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well to observe the indulgent part, and never think of the other. St. Monday is generally as duly kept by our working people as Sunday; the only difference is, that instead of employing their time cheaply at church, they are wasting it expensively at the ale-house.

THE POOR LAWS.

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. There is no country in the world where so many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many alms-houses for the aged of both sexes; together with a solemn general law, made by the rich, to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are our poor modest, humble, and thankful? and do they use their best endeavours to maintain themselves and lighten our shoulders of this burthen? On the contrary, I affirm that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent. The day you passed that act, you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependence on somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth

and health for support in age or sickness. In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty. Repeal that law,

and you will soon see a change in their manners Saint Monday and Saint Tuesday will soon cease to be holidays. Six days shalt thou labour, though one of the old commandments, long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them.

POSITIONS TO BE EXAMINED.

1. All food, or subsistence for mankind, arises from the earth or waters.

2. Necessaries of life that are not foods, and all other conveniences, have their value estimated by the proportion of food consumed while we are employed in procuring them.

3. A small people with a large territory may subsist on the productions of nature, with no other labour than that of gathering the vegetables and catching the animals.

4. A large people with a small territory find these insufficient; and, to subsist, must labour the earth, to make it produce greater quantities of vegetable food, suitable to the nourishment of men, and of the animals they intend to eat.

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5. From this labour arises a great increase of vegetable and animal food, and of materials for clothing; as flax, wool, silk, &c. The superfluity of these is

wealth. With this wealth we pay for the labour employed in building our houses, cities, &c. which are therefore only subsistence thus metamorphosed.

6. Manufactures are only another shape into which so much provisions and subsistence are turned, as were in value equal to the manufactures produced. This appears from hence, that the manufacturer does not, in fact, obtain from the employer, for his labour, more than a mere subsistence, including raiment, fuel, and shelter; all which derive their value from the provisions consumed in procuring them.

7. The produce of the earth, thus converted into manufactures, may be more easily carried into distant markets, than before such conversion.

8. Fair commerce is where equal values are exchanged for equal, the expense of transport included. Thus, if it costs A in England, as much labour and charge to raise a bushel of wheat, as it costs B in France to produce four gallons of wine, then are four gallons of wine the fair exchange for a bushel of wheat, A and B meeting at half distance with their commodities to make the exchange. The advantage of this fair commerce is, that each party increases the number of his enjoyments, having, instead of wheat alone, or wine alone, the use of both wheat and wine.

9. Where the labour and expense of producing both commodities are known to both parties, bargains will generally be fair and equal. Where they are known to one party only, bargains will often be unequal, knowledge taking its advantage of ignorance.

10. Thus he that carries a thousand bushels of wheat abroad to sell, may not probably obtain so great a profit thereon, as if he had first turned the wheat into

manufactures, by subsisting therewith the workmen while producing those manufactures, since there are many expediting and facilitating methods of working, not generally known; and strangers to the manufactures, though they know pretty well the expense of raising wheat, are unacquainted with those short methods of working; and thence, being apt to suppose more labour employed in the manufacture than there really is, are more easily imposed on in their value, and induced to allow more for them than they are honestly worth.

11. Thus the advantage of having manufactures in a country does not consist, as is commonly supposed, in their highly advancing the value of rough materials, of which they are formed; since, though sixpennyworth of flax may be worth twenty shillings when worked into lace, yet the very cause of its being worth twenty shillings is that, besides the flax, it has cost nineteen shillings and sixpence in subsistence to the manufacturer. But the advantage of manufactures is, that, under their shape, provisions may be more easily carried to a foreign market: and by their means our traders may more easily cheat strangers. Few, where it is not made, are judges of the value of lace. The importer may demand forty, and perhaps get thirty shillings for that which cost him but twenty.

12. Finally, there seems to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbours; this is robbery.-The second by commerce, which is generally cheating.-The third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual

miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favour, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE HIGHEST COURT OF JUDICATURE IN PENNSYLVANIA, VIZ. THE COURT OF THE PRESS.

Power of this court.

- It may receive and promulgate accusations of all kinds, against all persons and characters among the citizens of the state, and against all inferior courts; and may judge, sentence, and condemn to infamy, not only private individuals, but public bodies, &c. with or without inquiry or hearing, at the court's discretion.

In whose favour, or for whose emolument, this court is established.

In favour of about one citizen in ve hundred, who, by education, or practice in scribbling, has acquired a tolerable style as to grammar and construction, so as to bear printing; or who is possessed of a press and a few types. This five hundredth part of the citizens have the liberty of accusing and abusing the other four hundred and ninety-nine parts at their pleasure; or they may hire out their pens and press to others, for that purpose.

Fractice of this court.

It is not governed by any of the rules of the common courts of law. The accused is allowed no grand jury to judge of the truth of the accusation before it

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