Then what new fields of employment must open in all the trades and arts connected with, and subsidiary to agri culture, manufactures, and commerce ! It is not possible so conceive what effects a liberal, enlarged, and wise system of legislation like this would produce. Most of the pau pers capable of employment would soon find it, according to their own choice and circumstances ; and ample means and funds would then be obtained for the easy and comfort able support of the real poor. The improvement of land would be general and great; and the benefits would not only fill this land, but extend their happy fruits and effects to our colonies and to remote nations. Our now restrain ed use of capital would then become free and general ; and the mutual interests of the owners of it, and of the la bouring classes, would soon be adjusted in the full employ ment of capital and people.
The latter mode of providing for the real poor out of specific funds to be allotted for the purpose, might then be adopted and put in force with comparative ease. The poor would not be in such oppressive numbers ; a portion of employment might be found, as in Scotland, for many or most of them ; and the public would be more able and willing to support them. After all, the true principle of maintaining the poor might still be preserved in consider able purity by voluntary charity ; not only in the way of donations and collections for them, but also in the supple mentary provision to be made by assessment.
The act of Ellzabeth was erroneous in principle, in com mitting the power of assessment of sums to an undefined extent to a few men, having no adequate interest in a cor rect discrimination, and in preventing excess and abuse. It was not indeed foreseen by her wise counsellors how inefficient the powers of these men would ultimately prove in finding work for those who could not themselves find it ; nor how burdensome the sobsequent interpretations of this part of the statute would prove. The new act, 59 Geo. III. c. to amend the laws fur the relief of the poor (31st March, 1819) has committed the formidable power of assessment to select vestries, approaching to the nature of the meetings of heritors and kirk sessions in Scotland, and possessing an interest in keeping down the amount, and also in bestowing the sums assessed with proper attention and disc rimination of character and conduct, as well as real need. Emergencies are provided for under this act; but such provision as magistrates are authorized thus to make, is to be grounded on the oath of the claimants, and to have effect only for a short time ; and relatives are bound to support their needy parents or children if they possess funds. A great deal of good has been already silently at tained under this excellent statute ; which provides by law for the real poor, yet interferes as little as possible with the proper exercise of prudence and charity.
In addition to this wise enactment, the British legisla ture, in the same year, passed the two statutes ; one far the protection of banks for savings, the other for the further pro.ecticn and encouragement of friendly societies (59 Geo. III. ch. 62 and 128) evidently intending to give their
continuance to proper habits of industry and prudent economy ; and thus to enable the labouring classes to make honourable provision for themselves and their families, in the safest and easiest manner. The former act applies to Scotland, where it has already been of very great use; and the latter to the united kingdoms.
After such enlightened and laborious efforts already made by the legislature of Great Britain and Ireland, for improving the laws and the circumstances of the poor, it is hardly to be supposed that by far the greatest and most hurtful restraints on their industry will be suffered much longer to remain, however consecrated by antiquity the system of tithes drawn in kind, entails, and rights of com mon may now be.
It may bc considered of minor, yet it is not of small im portance to remark, that all dissenting congregations ought either to apply their collections to the maintenance of their own poor, or to put in the whole, bona fide, among the funds of the parish poor without distinction ; and it may seem to have escaped the notice of the legislature, but it was placed by a special application in the view of the board of treasury, that legacy duty is exacted for bequests made in behalf of the poor, and no exemption gr,nted.
The tenure by which the poor hold their cottages and small allotments of land, is by far too short and uncertain at present ; and unfeeling or capricious landlords, or their agents, expel them frequently and force them into the towns, where their health and morals, together with their comfort and usefulness, are all impaired, and many rural districts are left in a state of desolation. It ought to be in the power of landholders to remove either tenants or cot tagcrs at the end of their respective contracts or leases; but far longer previous notices ought to be given them, and perhaps also a reasonable compensation for improve ments to which they were not bound, and of which the landholders at their removal enter into the fruits. There is also a degree of distress attending general removals of bodies of tenants and their families, and thus throwing them on the public in a state of want of employment aid subsistence, for which there is no remedy in the present law ; but for the necessity of some meliorating act, the many removals of bodies of people, which have even of late occurred in Scotland, the interests of humanity, and the dictates of public justice and policy appear to plead. Connected with this humane and wise attention to the state and feelings of poor tenants and cottagers, is that which is due to the education of their children, especially in re mote situations. This object, in many of the vast parishes of Scotland, is evidently impracticable by one school and teacher; and, therefore, under the new act, 1803, two parish schools are in some cases allowed ; but a clause was permitted to be inserted in this case, relieving the heritors of all obligations to build or uphold the teacher's dwelling house; which in effect was to render the above allowance of little use, and the accommodation it conferred of rare occurrence.