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classes of the community; but nothing that has been hitherto said affects their real comforts, and, in truth, tends only to substitute what they may regard as a more homely plenty, instead of the scanty enjoyments of their accustomed fare. At any rate, the circumstances of the country (from causes which I shall not stop now to investigate) recommend imperiously some alteration in our national modes of subsistence, more especially as we find a similar reform likely to gain ground among those whom we have been taught to regard as our national rivals and enemies.

The following facts (which I mention on the authority of Arthur Young, a writer who will not be accused of partiality to the French Revolution,) is not unworthy of attention at the present moment. It is extracted from a pamphlet published as lately as March 1800.

"The farming bailiff I sent to the Duke of Liancourt ten years ago, is now in London, having left France but a fortnight, and has given me many accounts of French husbandry; one circumstance of which deserves notice, that every scrap of waste and neglected land is converted into little possessions by the poor, and cultivated most assiduously; much," it is added, "by means of potatoes."1

I cannot help adding here, (although the observation is not immediately connected with our present subject,) that in years of moderate plenty, a very great part of the distress experienced by the lower orders in this island, must be ascribed to their own pernicious habits; habits, however, which, I am afraid, are likely long to remain the subject of our unavailing regrets. It is remarked by Dr. Currie in his Medical Reports, that "the want of a diet sufficiently nutritious is doubtless one of the causes that promote the typhus and other diseases among our poor... This," he continues, "does not seem to arise in general from the price of their labour being inadequate to furnish such a diet, but from their ignorance in the most advantageous modes of cookery, and still more from their indulging

1 With respect to the advantages of rice as a substitute for flour.-See Reports on the Poor, p. 187.

in articles that consume their means without adding to their sustenance. In the 1800 cellars in Liverpool, there are many in which animal food is not tasted more than once a week, but there are very few in which tea is not drunk daily, it is often indeed drunk twice a day. The money spent on tea," the same author adds, "is worse than wasted. It is not only diverted. to an article that furnishes no nutrition, but to one that debilitates the empty stomach, and incapacitates for labour. Hence the vast number of dyspeptic complaints among our patients of the public charities, which are almost all to be traced to the use of tea or spirits, often indeed assisted by depression of mind."

The miserable effects produced by the unfortunate appetite for intoxicating liquors, so prevalent among the lower orders of this country, have been often discussed. I shall not attempt. to investigate its origin, nor to ascertain how far it ought to be regarded as a cause, or how far as an effect of their poverty. It is certainly much more easily explicable than the origin of that appetite for tea which is now become so general among the poorest classes of the community both in Scotland and England. That it is an unfortunate circumstance in many respects, and which justly deserves the reprobation which Dr. Currie bestows on it, must be granted by all;-but although something may be fairly ascribed to the ignorance and want of foresight, and absurd imitation of those who indulge themselves in this expensive and hurtful beverage, is there not reason to apprehend, that here too, as in the case of spirituous liquors, the source of the evil lies deeper than is generally apprehended? A late writer who has stood forward as an advocate for labourers in husbandry, has asserted that "teadrinking is not the cause, but the consequence of the distresses. of the poor;" and his observations on the subject (although I would not be understood to subscribe to them in their full extent) seem to me not undeserving of attention.1

The reasonings of Mr. Davies receive some confirmation

1 See Davies, p. 37. [Case of Labourers in Husbandry Stated and Consider

ed, 1795, by David Davies, Rector of Barkham, Berks.]

from the fact, that in other instances where the distresses of the poor have been great, they have been led to betake themselves to similar resources. In a very interesting account published some time ago, of the management of the poor at Hamburgh, we are told that previous to the enlightened attempts that have been lately made for their relief, "the indigent classes in that city had been habituated to live almost entirely on a miserable beverage which was called coffee, and sold in messes, with about half-a-pound of indifferent bread. This wretched substitute for food they took twice a day." It is pleasing to add, on the authority of a Report published in 1798, that by the introduction of Count Rumford's soups, a saving of nine parts in sixteen, or rather more than half the former expense of their food, has been gained in the maintenance of the poor at Hamburgh, while a visible improvement in health and strength (particularly in the case of children) has accompanied this reformation.

A very melancholy fact which has been mentioned by Dr. Beddoes in one of his medical publications, adds to the weight of some of the foregoing considerations. What I allude to is the use of opium among some descriptions of our poor. "Whether," he observes, "it was first taken to recruit the labourer after excessive toil, or occasionally to cheer the gloom of despondence, or to make up the deficiencies of that abominable water-gruel and potato diet, by which the joyless being of so many pale, meagre, shivering women and children is prolonged, I am not informed. I had known," he adds, "the fact for some time, and lately received the following account from a medical observer."2

I shall not draw any particular inference from these facts, but must be allowed to remark, that when such habits become generally prevalent, they justify the conclusion, that whatever share of blame may be due to the individuals who adopt them, all is not right in the Political System.

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[SECT. III.]ON SUBJECTING THE COMMERCE OF MONEY TO THE

REGULATION OF LAW.

Having treated of the general principles which regulate the rate of interest, independently of the interposition of the statesman, I proceed now to consider the motives which have influenced the policy of different nations in subjecting the commerce of money to the regulation of law. For this purpose it will be necessary for me to take a pretty wide circuit, by referring to some speculative opinions of the ancients, which have been long exploded as unfounded prejudices, but which have had, nevertheless, a secret effect in modifying the ideas and institutions of Modern Europe. If, in discussing this preliminary point, I should be thought somewhat diffuse, I flatter myself that the nature of the subject, which is curious and interesting, independently of its connexion with the questions to which I mean to apply it, will be a sufficient apology.

In contrasting the opinions of ancient and modern times concerning the rules of practical morality, there is nothing which, at first view, appears more astonishing than the strong terms in which some of their most eminent philosophers reprobate the practice of lending money upon interest,—a practice which is now so familiarized to the minds of all civilized nations, that it would be considered as no less absurd to offer a formal proof of its innocence and equity, than to argue against them. The circumstance on which Aristotle grounds his disapprobation of this practice is of so extraordinary a nature, that although it has been often referred to by modern casuists, it would be improper to pass it over without some animadversion. "Among the various ways," he observes, "of getting money, agriculture and the rearing of cattle are natural and honourable, because the earth itself and all animals are by nature fruitful. But to make gain from money, which is naturally barren and unfruitful, is most justly accounted dishonourable, and is held in detestation;-inasmuch as it is a perversion

of money from its natural use, the purchasing what we want." The argument is so extremely absurd, that it could never have led this acute and profound philosopher to the conclusion it is employed to support, but may be justly numbered among the instances in which speculative men have exerted their ingenuity to defend, by sophistical reasonings, the established prejudices of the times in which they lived, and in which the supposed evidence of the inference has served, in their estimation, to compensate for the weakness of the premises. It is, however, worthy of observation, that Aristotle's argument (such as it is) was manifestly suggested by the etymology of the word Tókos, (which, in the Greek language, signifies interest,) from the verb TixTw, pario,-an etymology which seems to imply that the principal generates the interest.1 The same idea, too, occurs in the scene between Antonio and Shylock, in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice.

"If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not

As to thy friend, (for when did friendship take

A breed of barren metal of his friend?)

But lend it rather to thine enemy;

Who, if he break, thou may'st with better face
Exact the penalty."

It is perhaps treating this very puerile conceit with more respect than is due to it, to quote, by way of reply, the following consideration, which, one would suppose, (as an ingenious writer of our own time remarks,) might naturally enough have occurred to a man of Aristotle's penetration; more particularly when we consider "the great number of pieces of money that had passed through his hands; more, perhaps, than were passed through the hands of philosopher before or since!" "That though a daric would not beget another daric any more than it would a ram or a ewe, yet for a daric which a man borrowed, he might get a ram and a couple of ewes, and that the ewes, if the ram were left with them a certain time, would probably not be barren. That, then, at the end of the

year, he would find himself master of his three sheep, together

1 Gibbon, [Decline and Fall, chap. xliv., footnote.]

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