Part 40 (1/2)

It is impossible to tax the people of a nation so highly, as they can all bear, because, before some will feel, others will be crushed; before the bachelor feels the tax, the father of a large family is obliged to starve his innocent offspring. Before he who has only two children feels the hard pressure, the family of twelve will be reduced to want; and so in proportion. The mode, then, to raise the most money possible, would be to tax the whole nearly as high as the bachelor can bear, and then to give a drawback in favour of the man with the children, they would then be on a perfect equality as to taxation, and the highest sum possible might be raised without hurting any one portion of the people more than another.

If the links of a chain are not all equally strong, before any strain is felt by the strong links the weak ones give way, and the chain is broken. The case is the same with the members of a community. Now, when you lay on taxes, the general tendency is to raise the price of food and labour; most labourers receive the advantage of the price of labour, but many pay unequally for the rise of food.

A tax on the wealthy, it will be said, is the thing proposed, but no, that would do nothing, it must be a premium or drawback to men with families who are poor, not merely to counteract the effect of any one tax, but the total effect of taxation with respect to maintaining their children. Wide, indeed, is the difference between a tax on those who are well able to pay, and a premium or drawback in favour of those who are not.

The manner of providing for the poor in England leads to a degree

{195} Probably, the reason that so small a sum serves the purpose in Scotland is, that relief is administered to the families, at their own houses, by the minister and elders of the parish. It is a rare instance of an administration, without emoluments and without controul. The funds are distributed with clean hands, in all cases, and impartially in most.

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of wastefulness and improvidence unknown in any other country.

Improvidence ought as much as possible to be discouraged; for, with those who labour hard and are indigent, the desire to gratify some pressing want, or present appet.i.te, is continually uppermost. This may be termed the war between the belly and the back, in which the former is generally the conqueror. It would be a small evil if this victory were decided seldom, as in other countries, but in the great towns of England there is as it were a continual state of hostility. In London, the battle is fought, on an average, at least, once a week; and idleness, and the profits of those sort of petty usurers, called p.a.w.nbrokers, are greatly promoted by it.

Some part of this evil cannot, perhaps, be remedied, but there are certain articles that ought not to be taken in pledge, such as the clothes of young children and working tools. {196}

There is no doubt but, that, in a populous inhospitable trading town, where there is no means of obtaining aid, from friends.h.i.+p, where the want is sometimes extreme, the resource of pledging is a necessary one. This is to be admitted in the degree, but by no means without limitation; for the facility creates the want, (even when it is a real want) for it brings on improvidence and carelessness. The lower cla.s.ses come to consider their apparel as money, only that it requires changing before it is quite current. {197}

If this matter were well looked into, together with the other causes from which mendicity proceeds, which increases so rapidly, we should

{196} In Scripture it is forbidden to pledge the upper or the nether mill-stone. This is a proof, of very great antiquity, and indisputable authority, of the care taken to prevent that sort of improvidence that hurts the general interest of a people. It should be imitated in this country with regard, to all portable implements of labour, such as mill-stones were in those early times.

{197} In Scotland, twenty years ago, there were not so many p.a.w.nbrokers as there are in Brentford, or any little village round London. In Paris, as debauched a town as London, and where charity was as little to be expected, there was only one lending company, the profits of which, after dividing six per cent., went to the Foundling Hospital. It was, as in London, a resource in cases of necessity, but there was too much trouble to run it on every trifling occasion, as is done in London, and, indeed, in most towns in England.

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soon perceive a diminution of the poors' rates, and the wealthiest country of Europe would not exhibit the greatest and most multiplied scenes of misery and distress.

The numbers of children left in indigence, by their parents, would be comparatively lower, and there would not be that waste in the administration of the funds on which they are supported.

There is, probably, no means of greatly diminis.h.i.+ng the number of helpless poor, but by an encouragement to lay up in the hour of health an abundance to supply the wants of feebleness and age, but this might go a great way to diminis.h.i.+ng the evil. All persons who have places under government, of whatever nature, ought to be compelled to subscribe to such inst.i.tutions; this would be doing the individuals, as well as the community, a real service, and would go a great way to the counteracting of the evil. {198} Preventatives are first to be applied, and after those have operated as far as may be, remedies.

The poor, &c. to whose maintenance 5,500,000 L. a year goes, (a sum greater than the revenues of any second rate monarchy in Europe,) may be divided into three cla.s.ses:

First, Those who by proper means might be prevented from wanting aid.

Second, Those who, for various reasons, cannot get a living in the regular way, but might, with a little aid, either maintain themselves, or nearly so; and,

Third, Those who, from inability, extreme age, tender youth, or bodily disease, are unable to do any thing, and must be supported at the public expense. n.o.body will dispute that there are of all those descriptions maintained at pressnt =sic=; and, therefore, all that can create a difference of opinion is about the proportions between the three.

It is probable that one-half, at least, could maintain, or nearly

{198} The widows scheme, as it is called in Scotland, for the aid of the widows and children of clergymen, is a most excellent inst.i.tution; it has been attended with the best effects, both on individual happiness and national prosperity so far as it goes. The plan is such as might, with very little variation, be applied to all the officers of the revenue, clerks in office, &c. &c.

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