the faculties of the great classes of a people, their demand must be withdrawn, which would leave the market overstocked for the consumption of the rich; consequently, such persons who in times of scarcity are forced to starve, can only be such whose faculties fall, unfortunately, below the standard of those of the great class. Consequently, in countries of industry, the price of subsistence never can rise beyond the powers to purchase of that numerous class who enjoy physical necessaries; consequently, never to such an inordinate height as to starve considerable numbers of the people,-a thing which very commonly happens in countries where, industry being little known, multitudes depend merely on the charity of others, and have no resource left as soon as this comes to fail them."1 • As this reasoning proceeds on the supposition that the poor have no resources but in their own industry, it is plainly inapplicable to the history of the late scarcity, when such unexampled exertions were made, in every part of the country, for the assistance and relief of the lower orders. In consequence of these exertions, the competition was kept up much beyond what the unassisted faculties of the poor could have produced; and the operation of those circumstances was fortunately checked, which, if things had been left to follow their own course, would have limited prices, long before they had approached to the height which they reached. Numbers must have been found to perish for want of food; and a melancholy remedy would have been found against the exorbitancy of price in a diminishing competition.2 Before concluding this subject, I shall touch very slightly on some of the most important measures which were adopted or proposed as palliatives of the general distress.3 The historical sketch which I have now finished relative to the scarcity after the harvest of 1799, appeared to me to be the 1 Vol. I. pp. 397, 398.-[Political Economy, Book II. chap. xxviii.; Works, Vol. II. pp. 82, 83.] 2 See Arthur Young, Question of Scarcity, p. 62. 3 [Author's Memorandum.]-Leave twenty pages blank.-Public Kitchens. -Edinburgh.-See volume marked on the back Howlett's Pamphlets.-[See, however, the interpolation on the Poor Laws from the Notes of Mr. Bridges, postea.] more necessary, that from a variety of circumstances there is reason to apprehend, that occasions may again occur (not, it is to be hoped, accompanied with the same aggravated difficulties) when the benevolent interposition both of the Legislature and of individuals may be necessary for the assistance of the people. It seems now to be universally admitted, that the advancement of cultivation for some time past has by no means kept pace with our growing numbers; and the dependence of this island on other countries, for the means of subsistence, during an uninterrupted series of years, has been justly considered as a most alarming fact, by all who are able to judge of the best interests of the nation. To the effects produced by our growing population, must also be added those which result from the astonishing increase of horses during the last thirty or forty years. In such circumstances any considerable deficiency in a single crop, must necessarily produce the most serious inconveniences. The increase of population undoubtedly operates powerfully by the demand it occasions, to provide an adequate supply; but experience has shewn that this is counteracted by various causes, particularly by the increased demands for the products of grass, occasioned by the immense wealth of the kingdom. The multiplication of enclosures and other agricultural improvements, though they cannot fail to diminish greatly the evil, do not as yet promise a speedy and effectual remedy. The wastes and commons of the kingdom (it has been observed by many) afford ample resources for a much greater population than we possess; and the remark is perfectly just. Every exertion for their improvement may be ranked among the wisest national measures; and, so far as the end can be accomplished, the most solid of all additions is made to the independent wealth, and to the real greatness of the empire. In the meantime, some measures are called for, the operation of which may be more immediate, and which, without interfering with other more general schemes of utility, may add to the resources which we can at present command. Of these, the most effectual is to reconcile the poor, as much as possible, to those cheaper modes of sustenance, which the ingenuity of scientific men, stimulated by the pressure of the times, has suggested. Improvements of this sort in their ordinary cookery may reasonably be expected, as one of the consequences of those public kitchens which are now so prevalent in every part of the kingdom; and although alterations, such as affect the general habits of a people, must, of course, be gradual, it ought to be remembered, that every step which is gained in introducing a wholesome and nourishing substitute for bread, forms an important accession to the mass of material opulence. In the country, the general use of milk and potatoes affords a resource of still greater importance. If every country labourer had his potato ground and a cow, the extremity of want would be as little known as it is said to be among the lower orders in Ireland. The peculiar advantages attending potatoes as a food for the body of the people, are well known; and what inestimable advantages a poor family may derive from the possession of a cow, may be learned from the Memoirs published by Lord Winchelsea. Mr. Young informs us, that of seventy labourers about Burley having gardens and grass for one or two cows from this nobleman, only two widows have applied, on occasion of the scarcity during the winter of 1799-1800, for parochial relief. One measure of unquestionable efficacy might be easily carried into execution, to prohibit, by legislative authority, all parochial relief in any other mode than by potatoes, rice, or soup. This measure has been recommended not merely as a temporary expedient, but as a permanent regulation ;1 and it would certainly produce important consequences. It would secure an extensive cultivation of potatoes, or a great and regular import of rice; and it would operate irresistibly in altering the habits of the lower orders, in some particulars, equally prejudicial to themselves and to the public. It is undoubtedly painful to mention plans which seem to imply new economical arrangements on the part of the inferior 1 Young's Pamphlet. 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 Labour- ed, 1795, by David Davies, Rector of ers in Husbandry Stated and Consider- Barkham, Berks.] |