Want of productive employment is the great cause of poverty in and the influx of labourers from thence into Scotland has also rendered employment mote deficient and Ness productive here for the male population: there is also a want of employment for children, and for females in Scotland, especia:ly in which is ag gravated of late years by the abstraction into England of the manufacture of wool, in consequence of the incapacity of the people of Scotland for the most correct assortment of the raw material. In England, in general, there is c,n ployment for all classes and both sexes; and, accordingly, there is less teal poverty, nearly in the same proportion in which employment is more abundant and productive, not withstanding the great number of paupers. Yct in England, the most productive and steady of all sorts of employment, the improvement of the soil, is allowed to remain under the triple restraint of entails, tithes, and rights of common. Entails in Scotland extend further in time, and are there fore even more pernicious; but rights of common are ea sily divided, and all tithes arc paid by the landholders, on a valuation made on each estate, once for all. The fatal in fluence of these restraints in Ireland is too well known. It seems, indeed, not easy to account for the continued exist ence of such restraints on agricultural industry in these kingdoms.
Want of industry would seldom be seriously felt or com plained of, if that industry could find a suitable and unre strained field of exertion, together with a corresponding reward. Commercial industry is indeed exposed to many interruptions in tire laws at home, (which, however, have been relaxed by a more liberal policy of late,) and also in the jealous policy and rival interests of foreign states. Ma nufacturing employment is liable to vary, according to the supply of raw materials and the demand for produce; es pecially if that supply and demand be chiefly from foreign countries. When these branches or industry prosper, they afford a powerful stimulus and support to agriculture, which is the steadiest and most productive kind of national industry. The accumulated produce of the several branches of national employment exceeds calculation, and even baf fles conjecture. Spain, with all its continued imports of gold and silver, and its rich soil, had become a poor coun try, through want of industry, long before it lost the foreign colonies; while the united bac. _3Gl..0111C opulent.
Ireland, though one of the finest countries in Europe, is one of the pow est, because the people want employment; and vice, ignorance, and prejudice, are grafted on idleness. Let Ireland be opened to unrestrained and productive em ployment, and let the soil of that kingdom and of England be relieved of the fetters of entails, tithes, and commons, by equitable laws, and it may safely he predicted, that, by these measures, and by the abolition of entails in Scotland also, these united kingdoms will prosper beyond what they have ever yet done, and poverty will in proportion disap pear.
Want of economy is another cause of poverty, that ope rates to a wide and unascertained extent. Habits of luxury in their families, above station of common operative trades men am] labourers, and of low debauchery in tat, erns and alehouses, have kept many of these from acquiring, during favourable times, what it was then possible for them to lay up, and would have rendered them, in their station, easy and comfortable. The waa: of proper modes of investment could not be pleaded, since the institution of that most valuable system of investment for the lower classes, in savings banks; and though friendly societies were often calculated upon erroneous principles, in consequence of which they often disappointed those who had snpported them, yet they did much good in the mean time, and contributed to form good habits. It will be seen hereafter, that suitable protec tion and encouragement had been granted by the legisla ture for both of these modes of investment. The want of economy, howo cm, embracing all sorts of expensive ex travagance, has brought many, even of the higher classes of tradesmen, to poverty. It has reduced many families of it station still superior to these; in consequence of ruinous and heartless emulation, founded in false taste for splen dour and luxury, often in reality mean and selfish, but ous t ained by fashion, and the common way of expending most part or all the fortunes of country gentlemen in the cities cr the metropolis, has deprived great numbers of their de pendants, in country places, of their accustomed means of subsistence.
This last observation may serve to introduce another, il lustrative of the poverty which has of late spread in rural d.s t ricts of these united kingdoms. Most of the land rents be ing yearly abstracted and spent in the cities, and a constant drain of the remaining funds of these districts being kept up under the form of taxes, it cannot appear surprising, that poverty should appear with increasing pressure; no thing but ample and increasing returns of land produce and rural industry could be calculated upon to meet and impede this pressure ; and these having greatly declined of late, are quite inadequate to accomplish this end. t is indeed hoped, that the low rate of interest, now allowed, may force the great capitals to a land investment in part, at least; and were men of capital to find it their interest thus to invest it, and could this be done without interrup tion of entails, they would probably also be liberal in int • proving. It is not for the general advantage of these king doms, either in respect of wealth or morals, to desert the country, and leave it in a state of desolation of poverty; while the funds of the nation go to swell the overgrown capital, and are there dissipated. The conduct of the mobs in Paris and the fate of France ought not to be forgotten.