courage their exportation, by giving the labourer part of his wages in the form of a poor rate, we would keep wages low; in other words, we would bribe the labourer with high wages to work cheap! Next follows what the author calls A historical deduction of the effects of the poor laws in England.' He informs us, at great length, that England has been increasing, since the days of Elizabeth, in prosperity, in opulence, and in population; all which, we are given to understand, is wholly to be ascribed to the operation of the poor laws. It appears to us to be so extremely absurd to assert that population can be increased by means of the poor laws, that we cannot refrain from submitting the following argument to the attention of our author. Supposing a country able to support, in tolerable comfort, from the produce of its own territory, along with what it can import, a population of 1,000,000, is he prepared to maintain, that by taxing the rich, in order to give to each labourer an addition to his weekly wages of five shillings, the country would be enabled to support a greater number of inhabitants in the same degree of comfort? If he is not prepared to go this length, his argument, respecting the increase of population derived from the poor laws, falls instantly to the ground. The humanity of those institutions for the relief of the poor, is also a favourite topic of declamation with this writer; and although we fully acquit him of any design to do injustice to Mr Malthus, he has certainly contrived to exhibit him in a very unfair and unamiable light to his readers. After complimenting him on the openness and boldness with which he avows his doctrines in the face of popular obloquy, he observes, that it is, however, a matter of great joy to those who differ from him in opinion, that in indulging the finer feelings of the heart, they are at the same time promoting the best interests of the country; that in encouraging marriage, and, as they believe, happiness and morality among the lower orders,-in assisting women, at a time when they are most of all in need of comfort and support,-and in helping them to rear their children in soundness of body and mind, they are employed in preparing the instruments of their country's welfare and prosperity, and not sowing the seeds of want, vice, and misery; that in rescuing the trembling limbs of age from cold and wretchedness, they are not bestowing upon idleness the encouragements due only to virtue and industry. In what part of the Essay on Population, we beg leave to ask, are men forbid to indulge the finer feelings of the heart;' to assist women, when they are most of all in need of comfort and support;' or, to rescue the trembling limbs of age from cold cold and wretchedness?' Mr Malthus expressly states, in various parts of his work, that if it were possible to draw, from the resources of the rich, the means of ameliorating the condition of the poor, he should have no objection to impose a very heavy assessment for that purpose. But it is because the poor laws, instead of rescuing the trembling limbs of age from coid and wretchedness,' are a most fertile source of misery to the poor, that Mr Malthus wishes them to be gradually abolished. We do not, therefore, see the necessity of such an ostentatious parade of the finer feelings of the heart' upon this occasion: to say least of it, it appears to be quite useless and inapplicable. the As far as the principles of Mr Malthus respect public charity, we do not think they can well be controverted. But it does not appear to us, that they furnish a rule for the exercise of private charity, There is an essential difference between public and private benevolence. All schemes for the general relief of the poor must proceed on views of justice and policy alone. There is a risk, lest profuse liberality should encourage improvidence, or produce other mischiefs, of which we may not be at first aware: we must not only look, therefore, at the particular object to be relieved, but we must consider what may be the effect of our exertions on the general happiness of the community. In the charitable donations of individuals, the case is entirely different; the practice of benevolence is enjoined to those who have neither the capacity nor the means of being informed about the general good; their object, therefore, is to relieve misery; and the principal object of their inquiry will naturally be, the necessities of the object on whom their charity is to be bestowed. There is no danger that the liberality of individuals will ever flow so certainly, or so abundantly, as to draw after it any sort of dependance. Private benevolence, therefore, far from appearing as the stern judge of human frailties, relieves, not those only who have fallen into distress from no fault of their own, but those also who have no plea to offer but that of actual wretchedness: genuine benevolence, in short, visits and relieves distress without any strict inquiry into its cause, wherever it is to be found. We cannot therefore agree with Mr Malthus, that the hand of private benevolence should be very sparingly stretched out, for the relief of those who have involved themselves in difficulties by the imprudence of an early marriage. Whatever bad effects a propensity to early marriages, among the labouring classes of the community, might produce on the general state of society, yet the error (if it be an error) is, with respect to individuals, of the most venial kind; and, even if merit or demerit is to be taken as the scale by which we are to measure out our benevolence, we do not by any means means think that they will be placed at the bottom of it. On the other hand, however, we entirely concur with Mr Malthus, that they are not proper objects of public charity, because the certainty of this resource would obviously create the mischief which it is intended to relieve. Our author, after having recovered from this burst of philanthropy, endeavours to obviate the objections which have been made to the poor laws. For this purpose he extenuates their evils, which he classes with those petty irregularities from which no comprehensive arrangement of policy can be free; and declaims against those, who, in political contrivances, aim at theoretic perfection. Instead of being discouraged by the evils incident to the system, we should make new laws (he observes) to counteract these evils. He accordingly proposes a scheme of regulations, for excluding those who have not been provident and saving when they had it in their power, from all participation in the benefits of the poor laws; which has only one fault, namely, that it is utterly impracticable. It would also, he imagines, tend greatly to produce economy among the labouring classes, if offices were erected by government, for receiving such trifling sums as they should have saved from their earnings: parish schools, he thinks, ought also to be established for their instruction, and cottages, with three or four acres of waste land, should be bestowed on those labourers who have brought up three children, or more, to a certain age; provided, however, they have given them such instruction as should seem good to the legislature. With respect to offices established by government, it requires no great foresight to perceive, that it would soon turn out to be a most useless and ridiculous job. We know of no labourers who have either the opportunity or the inclination to lay up money: when they save any thing from their wages, they generally deposit it in the fund of a friendly society, as a resource against sickness or old age. If, however, a labourer is determined upon hoarding, he will always find some creditable individual who will pay him interest for the smallest sums; he must, of course, be subjected to all the risks of other lenders, and must, like them, exert his vigilance to avoid them. But, in truth, it is of more consequence to observe, that this watchful superintendance over the poor, this constant tampering with all their concerns, which seems to have infected the higher orders of society, is calculated to reduce them to a state of the most helpless ignorance and improvidence; and, by dispensing, in their case, with the exercise of all those virtues which steer other men through the hazards of life, to strip them of every energetic and manly quality. The establishment of schools for their instruction might certainly certainly be attended with good effects; but the plan of providing cottages for those who may have brought up three children to a certain age, besides being fantastic in its principle, seems quite impracticable. Men have sufficient motives to bring up their children with decency and propriety without any reward; and if they do not find a sufficient recompense in the feelings of their own minds, we do not think that the prospect of living in an eleemosynary cottage will furnish an effectual inducement. Besides, how is it certain that these cottages would be bestowed on meritorious objects? It appears to us quite as likely that they would be the asylum of indolence, as of industry. The great fault of all complex contrivances is, that they are apt to be perverted from their objects by those who are entrusted with their execution; and they always prove, sooner or later, a receptacle of the most pernicious abuses. On reading all these fine schemes for the benefit of the poor, one would naturally imagine that they must be in a most wretched situation where nothing of that kind is attempted for their relief. In Scotland, however, we have neither government bank offices, nor cottages, nor workhouses, and yet the condition of the labouring part of the community is extremely comfortable. They are provident and economical, principally, we believe, because they are well educated, and not liable to be debased in their habits by a system of poor laws. From one hopeless project our author proceeds to another equally hopeless, namely, the employment of the poor. Before the expediency of any plan for this purpose can be admitted, he must prove, first, that the fear of want is not of itself a suffici ent stimulus to industry; and, 2dly, that where plenty of work is to be had, those who are in want of it cannot seek it out for themselves, without the assistance of the legislature. The laws for the employment of the poor have, it seems, fallen into almost total neglect; and our author, with his usual sagacity, infers, that their execution must have been placed in improper hands. For amending this defect, he proposes a very complicated scheme, into the details of which, however, we really cannot enter particularly. Several parishes are to be erected into a district, over which one officer is to preside,-his diligence and activity to be encouraged by rewards, and enforced by heavy penalties. As a centre of general communication for the whole country, a Board of Commissioners is to be established in London, consisting of the most enlightened and independent gentlemen of large fortune, well acquainted with the commercial and agricultural interests of their country; serving without salary; and bound to the strict discharge of their duty under under penalties. Any partiality or imposition on the part of the district officer, to be also punished with very heavy penalties. A whole chapter is next devoted to an inquiry into the cause of the augmentation which has taken place in the poor rates, which is in a great measure ascribed to the great rise in the price of all the necessaries of life. Our author then proceeds to inquire, why England, which was formerly an exporting country, is now obliged to import. This he seems to consider as the chief cause of the distresses of the poor; and he accordingly suggests various plans for removing it; all of which have for their object the increase of the agricultural produce of the country. But as we do not believe, that, if the condition of the poor in England be depressed, it is at all owing to the circumstance of our importing corn, neither do we think the evil would be permanently removed, by increasing the quantity of food produced in the country. The condition of the labourer depends on the relation between the supply of food, and the population among whom the food is to be divided. It is a matter of no consequence to him, whether it be produced in the country, or whether it be imported, provided there is an abundant supply. If his situation is depressed, an increase of agricultural produce will no doubt relieve him for a time; but popula tion will soon increase, and the same difficulties will again recur. It is not on the absolute supply of food, but on its relative supply, that the condition of the labourer depends; and this supply will be great or small, according to the degree in which the preventive check to population prevails. As an addition to the agricultural produce of the country will not, however, prevent the recurrence of scarcity, our author has another recipe for that purpose. He proposes to transport 25,000 Chinese to the Cape of Good Hope, for the purpose of raising a surplus supply of food, which is to be in part collected by the governor in payment of taxes, and warehoused, until the state of the supply shall be known in Britain, where it can be imported if required, and, if not, it is to be exported to other countries, even at a loss! It is quite amusing to consider our author's schemes. Before such a projector, all sort of difficulties vanish. Even the ordinary operations of nature are accelerated, if they happen to be too slow (as indeed they generally are) for bringing his projects to maturity. The work concludes with a proposal for rendering every species of income rateable to the poor laws. As the system, however, appears to us to be radically wrong, we should decidedly object to any plan by which a greater sum would be collected. Our author's object is indeed not to increase the burden, but to distribute it more equally. We have no doubt, how |