as a 
 single isolated territory ; all the provisions arid all 
 the goods of every kind produced within the whole 
 region being also consumed within its limits. In 
 the various countries forming this assemblage, 
 agriculture would not be carried to the utmost 
 extent, all the land would not be brought under 
 cultivation, until there was a demand for the 
 greatest possible quantity of produce, until the 
 population of the whole region became large enough 
 to require the utmost quantity that could be raised. 
 Then, and not till then, would agriculture refuse 
 to admit the investment of additional capital ; but 
 precisely at the same moment additional capital 
 would cease to be created. That which had pre- 
 viously existed might consequently continue to be 
 employed in the accustomed occupations without 
 any danger of being disturbed. 
 
 There do not then appear to be any causes in ope- 
 ration which must inevitably remove industry from 
 her ancient seats. On the contrary,, in spite of the 
 oft-cited examples of Tyre and Carthage, Venice, 
 Genoa, and Holland, and in spite of the eagerness 
 with which her jealous neighbours gloat over every 
 fancied symptom of decay, Britain may yet, for 
 aught that human eye can discern, retain her 
 manufacturing prosperity till the end of time. To 
 assert that circumstances may not arise which 
 
446 CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. 
 
 shall neutralise all our advantages, would be to 
 invite a chastisement for our presumption ; but, if 
 we do our utmost for the social and moral welfare 
 of the operatives, we shall have taken every pre- 
 caution that prudence can suggest, and may safely 
 leave their future fate in the hands of Providence. 
 
 or THE 
 ( UNIVERSITY ) 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE, 
 New-Street-Square. 
 
RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 
 TO ^ 202 Main Library 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 HOME USE 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 1 -month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405 
 
 6-month loans may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation Desk 
 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 atf 26 ^ 7 
 
 3 
 
 
 \}\j * 
 
 
 
 H STACKS 
 
 i 
 
 
 * f* f 3. 
 
 1 
 
 
 .\PK 11 
 
 *& - .OCTS 
 
 
 
 WAY 2 5 t9M 
 
 
 
 VECL Cffi. MAX 2 G 
 
 h&t 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 
 FORM NO. DD6 60m 11/78 BERKELEY, CA 94720 
 
 $ 
 
U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 CDS7113S01 
 
 23m-2,'lt 
 

 
 SE?fe**3