ESSAY X.

ON EMIGRATION.

'WHEN Naaman the Syrian complained to Elisha ' of his leprosy, he was bid to wash himself in 'Jordan seven times. He looked for other miracu'lous courses to be taken by the prophet, and could hardly be persuaded thereto, because Abana and Pharphar, rivers of Damascus, were better. 'Naaman was a heathen, and had never any experience of God's Jordan; yet he was in the end ' persuaded. To supply our wants, to satisfy our hunger, to heal our diseases, there is, not a river, 'but the sea shown us.' These are the words of an old and intelligent writer, who thought that, in the facilities which our insular position afforded for the extension of our trade and of our fisheries, a remedy might be found for all the necessities of the commonwealth in his time. For the far more pressing necessities of the present time.. necessities which have arisen, in a great degree, from an overgrown trade..we are now told that the sea offers, not indeed the speedy and certain cure which this projector promised for a less inveterate disease, but the prospect of immediate hope, sure relief, and ultimately of permanent benefit, by affording an easy outlet for a redundant population. Is our population

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redundant? and is the relief which is proposed attainable at a cost not disproportionately exceeding the expected advantage? These are questions concerning which the Committee on Emigration has collected and laid before the public a large body of evidence *. We need not look beyond the poor-rates for an answer to the first of these questions. Let it not, however, be supposed that we assent in any degree to Mr. Malthus's philosophy, and ascribe this redundancy to some necessary evil in the system of nature. It has arisen wholly from our system of society. It is an evil incident to the present stage of our progress, which might have been well prevented if it had been duly foreseen; and which will be found remediable, if the proper and obvious remedies are judiciously and perseveringly applied. As little would we be supposed to agree with Mr. Malthus in his reprobation of the poor-laws. That gentleman, in his examination before the committee, prescribes an enactment †, declaring that those 'who are born after a certain time should not be ' allowed to have any parish assistance;' such an enactment, depriving the pauper of a right to claim assistance, under the circumstances of his not being able to find employment, he considers absolutely necessary;' and he pronounces that no es'sential improvement can take place without the ' denial of a legal claim.' Far gone, indeed, must those persons be in our pseudo-science of political economy, who recommend a measure impracticable,

* But why all that part of the evidence which is annexed to the Second Report (more than two hundred parliamentary pages) should have been reprinted in the third, we are at a loss to guess. Third Report, p. 323.

Third Report, p. 315.

if, in other respects, it were wise; and abominable, if it could, by possibility, be carried into practice! The mischief which the poor-laws produce has arisen wholly from their mal-administration or perversion; the system itself is humane, just, necessary, befitting a Christian state, and honourable to the English nation. So it was regarded by Blackstone, when he said, not more emphatically than truly, that charity is interwoven with the very constitution of this country. So by Mr. Spence, when he observed with pride, as an Englishman, that this country is the only one in the world where every poor man ' is born, not only to the inheritance of freedom, but of a contingent patrimony; and can marry, and "practise the virtues, and enjoy the happiness resulting from early marriage, without anxiety for 'the future; knowing that if employment cannot be had, or sickness assail him and exhaust his "little savings, (which no poor-laws would deter a 'well-educated poor from aiming to lay up,) he < can by law claim from the rich a portion of their good things, and need, in no event, dread that he or his children should perish with hunger; for, though the laws of nature, and the good of society, require that the many should be poor, and the few rich, the poor have a just claim on their more fortunate brethren for such a share of their wealth as will at least ensure their existence when their own efforts fail.'

Thus, too, the poor-laws were regarded by Defoe, when he affirmed, that infirmities merely providential, such as 'sickness of families, loss of limbs or sight, and any other natural or accidental * impotence to labour, ever were, will, and ought to

be, the charge and care of the respective parishes wherein the unhappy persons who may be thus disabled chance to dwell.' In Defoe's days the country was 'burdened with a crowd of clamouring, ' unemployed, unprovided-for poor people, who made 'the nation uneasy, burdened the rich, clogged the 'parishes, and made themselves worthy of laws ' and peculiar management how to dispose of and direct them.' He imputed the evil wholly to the want of good husbandry, which, he said, was no English virtue, ‘a profuse, extravagant humour keeping the labourers always poor, although wages were then so high, that any man who exercised a just frugality in the days of his strength might lay by a comfortable provision for his old age. 'No

man in England,' he affirmed, 'of sound limbs and senses could be poor merely for want of work; ' for there was more labour than hands to perform it, and consequently a want of people, not of ' employment.'

Few men have been more accurate observers of life and manners and of the mechanism of society than Defoe; yet, in the very treatise wherein these assertions are contained, he touches upon certain circumstances which might have led him to distrust the opinion thus confidently advanced. He lived at a time when the enterprising spirit of trade, which had, in former ages, chiefly taken the direction of foreign adventure, was beginning eagerly to engage in speculations at home; and this he saw had disturbed our inland trade, which, he said, 'perhaps was, or had been, in the greatest regu'larity of any in the world.' Of this settled trade, a settled prosperity in those parts of the country