of the poor, as being equal to the whole amount of the rates in 1776. It is not, therefore, to any decline in the industry-in the spirit of deliberate and considerate forethought-or in the love of personal independence by which the people of Britain have been so eminently distinguished, that the enormity of the assessments for the support of the poor is to be ascribed. The very impatience of suffering which they have evinced, to whatever excesses it may have led, is honourable to the national character; inasmuch as it shows, conclusively, that dependent poverty is abhorrent to the feelings, and esteemed a degradation by the great body of the people.

Although, therefore, we have no intention of becoming the apologists of the Poor-Laws, we cannot help thinking that their pernicious influence has been very much exaggerated: At all events, it is a principle which has not been recently brought into action. The compulsory provision for the support of the poor, was established in the latter part of the 16th century; and, for the last hundred years, can only be considered as a constantly operating principle, of which the effect, in different periods, must have been nearly the same. It may go far to account for the gradual and regular increase of pauperism, from the reign of Elizabeth down to the commencement of the late war; but it will afford no explanation of its late irregular and enormous increase. In the course of the comparatively short period which has elapsed since 1793, the rates, which had only doubled in the previous part of the eighteenth century, have increased in a fivefold proportion, or from Two to TEN millions. Now, although the variations in the value of money since the restriction of cash payments, must have had some effect in causing an increase in the nominal amount of the rates, yet neither these variations, nor the influence of the laws themselves, could possibly have occasioned so inordinate an extension of the rates, or such a degradation in the condition of the lower classes, as has been lately witnessed. Other causes have unquestionably conspired to produce this effect; and of these, it will be found, that Taxation, and the restrictions on the trade in Corn, have been decidedly the most powerful.

In the present improved state of the science of political economy, it is unnecessary to set about proving that a heavy taxation on the principal necessaries of life, must be extremely prejudicial to the great body of the people-to all who either depend for subsistence on the wages of labour, or the profits of stock. This is admitted on all hands; but it has been strenuously denied, that these effects can be justly ascribed to the

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tem of taxation adopted in this country: And as it is of the utmost importance, in every inquiry into the causes of the public distresses, that we should have correct opinions on this fundamental point, we shall avail ourselves of this opportunity to premise a few observations on the effects which must in general result from the imposition of heavy taxes on necessaries, before examining the nature and operation of the system of taxation to which we are now subjected.

In countries, such as the United States, where there is a boundless extent of fertile and unappropriated land, and where no feudal privileges or impolitic restraints fetter the employment of industry, or retard the accumulation of capital, the imposition of a tax on a commodity necessary for the subsistence of the labourer, would not be attended with any very injurious effects. In such countries, both the profits of stock and the real wages of labour are high; and a considerable revenue might be collected without occasioning any great inconvenience either to the workman or his employer: A little economy would enable the former to save the amount of the tax out of his wages; and these might be advanced without the rate of profit and the power to accumulate capital being thereby materially impaired. But in all old settled and fully peopled countries, taxation is infinitely more injurious. The supply of labour being in this case almost always greater than the demand, the real wages of labour are comparatively low; while, from the necessity of cultivating inferior soils, the profits of stock are also compara tively limited. In a country thus circumstanced, there is obviously very little room for increased economy; nor can a rise in the price of necessaries, that is, of those commodities which the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without,'* be compensated by an immediate corresponding rise of wages.-The labourer is, in this respect, placed in a much more disadvantageous position than either the master manufacturer or capitalist.—When a tax is imposed on raw produce, or any species of manufactured commodities, the producers, by limiting the supply, are enabled to raise the price to such a sum as will afford them, exclusive of the tax, the common and ordinary rate of profit on their capital. But this is a resource from which the labourer is in a great measure cut off. He is unable to raise his wages in proportion to the increased price of the commodities he consumes; and for this obvious reason, that, while the competition for employment, or the number of labourers continues undiminished,

*Wealth of Nations, iii. 331.

the demand for their services, however much it may be lessened, cannot be increased by the imposition of the tax.-The supply of workmen is not like the supply of boots and shoes; it does not and cannot be made to vary with every variation in the price of necessaries, or the rate of wages. Whatever degree of stimulus may have been previously given to the principle of population, it is plain that, although the demand for labour should be suddenly contracted, or, which is the same thing in effect, though the proportion of wages to prices should be suddenly reduced, it would, notwithstanding, continue flowing into the market with nearly the same rapidity as before: Nor would the ratio of the increase of population be materially diminished, until the misery occasioned by the restricted demand on the one hand, and the increased supply on the other, had been very generally and widely diffused.

The principle, therefore, which has been laid down by Dr Smith, and other political economists, that every direct tax on wages, or on the commodities necessary for the subsistence of the labourer, falls entirely on his employer, must be received with very great modification: Except in the rare case where an unusual demand for labour occurs at the time that a tax is imposed on necessaries, it is impossible that wages should be equally raised. There is indeed but too much reason to believe that, in the great majority of cases, a very long period must elapse before any such effect can be produced. In the stationary state of society, or where capital and population are advancing with nearly equal degrees of rapidity, the more powerful operation of the principle of moral restraint, or a diminution of the rate at which population had previously increased, is the only way in which wages can be raised. But as this must be the work of time, there is an extreme risk lest the opinions and habits of the labouring class should in the interim undergo a change. When wages are diminished to any great extent, as they are sure to be by every considerable increase of taxation, the poor are obliged to economize; and it is natural to suppose, that what was at first forced on them by necessity, should ultimately become habitual. It is in this that the great evil of excessive taxation principally consists. Wherever the labouring classes are exposed to long-continued suffering and want, their opinions as to what is necessary for their comfortable subsist ence, and the place they ought to hold in society, become de graded. The inadequacy of wages has already compelled the greater part of the people of Britain to relinquish a variety of comforts, and to satisfy themselves with comparatively coarse Jai

VOL. XXXIII. NO. 65.

and scanty fare. And as the necessity for making still further retrenchments does not appear to be at all diminished, it is but too certain, if no means are taken to relieve the overloaded springs of industry, and to stimulate the natural demand for labour, that the ordinary rate of wages will be reduced to such a sum as will barely enable the labouring class to exist, and to continue their race. Whenever wages have been reduced thus low, it is true that they can sink no lower; and then, but not till then, the labourer will be beyond the reach of taxation; and every tax affecting the commodities indispensable for his support, will be paid by his employer, or, which is the same thing, will directly and immediately fall on the profits of stock.

It is impossible, however, to conceive a more wretched state of society, than that in which the bulk of the people are reduced to a dependence on mere necessaries. In those countries,' Mr Ricardo has well observed, where the labouring classes have the fewest wants, and are contented with the cheapest food, the people are exposed to the greatest vicissitudes and miseries. They have no place of refuge from calamity; they cannot seek safety in a lower station; they are already so low, that they can fall no lower. On any deficiency of the chief articles of their subsistence, there are few substitutes of which they can avail themselves; and dearth to them is attended with almost all the evils of famine." Nor is this all:-Men placed in such circumstances, and cut off, as they must be, from all hope of rising in the world, naturally sink into a state of indolence and insensibility. They may not be discontented; but it is not in the nature of things that they should be either active or industrious. No man submits to privations and labour, but in the hope of obtaining corresponding comforts. Where there is no power, there can be no motive to accumulate; and, what perhaps is still worse, where the mass of the people are sunk in the abyss of poverty-where they have no stake in the hedge-it is impossible they should feel any great respect for the rights of those who have: And it is but too evident, that it is only by the terrors of the criminal law, that such persons can be prevented from breaking down those institutions which, however essential to the maintenance of society, must appear to them, not as bulwarks raised for the public benefit, but for the support and protection of a favoured few.

From what has been already stated, it is easy to perceive, that the effect of a heavy taxation in depressing the condition of the labouring classes, must be very much influenced by the comparative rapidity of its increase. A slow and gradual increase of taxation, inasmuch as it would not suddenly deprive the lower

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classes of any considerable portion of their accustomed comforts and enjoyments, would most probably stimulate them to endea vour to preserve their place in society, as much by delaying the formation of matrimonial connexions, as by contracting the scale of their expenditure. The last is always a painful resource. To retrograde is not natural to man. The desire to im prove our circumstances, and to acquire an increased command over the necessaries and luxuries of life, is deeply seated in the human breast, and has been found sufficiently strong to counteract one of the most powerful instincts of our nature. vious to the commencement of the late French war, the condition of the labouring classes in England was not very different from that of the same class in the United States; the greater facility of providing for a family, which enabled the labourers of America to contract early marriages, and to double their numbers in twenty or four-and-twenty years without de pressing wages, being balanced in England, where the popula tion could not be doubled in less than 100 years, without degrading the condition of the labourer, by the greater prevalence of moral restraint. It is plain, however, that this greater efficacy of the check on the increase of population, arising from prudential considerations, could not be occasioned by any sudden decrease in the demand for labour in England; it was evidently the result of habits which had been formed in the course of many previous centuries, and which naturully develop themselves in every country as society advances, and as it becomes more difficult to acquire the means of subsistence.

Were the fiat of Almighty Power at once to deprive Ame rica of her boundless tracts of fertile and unappropriated land, or to render her population as dense as that of England, the existing habit of early marriages would be productive of incalculable misery. But, on the more rational hypothesis, that the impossibility of being able permanently to provide for the wants of an increasing population, shall gradually manifest itself, a corresponding change will be effected in the habits of the people; and the rate of their increase will be more nearly proportioned to the altered circumstances of the country. Now, it cannot be denied that Taxation, by increasing the cost of commodities, operates in precisely the same way as a deterioration of the powers of the soil, or as any other cause which has the effect of rendering it more difficult to procure a comfortable subsistence; and therefore, its slow and gradual increase, by adding to the efficacy of the principle of moral restraint, has a tendency to relieve society of some part of the evils of which it is always productive. But a sudden increase of taxation is unaccompanied