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1795.

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For the PHILANTHROPIST.

AN ESSAY

ON THE INFLUENCE OF SOME HUMAN INSTITUTIONS ON

HUMAN HAPPINESS.

THE law of neceffity must be fubmitted to: the calami

ties of nature cannot be averted: rocks and deferts will continue to deform the face of the earth: storms and volcanoes will occafionally involve thousands in deftruction and no one thinks of preventing them, because it is impoffible. But the moral and political evils which difturb the happiness of fociety, being of human origin, and of course removeable by human means, it becomes the duty of mankind to attempt their removal or alleviation. Many of thefe evils, however, are too frequently claffed with phyfical ones, and being equally attributed to the law of neceffity, we are told that they

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must be alfo patiently fubmitted to. This patient fubmiffion has been particularly inculcated by the few whose happy lot it is to be beyond the reach of these evils, and who, from not experiencing them perfonally, and by avoiding all intercourse with those who do experience them, have been too apt even to doubt their existence. This fcepticism has tended in no small degree to aggravate them; the poor fufferers feeling as one of the feverest effects, that they are frequently denied the gratification of fympathy, and difcouraged from the relief of complaint.

The object of the prefent effay is not to confider the influence of government on the characters of nations; not to prove with Montefquieu, that despotism ftamps with fear the character of those whom it oppreffes., that the bafis of monarchical government is honour, and that republicanism cannot exift without virtue; this influence on manners alone forms a fit fubject for an elaborate treatise; the prefent essay will merely notice fome of the effects which government produces on the happiness of the governed.

The melancholy state of the lower orders of fociety has ever been just cause of lamentation, and however the unfeeling politician may have confidered it not only as unavoidable, but as necessary for the fecurity of governments and the interests of the higher orders, it must ever remain an unequivocal proof of the imperfections of the present organization of society.

I fhall very readily admit that there exifts the utmost natural diverfity in the human character, and that fuch a difference thence takes place in the feveral circumftances of intellect bodily ftrength, induftry, &c. as muft for ever produce an endlefs variety in the fituation of man in civil fociety. But I am at the fame time perfuaded, that under a wife and equitable administration of government, this difference will not be marked by extreme mifery in any large claffes. It is, indeed, the obvious purpose of focial union to prevent, by the power of government, the evils which these natural circumftances have a

tendency

tendency to produce; government being in reality a compact to guard the weak against the strong, the ignorant against the arts of the more experienced, and the poor from being crushed by the afcendancy of the rich.

The first requifite for happiness is the certain and eafy attainment of the means of fubfiftence. In all countries the largest class of people is composed of those who aim at little more than having the common wants of nature daily supplied, for which they offer the only property they poffefs, the labour of their hands. Now, if to fecure property be infifted on as the most effential duty of government, as much attention at leaft ought to be paid to the securing to the poor man his property, and a fair price for it when he is obliged to offer it in exchange for the means of fubfiftence, as it is ufed to fecure to the wealthy claffes the property they enjoy. Let us now enquire whether the different governments of Europe have fufficiently fecured to the poor this their only property, aud a fair price for it when brought to market.

Were the mifery of the poor confined to countries oppreffed by defpotifm, no one would hesitate to attribute it to the goNo one hesitates to attribute the wretchedness of the lower orders at Conftantinople, of the lazzaroni at Naples of the beggars at Turin, of the peasant in Ruffia, Pruffia, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and, before the revolution, in France, to the governments of thofe countries; and I would obferve, that formerly when it was not confidered as indecent. to animadvert on defpotic governments, they were detested inthis country, principally for withholding from the lower orders of fociety the common rights of humanity. Unfortunately, however, the wretchedness, which we lament, is not confined to arbitrary governments, for it is, I will venture to affirm, almost as severely felt in this country as in any other. As this cannot be attributed to the principles of our government, we must look for its cause in the very extraordinary circumstances in which we are placed.

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The queftion, as I before obferved, is a queftion of property; and I am difpofed to think that the circumftances alluded to have produced such a relaxative depreciation in the poor man's property, as to make it inadequate to purchase for himfelf and family the means of fubfiftence.

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In a country, whofe commerce is extenfive and complex, the value of property is for ever fluctuating; but, notwithftanding this, it fo happens, that most kinds of property in their rife and fall retain a fort of relative price, which brings the whole to a general average or level; preventing thereby except in extraordinary cafes, any confiderable inconvenience. The great national debt alfo, which has been incurred in this. country, and the neceffity thence arifing, of an annual taxation, has likewife tended to advance the value of every fpecies of property but one.-Labour, the poor man's fole property, has unfortunately been ftationary during this general rife, and this alone accounts for à confiderable part of the wretchedness in queftion. If the reafon of this fingle exception, in the general rife of value, be afked, the anfwer is obvious; the poor man does not himself set a price on his labour; his is a commodity which the purchaser alone appreciates. The labourer in the field, or in the barn, cannot say to his employer,-Advance my wages, or I will quit your fervice: he is precluded from doing this; the law forbids his leaving the parish where he is fixed by fettlement, without the confent, probably, of the very man who employs him. The wealthy manufacturer may depreciate the value of the spinner's labour to the loweft poffible rate, while the unhappy wretches, who toil through the longeft day for a miferable pittance, have no remedy; for the law forbids combinations, the only means the poor could have of raifing the price of their labour.

It is a notorious fact, that the principal labour of this country stands at the fame rate now, which it did a century ago. Let it be recollected, that it is during this period that the public debt, and the taxation thence arifing, have taken place; it is during this period, that the barometer of the poor

man's

man's mifery, the poor-rate, has rifen to its prefent alarming height. To prove that the great and increasing wretchedness of the poor has been produced by the public debt of the country, it is fufficient to obferve that the poor rate has kept an equal pace with the progrefs of taxation. Every one knows that the most rapid increase of the taxes, has been within the last twenty years, that is to fay, fince the commencement of the difaftrous American war; and what has been the increase of the poor-rate within that period? In the year 1774, juft before any of the expences of that war were felt, the poor-rate was 665,3621. At the close of the year 1792. it was 3,000,000l. God knows what it will be at the end of the prefent war!

No fact can more ftrongly mark the progrefs, and exhibit the cause, of the wretchedne fs of the poor; for it will not be denied, even by those who are the least disposed to allow the ftate of the poor to be generally bad, that those of them at least who fubfift principally on parochial relief, and especially who live in work-houses, suffering the united evils of filth, dependence, and imprisonment, are fufficiently miferable. Will any one, who walks the streets of our cities, and fees even the leaft wretched of the inhabitants of these work-houses (for the moft wretched are unable or prevented from going out) fay, that their cadaverous figures, deformed limbs, dejected countenances, and peculiar inertnefs of manner, are not unequivocal marks of mifery? Will any one, who occafionally visits the dwellings of thofe poor whofe condition is better, as they do not fubfift on parochial relief, fay that the rags, the squalor, and disease there found, do not mark them as the abodes of wretchedness?

If the diftreffes of the poor are principally to be attributed to the expensiveness of governments, it follows, that the poor are the leaft wretched where the form of government admits of but a small annual expenditure. It is happy not only for the immediate fubjects of such governments, but even for human kind, that such ftates do exift, as their exiftence proves that`

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