Part 25 (2/2)

No allowance has been made in this calculation for the diminution in quant.i.ty. The reason is, that was comparatively very small; increased consumption, rather than deficiency of produce, being the cause.

Besides, we only stated the rise as being double the usual price, whereas, it was three times greater. [end of page #155]

CHAP. VII.

_Of the Increase of the Poor, as general Affluence becomes greater.-- Of Children left unprovided for.--Of their Division into two Cla.s.ses-- Those that can labour more or less, and those that can do no Labour_.

In the career of wealth, in its early state, when individual industry is almost without any aid from capital, men are as nearly on an equality as the nature of things can admit. But, in proportion as capital comes in to the aid of industry, that equality dies away, and men, who have nothing but industry, lose their means of exerting it with advantage, some become then incapable of maintaining their rank in society altogether.

At the same time that this is taking place, articles of every sort, that are necessary for the existence of men, are becoming dearer. As some ranks of society have been described as bringing up their children not to know the existence of necessity, others, who are depressed below the natural situation of men, are bringing them up to feel the extreme pressure of want.

There is no situation of things in which a man, with natural strength, and a very slender capacity, may not gain sufficient to maintain himself, if he will be industrious; but, in a wealthy country, numbers are so pressed upon by penury, in their younger years, that neither the powers of their body, nor of their mind, arrive at maturity.

Accustomed, from an early age, to depend rather upon chance, or charity, for existence, than upon industry, or energy of their own, they neither know the value of labour, nor are they accustomed to look to it for a supply to their wants.

Whilst the foundation of idleness and poverty is laid in, for one part of a nation, from the affluence of their parents, another portion seems as if it were chained down to misery, from the indigence in which they were born and brought up. [end of page #156]

The depressed and degraded populace of great and wealthy cities are not the accidental victims of misfortune; they are born to its hard inheritance, and their numbers contaminate more, who, were it not for their own misconduct and imprudence, might have shared a better lot.

When nations increase in wealth, the fate of individuals ceases to become an object of attention; and, of all the animals that exist, and are capable of labour, the least value is set upon the human species.

{135} Like individuals who rise to wealth, and forget their origin, societies forget the first foundation of all wealth, happiness, and power. That individuals should do so is not to be wondered at. They never saw society in an infant state; nor is it the business of individual citizens to occupy themselves with public affairs; but those who are intrusted with their management, and whose business is to know the original sources of prosperity, ought to attend to and counteract this growing evil.

When the Romans were poor, the people depended on exertion, and they enjoyed plenty; but when Lucullus and other citizens were squandering millions, at a single banquet, the people were clamouring for bread. While the person of a Roman lady was ornamented with the wealth of a province, the mult.i.tude were covered with rags, and depressed with misery. It would have been no hard matter, then, to have foretold the fate of Rome. The natural order of things was deranged to too violent an extreme to be of long duration. The state was become like a wall that had declined from the perpendicular, while age was every day weakening the cement, by which it was held together, and though of the time and hour of destruction no man knew, the event was certain.

It would, at first sight, appear that great cities are the only places in which misery of this description arises; but that is not the case.

{135} It was never heard of, that a young horse, or any useful animal of the brute creation, was left to die with hunger in a land of plenty; but it happens to many of the human race, because there is no provision made, by which those who furnish them food may be repaid by their labour, which would be a very easy matter to adjust, if a little attention were paid to the subject.

[end of page #157]

Great cities are the refuge of the miserable, who, perhaps, find it in some shapes augmented, by a residence in so friendless an asylum; but there they avoid shame, they see not the faces that have smiled upon them in better days; they are more at ease amongst strangers, and they are kept in countenance by companions in penury and want. {136}

In every wealthy nation, the rich shun the view of wretchedness, which is attended with a silent reproach. Those who have property, mistrust the honesty, and blame the conduct of those who have none.

In this state of things, the country affords no retreat nor residence, and want and wretchedness find the evils of a crowded society, where they pa.s.s unnoticed, much more tolerable.

In most countries, the law has taken precautions to punish, or to stop the evil in the individual; but in no great and wealthy country has it been thought of sufficient importance to take effectual means to prevent it.

In small states, when society is new, and under some absolute sovereigns, (remarkable for their penetration, genius, and love of their people,) a momentary stop has been put to this career of misery; but, in the first place, there has been no such monarch in any wealthy country; and, in the second, as soon as power fell into other hands, the progress has begun again where it left off.

One great cause of the increase of mendicity is the increase of unproductive labourers, as a state becomes more wealthy, who, dying before their children are able to provide for themselves, increase the number of the indigent. Men living by active industry naturally marry at an early age; menial servants, revenue officers, and all those who administer to the gratifications of a wealthy and luxurious people, marry later in life; and besides their not having an industrious example to set before their children, are torn from them sooner, by the course of things.

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