Giving Alms no Charity
And Employing the Poor A Grievance to the Nation, Being an Essay Upon this
Great Question,
Whether Work-houses,
Corporations, and Houses of Correction for Employing the Poor, as now pra- ctis’d
in England; or Parish-Stocks, as propos’d in a late Pamphlet, Entituled, A Bill
for the better Re- lief, Imployment and Settlement of the Poor, &c. Are not
mischievous to the Nation, tending to the De- struction of our Trade, and to
Encrease the Num- ber and Misery of the Poor.
Addressed to the
Parliament of England.
London: Printed and
Sold by the Booksellers of London and West- minster. MDCCIV
Gentlemen,
He that has truth and
justice, and the interest of England in his design, can have nothing to fear
from an English Parliament.
This makes the author
of these sheets, however despicable in himself, apply to this Honourable House,
without any apology for the presumption.
Truth, Gentlemen,
however meanly dress’d, and in whatsoever bad company she happens to come, was
always entertain’d at your bar; and the Commons of England must cease to act
like themselves, or which is worse, like their ancestors, when they cease to
entertain any proposal, that offers it self at their door, for the general good
and advantage of the people they represent.
I willingly grant, that
’tis a crime in good manners to interrupt your more weighty councils, and
disturb your debates; with empty nauseous trifles in value, or mistaken
schemes, and whoever ventures to address you, ought to be well assur’d he is in
the right, and that the matter suits the intent of your meeting,viz. To
dispatch the weighty affairs of the kingdom.
And as I have premis’d
this, so I freely submit to any censure this Honourable Assembly shall think I
deserve, if I have broke in upon tither of these particulars.
I have but one petition
to make with respect to the author, and that is, that no freedom of expression,
which the arguments may oblige him to, may be constru’d as a want of respect,
and a breach of the due deference every English Man owes to the representing
power of the nation.
It would be hard, that
while I am honestly offering to your consideration something of moment for the
general good, pre- judice should lay snares for the author, and private pique
make him an offender for a word.
Without entering upon
other parts of my character, ’tis enough to acquaint this Assembly, that I am
an English freeholder, and have by that a title to be concern’d in the good of
that community of which I am an unworthy member.
This Honourable House
is the representative of all the freeholders of England; you are assembl’d for
their good, you study their interest, you possess their hearts, and you hold
the strings of the general purse.
To you they have
recourse for the redress of all their wrongs, and if at any time one of their
body can offer to your assistance, any fair, legal, honest and rational
proposal for the publick benefit, it was never known that such a man was either
rejected or discourag’d.
And on this account I
crave the liberty to assure you, that the author of this seeks no reward; to
him it shall always be reward enough to have been capable of serving his native
country, and honour enough to have offer’d something for the publick good
worthy of consideration in your Honourable Assembly.
Pauper ubique jacet,
said our famous Queen Elizabeth, when in her progress thro’ the kingdom she saw
the vast throngs of the poor, flocking to see and bless her; and the thought
put her Majesty upon a continu’d study how to recover her people from that
poverty, and make their labour more profitable to themselves in particular, and
the nation in general.
This was easie then to
propose, for that many useful manufactures were made in foreign parts, which
our people bought with English money, and imported for their use.
The Queen, who knew the
wealth and vast numbers of people which the said manufactures had brought to
the neighbouring countries then under the King of Spain, the Dutch being not
yet revolted, never left off endeavouring what she happily brought to pass,
viz. the transplanting into England those springs of riches and people.
She saw the Flemings
prodigiously numerous, their cities stood thicker than her peoples villages in
some parts; all sorts of useful manufactures were found in their towns, and all
their people were rich and busie, no beggars, no idleness, and consequently, no
want was to be seen among them.
She saw the fountain of
all this wealth and workmanship, I mean the wool, was in her own hands, and
Flanders became the seat of all these manufactures, not because it was
naturally richer and more populous than other countries, but because it lay
near England, and the staple of the English wool which was the foundation of
all their wealth, was at Antwerp in the heart of that country.
From hence, it may be
said of Flanders, it was not the riches and the number of people brought the
manufactures into the Low Countries, but it was the manufactures brought the
people thither, and multitudes of people make trade, trade makes wealth, wealth
builds cities, cities enrich the land round them, land enrich’d rises in value,
and the value of lands enriches the Government.
Many projects were set
on foot in England to erect the woollen manufacture here, and in some places it
had found encouragement, before the days of this Queen, especially as to making
of cloath, but stuffs, bays, says, serges, and such like wares were yet wholly
the work of the Flemings.
At last an opportunity
offer’d perfectly unlook’d for, viz. the persecution of the Protestants, and
introducing the Spanish inquisition into Flanders, with the tyranny of the Duke
D’Alva.
It cannot be an
ungrateful observation, here to take notice how tyranny and persecution, the
one an oppression of property, the other of conscience, always ruine trade,
impoverish nations, depopulate countries, dethrone princes, and destroy peace.
When an English man
reflects on it, he cannot without infinite satisfaction look up to Heaven, and
to this Honourable House, that as the spring, this as the stream from and by
which the felicity of this nation has obtain’d a pitch of glory, superior to
all the people in the world.
Your Councils
especially, when blest from Heaven,as now we trust they are, with principles of
unanimity and concord, can never fail to make trade Sourish, war successful,
peace cer- tain, wealth Sowing, blessings probable, the Queen glorious, and the
people happy.
Our unhappy neighbours
of the Low Countries were the very reverse of what we bless our selves for in
you.
Their kings were
tyrants, their governours persecutors, their armies thieves and blood-hounds.
Their people divided,
their councils confus’d, and their miseries innumerable.
D’Alva the Spanish
Governor, besieg’d their cities, decimated the inhabitants, murther’d their
nobility, proscrib’d their princes, and executed 18,000 men by the hand of the
hang-man.
Conscience was trampl’d
under foot, religion and reformation hunted like a hare upon the mountains, the
inquisition threaten’d, and foreign armies introduc’d.
Property fell a
sacrifice to absolute power, the countrey was ravag’d, the towns plunder’d, the
rich confiscated, the poor starv’d, trade interrupted, and the 10th penny
demanded.
The consequence of this
was, as in all tyrannies and persecutions it is, the people fled and scatter’d
themselves in their neighbours countries, trade languish’d, manufactures went
abroad, and never return’d, confusion reign’d and poverty succeeded.
The multitude that
remain’d push’d to all extremities, were forc’d to obey the voice of nature,
and in their own just defence to take arms against their governours.
Destruction it self has
its uses in the world, the ashes of one city rebuilds another, and God
Almighty, who never acts in vain, brought the wealth of England, and the power
of Holland into the world from the ruine of the Flemish liberty.
The Dutch in defence of
their liberty revolted, renounc’d their tyrant prince, and prosper’d by Heaven
and the assistance of England, erected the greatest commonwealth in the world.
Innumerable
observations would flow from this part of the present subject, but brevity is
my study, I am not teaching; for I know who I speak to, but relating and
observing the connexion of Causes, and the wonderous births which lay then in
the womb of Providence, and are since come to life.
Particularly how Heaven
directed the oppression and tyranny of the poor should be the wheel to turn
over the great machine of trade from Flanders into England.
And how the persecution
and cruelty of the Spaniards, against religion should be directed by the secret
overruling Hand, to be the foundation of a people, and a body that should in
ages then to come, be one of the chief bulwarks of that very liberty and
religion they sought to destroy.
In this general ruine
of trade and liberty, England made a gain of what she never yet lost, and of
what she has since encreas’d to an inconceivable magnitude.
As D’Alva worried the
poor Flemings, the Queen of England entertain’d them, cherish’d them, invited
them, encourag’d them.
Thousands of innocent
people fled from all parts from the fury of this merciless man, and as England,
to her honour has always been the sanctuary of her distress’d neighbours, so
now she was so to her special and particular profit.
The Queen who saw the
opportunity put into her hands which she had so long wish’d for, not only
received kindly the exil’d Flemings, but invited over all that would come,
promising them all possible encouragement, privileges and freedom of her ports
and the like.
This brought over a
vast multitude of Flemings, Walloons, and Dutch, who with their whole families
settled at Norwich, at Ipswich, Colchester, Canterbury, Exeter, and the like.
From these came the Walloon Church at Canterbury, and the Dutch Churches at
Norwich, Colchester, and Yarmouth; from hence came the true born English
families at those places with foreign names; as the De Vinks at Norwich, the
Rebows at Colchester, the Papilons, &c. at Canterbury, families to whom
this nation are much in debt for the first planting those manufactures, from
which we have since rais’d the greatest trades in the world.
This wise Queen knew
that number of inhabitants are the wealth and strength of a nation, she was far
from that opinion, we have of late shown too much of in complaining that
foreigners came to take the bread out of our mouths, and ill treating on that
account the French Protestants who fled hither for refuge in the late
persecution.
Some have said that
above 50,000 of them settled here, and would have made it a grievance, tho’
without doubt ’tis easie to make it appear that 500,000 more would be both useful
and profitable to this nation.
Upon the setling of
these forreigners, the scale of trade visibly turn’d both here and in Flanders.
The Flemings taught our
women and children to spin, the youth to weave, the men entred the loom to
labour instead of going abroad to seek their fortunes by the war, the several
trades of Bayes at Colchester, Sayes and Perpets, at Sudbury, Ipswich, &c.
stuffs at Norwich, serges at Exeter, silks at Canterbury, and the like, began
to flourish. All the counties round felt the profit, the poor were set to work,
the traders gain’d wealth, and multitudes of people flock’d to the several
parts where these manufactures were erected for employment, and the growth of
England, both in trade, wealth and people since that time, as it is well known
to this Honourable House; so the causes of it appear to be plainly the
introducing of these manufactures, and nothing else.
Nor was the gain made
here by it more visible than the loss to the Flemings, from hence, and not as
is vainly suggested from the building the Dutch fort of Lillo on the Scheld,
came the decay of that flourishing city of Antwerp. From hence it is plain the
Flemings, an industrious nation, finding their trade ruin’d at once, turn’d
their hands to other things, as making of lace, linnen, and the like, and the
Dutch to the sea affairs and fishing.
From hence they became
poor, thin of people, and weak in trade, the flux both of their wealth and
trade, running wholly into England.
I humbly crave leave to
say, this long introduction shall not be thought useless, when I shall bring it
home by the process of these papers to the subject now in hand, viz. The
providing for and employing the poor.
Since the times of
Queen Elizabeth this nation has gone on to a prodigy of trade, of which the
encrease of our customs from 400,000 crowns to two millions of pounds sterling
per ann. is a demonstration beyond the power of argument; and that this whole
encrease depends upon, and is principally occasion’d by the encrease of our
manufacturers is so plain, I shall not take up any room here to make it out.
Having thus given an
account how we came to be a rich, flourishing and populous nation, I crave
leave as concisely as I can to examine how we came to be poor again, if it must
be granted that we are so.
By poor here I humbly
desire to be understood, not that we are a poor nation in general; I should
undervalue the bounty of Heaven to England, and act with less understanding
than most men are masters of, if I should not own, that in general we are as
rich a nation as any in the world; but by poor I mean burthen’d with a crowd of
clamouring, unimploy’d, unprovided for poor people, who make the nation
uneasie, burthen the rich, clog our parishes, and make themselves worthy of
laws, and peculiar management to dispose of and direct them: How these came to
be thus is the question.
And first I humbly
crave leave to lay these heads down as fundamental maxims, which I am ready at
any time to defend and make out.
1. There is in England
more labour than hands to perform it, and consequently a want of people, not of
employment.
2. No man in England,
of sound limbs and senses, can be poor meerly for want of work.
3. All our work-houses,
corporations and charities for employing the poor, and setting them to work, as
now they are employ’d, or any Acts of Parliament to empower overseers of
parishes, or parishes themselves, to employ the poor, except as shall be
hereafter excepted, are, and will be publick nusances, mischiefs to the nation
which serve to the ruin of families, and the encrease of the poor.
4. That ’tis a
regulation of the poor that is wanted in England, not a setting them to work.
If after these things
are made out, I am enquir’d of what this regulation should be, I am no more at
a loss to lay it down than I am to affirm what is above; and shall always be
ready, when call’d to it, to make such a proposal to this Honourable House, as
with their concurrence shall for ever put a stop to poverty and beggery, parish
charges, assessments and the like, in this nation.
If such offers as these
shall be sighted and rejected, I have the satisfaction of having discharg’d my
duty, and the consequence must be, that complaining will be continued in our
streets.
’Tis my misfortune,
that while I study to make every head so concise, as becomes me in things to be
brought before so honourable and august an assembly, I am obig’d to be short
upon heads that in their own nature would very well admit of particular volumes
to explain them.
1. I affirm, that in
England there is more labour than hands to perform it. This I prove,
1st. From the dearness
of wages, which in England out goes all nations in the world; and I know no
greater demonstration in trade. Wages, like exchanges, rise and fall as the
remitters and drawers, the employers and the workmen, ballance one another.
The employers are the
remitters, the work-men are the drawers, if there are more employers than
work-men, the price of wages must rise, because the employer wants that work to
be done more than the poor man wants to do it, if there are more work-men than
employers the price of labour falls, because the poor man wants his wages more
than the employer wants to have his business done.
Trade, like all nature,
most obsequiously obeys the great law of cause and consequence; and this is the
occasion why even all the greatest articles of trade follow, and as it were pay
homage to this seemingly minute and inconsiderable thing, the poor man’s
labour.
I omit, with some pain,
the many very useful thoughts that occur on this head, to preserve the brevity
I owe to the dignity of that assembly I am writing to. But I cannot but note
how from hence it appears, that the glory, the strength, the riches, the trade,
and all that’s valuable in a nation, as to its figure in the world, depends
upon the number of its people, be they never so mean or poor; the consumption
of manufactures encreases the manufacturers; the number of manufacturers
encreases the consumption; provisions are consum’d to feed them, land improv’d,
and more hands employ’d to furnish provisions: All the wealth of the nation,
and all the trade, is produc’d by numbers of people; but of this by the way.
The price of wages not
only determines the difference between the employer and the work-man, but it
rules the provisions rates of every market. If wages grow high, rise in
proportion, and I humbly conceive it to be a mistake in those people, who say
labour in such parts of England is cheap because provisions are cheap, but ’tis
plain, provisions are cheap there because labour is cheap, and labour is
cheaper in those parts than in others; because being remoter from London there
is not that extraordinary disproportion between the work and the number of
hands; there are more hands, and consequently labour cheaper.
’Tis plain to any
observing eye, that there is an equal plenty of provisions in several of our
south and western counties, as in Yorkshire, and rather a greater, and I
believe I could make it out, that a poor labouring man may live as cheap in
Kent or Sussex as in the bishoprick of Durham; and yet in Kent a poor man shall
earn 7s. 10s. 9s. a week, and in the north 4s. or perhaps less; the difference
is plain in this, that in Kent there is a greater want of people, in proportion
to the work there, than in the north.
And this on the other
hand makes the people of our northern countries spread themselves so much to
the south, where trade, war and the sea carrying off so many, there is a
greater want of hands.
And yet ’tis plain
there is labour for the hands which remain in the north, or else the country
would be depopulated, and the people come all away to the south to seek work;
and even in Yorkshire, where labour is cheapest, the people can gain more by
their labour than in any of the manufacturing countries of Germany, Italy or
France, and live much better.
If there was one poor
man in England more than there was work to employ, either somebody else must
stand still for him, or he must be starv’d; if another man stands still for him
he wants a days work, and goes to seek it, and by consequence supplants
another, and this a third, and this contention brigs it to this; no, says the
poor man, that is like to be put out of his work, rather than that man shall
come in I’ll do it cheaper; nay, says the other, but I’ll do it cheaper than
you; and thus one poor man wanting but a days work would bring down the price
of labour in a whole nation, for the man cannot starve, and will work for any
thing rather than want it.
It may be objected
here, this is contradicted by our number of beggars.
I am sorry to say I am
obliged here to call begging an employment, since ’tis plain, if there is more
work than hands to perform it, no man that has his limbs and his senses need to
beg, and those that have not ought to be put into a condition not to want it.
So that begging is a
meer scandal in the general, in the able ’tis a scandal upon their industry,
and in the impotent ’tis a scandal upon the country.
Nay, the begging, as
now practic’d, is a scandal upon our charity, and perhaps the foundation of all
our present grievance. -- How can it be possible that any man or woman, who
being sound in body and mind, may as ’tis apparent they may, have wages for
their work, should be so base, so meanly spirited, as to beg an alms for
Godsake. -- Truly the scandal lies on our charity; and people have such a
notion in England of being pittiful and charitable, that they encourage
vagrants, and by a mistaken zeal do more harm than good.
This is a large scene, and
much might be said upon it; I shall abridge it as much as possible. -- The
poverty of England does not lye among the craving beggars but among poor
families, where the children are numerous, and where death or sickness has
depriv’d them of the labour of the father. these are the houses that the sons
and daughters of charity, if they would order it well, should seek out and
relieve; an alms ill directed may be charity to the particular person, but
becomes an injury to the publick, and no charity to the nation. As for the
craving poor, I am perswaded I do them no wrong when I say, that if they were
incorporated they would be the richest society in the nation; and the reason
why so many pretend to want work is, that they can live so well with the
pretence of wanting work, they would be mad to leave it and work in earnest;
and I affirm of my own knowledge, when I have wanted a man for labouring work,
and offer’d 9s per week to strouling fellows at my door, they have frequently
told me to my face, they could get more a begging, and I once set a lusty
fellow in the stocks for making the experiment.
I shall, in its proper
place, bring this to a method of tryal, since nothing but demonstration will
affect us, ’tis an easie matter to prevent begging in England, and yet to
maintain all our impotent poor at far less charge to the parishes than they now
are oblig’d to be at.
When Queen Elizabeth
had gain’d her point as to manufactories in England, she had fairly laid the
foundation, she thereby found out the way how every family might live upon
their own labour, like a wise princess she knew ’twould be hard to force people
to work when there was nothing for them to turn their hands to; but as soon as
she had brought the matter to bear, and there was work for every body that had
no mind to starve, then she apply’d herself to make laws to oblige the people
to do this work, and to punish vagrants, and make every one live by their own
labour; all her successors followed this laudable example, and from hence came
all those laws against sturdy beggars, vagabonds, stroulers, &c., which had
they been severely put in execution by our magistrates, ’tis presum’d these
vagrant poor had not so encreas’d upon us as they have.
And it seems strange to
me, from what just ground we proceed now upon other methods, and fancy that ’tis
now our business to find them work, and to employ them rather than to oblige
them to find themselves work and go about it.
From this mistaken
notion come all our work-houses and corporations, and the same error, with
submission, I presume Was the birth of this bill now depending, which enables
every parish to erect the woollen manufacture within it self, for the employing
their own poor.
’Tis the mistake of
this part of the bill only which I am enquiring into, and which I endeavour to
set in a true light.
In all the parliaments
since the Revolution, this matter has been before them, and I am justified in
this attempt by the House of Commons having frequently appointed committees to
receive proposals upon this head.
As my proposal is
general, I presume to offer it to the general body of the House; if I am
commanded to explain any part of it, I am ready to do any thing that may be
serviceable to this great and noble design.
As the former Houses of
Commons gave all possible encouragement to such as could offer, or but pretend
to offer at this needful thing, so the imperfect essays of several, whether for
private or publick benefit. I do not attempt to determine which have since been
made, and which have obtain’d the powers and conditions they have desir’d, have
by all their effects demonstrated the weakness of their design; and that they
either understood not the disease, or know not the proper cure for it.
The imperfection of all
these attempts is acknowledg’d, not only in the preamble of this new Act of
Parliament, but even in the thing, in that there is yet occasion for any new
law.
And having survey’d,
not the necessity of a new act, but the contents of the act which has been
proposed as a remedy in this case; I cannot but offer my objections against the
sufficiency of the proposal, and leave it to the consideration of this wise
assembly, and of the whole nation.
I humbly hope the
learned gentleman, under whose direction this law is now to proceed, and by whose
order it has been printed, will not think himself personally concerned in this
case, his endeavours to promote so good a work, as the relief, employment, and
settlement of the poor, merit the thanks and acknowledgment of the whole
nation, and no man shall be more ready to pay his share of that debt to him
than my self. But if his scheme happen to be something superficial, if he comes
in among the number of those who have not search’d this wound to the bottom, if
the methods propos’d are not such as will either answer his own designs or the
nations, I cannot think my self oblig’d to dispense, with my duty to the
publick good, to preserve a personal value for his judgment, tho’ the gentleman’s
merit be extraordinary.
Wherefore, as in all
the schemes, I have seen laid for the poor, and in this act now before your
Honourable House; the general thought of the proposers runs upon the employing
the poor by work-houses, corporations, houses of correction, and the like, and
that I think it plain to be seen, that those proposals come vastly short of the
main design. These sheets are humbly laid before you, as well to make good what
is alledg’d, viz. That all these work-houses, &c., tend to the encrease,
and not the relief of the poor, as to make an humble tender of plain, but I
hope, rational proposals for the more effectual cure of this grand disease.
In order to proceed to
this great challenge, I humbly desire the bills already pass’d may be review’d,
the practice of our corporation work-houses, and the contents of this proposed
act examin’d.
In all these it will
appear that the method chiefly proposed for the employment of our poor, is by
setting them to work on the several manufactures before-mention’d; as spinning,
weaving, and manufacturing our English wool.
All our work-houses
lately erected in England, are in general thus employ’d, for which without
enumerating particulars, I humbly appeal to the knowledge of the several
members of this Honourable House in their respective towns where such
corporations have been erected.
In the present Act now
preparing, as printed by direction of a member of this Honourable House, it
appears, that in order to set the poor to work, it shall be lawful for the
overseers of every town, or of one or more towns joyn’d together to occupy any
trade, mystery, &c. And raise stocks for the carrying them on for the
setting the poor at work, and for the purchasing wool, iron, hemp, flax,
thread, or other materials for that purpose. Vide the Act publish’d by Sir
Humphry Mackworth.
And that charities
given so and so, and not exceeding 200 l. per annum for this purpose, shall be
incorporated of course for these ends.
In order now to come to
the case in hand, it is necessary to premise, that the thing now in debate is
not the poor of this or that particular town. The House of Commons are acting
like themselves, as they are the representatives of all the commons of England,
’tis the care of all the poor of England which lies before them, not of this or
that particular body of the poor.
In proportion to this
great work, I am to be understood that these work-houses, houses of correction,
and stocks to employ the poor may be granted to lessen the poor in this or that
particular part of England; and we are particularly told of that at Bristol,
that it has been such a terror to the beggars that none of the strouling crew
will come near the city. But all this allow’d, in general, ’twill be felt in
the main, and the end will be an encrease of our poor.
1. The manufactures
that these gentlemen employ the poor upon, are all such as are before exercis’d
in England.
2. They are all such as
are manag’d to a full extent, and the present accidents of war and foreign
interruption of trade consider’d rather beyond the vent of them than under it.
Suppose now a
work-house for employment of poor children, sets them to spinning of worsted.
-- For every skein of worsted these poor children spin, there must be a skein
the less spun by some poor family or person that spun it before; suppose the
manufacture of making bays to be erected in Bishopsgate-street, unless the
makers of these bays can at the same time find out a trade or consumption for
more bays than were made before. For every piece of bays so made in London
there must be a piece the less made at Colchester.
I humbly appeal to the
Honourable House of Commons what this may be call’d, and with submission, I
think it is nothing at all to employing the poor, since ’tis only the transposing
the manufacture from Colchester to London, and taking the bread out of the
mouths of the poor of Essex to put it into the mouths of the poor of Middlesex.
If these worthy
gentlemen, who show themselves so commendably forward to relieve and employ the
poor, will find out some new trade, some new market, where the goods they make
shall be sold, where none of the same goods were sold before; if they will send
them to any place where they shall not interfere with the rest of that
manufacture, or with some other made in England, then indeed they will do
something worthy of themselves, and may employ the poor to the same glorious
advantage as Queen Elizabeth did, to whom this nation, as a trading country,
owes its peculiar greatness.
If these gentlemen could
establish a trade to Muscovy for English serges, or obtain an order from the
Czar, that all his subjects should wear stockings who wore none before, every
poor child’s labour in spinning and knitting those stockings, and all the wool
in them would be clear gain to the nation, and the general stock would be
improved by it, because all the growth of our country, and all the labour of a
person who was idle before, is so much clear gain to the general stock.
If they will employ the
poor in some manufacture which was not made in England before, or not bought
with some manufacture made here before, then they offer at something
extraordinary.
But to set poor people
at work, on the same thing which other poor people were employ’d on before, and
at the same time not encrease the consumption, is giving to one what you take
away from another; enriching one poor man to starve another, putting a vagabond
into an honest man’s employment, and putting his diligence on the tenters to
find out some other work to maintain his family.
As this is not at all
profitable, so with submission for the expression, I cannot say ’tis honest,
because ’tis transplanting and carrying the poor peoples lawful employment from
the place where was their lawful settlement, and the hardship of this our law
consider’d is intolerable. For example.
The manufacture of
making bays is now establish’d at Colchester in Essex, suppose it should be
attempted to be erected in Middlesex, as a certain worthy and wealthy gentleman
near Hackney once propos’d, it may be suppos’d if you will grant the skill in
working the same, and the wages the same, that they must be made cheaper in
Middlesex than in Essex, and cheapness certainly will make the merchant buy
here rather than there, and so in time all the bay making at Colchester dyes,
and the staple for that commodity is removed to London.
What must the poor of
Colchester do, there they buy a parochial settlement, those that have numerous
families cannot follow the manufacture and come up to London, for our parochial
laws impower the Church-wardens to refuse them a settlement, so that they are
confin’d to their own countrey, and the bread taken out of their mouths, and
all this to feed vagabonds, and to set them to work, who by their choice would
be idle, and who merit the correction of the law.
There is another
grievance which I shall endeavour to touch at, which every man that wishes well
to the poor does not forsee, and which, with humble submission to the gentlemen
that contriv’d this Act, I see no notice taken of.
There are arcanas in
trade, which though they are the natural consequences of time and casual
circumstances, are yet become now so essential to the publick benefit, that to
alter or disorder them, would be an irreparable damage to the publick.
I shall explain my self
as concisely as I can.
The manufactures of
England are happily settled in different corners of the kingdom, from whence
they are mutually convey’d by a circulation of trade to London by wholesale,
like the blood to the heart, and from thence disperse in lesser quantities to
the other parts of the kingdom by retail. For example.
Serges are made at
Exeter, Taunton, &c. stuffs at Norwich; bayes, sayes, shaloons, &c. at
Colchester, Bocking, Sudbury, and parts adjacent, fine cloath in Somerset,
Wilts, Gloucester and Worcestershire, coarse cloath in Yorkshire, Kent, Surry,
&c. druggets at Farnham, Newbury, &c. All these send up the gross of
their quantity to London, and receive each others sorts in retail for their own
use again. Norwich buys Exeter serges, Exeter buys Norwich stuffs, all at
London; Yorkshire buys fine cloths, and Gloucester coarse, still at London; and
the like, of a vast variety of our manufactures.
By this exchange of
manufactures abundance of trading families are maintain’d by the carriage and
recarriage of goods, vast number of men and cattle are employed, and numbers of
inholders, victuallers, and their dependencies subsisted.
And on this account I
cannot but observe to your honours, and ’tis well worth your consideration,
that the already transposing a vast woollen manufacture from several parts of
England to London, is a manifest detriment to trade in general, the several
woollen goods now made in Spittlefields, where within this few years were none
at all made, has already visibly affected the several parts, where they were
before made, as Norwich, Sudbury, Farnham, and other towns, many of whose
principal tradesmen are now remov’d hither, employ their stocks here, employ
the poor here, and leave the poor of those countries to shift for work.
This breach of the
circulation of trade must necessarily distemper the body, and I crave leave to
give an example or two.
I’ll presume to give an
example in trade, which perhaps the gentlemen concern’d in this bill may, without
reJection upon their knowledge, be ignorant of.
The city of Norwich,
and parts adjacent, were for some ages employ’d in the manufactures of stuffs
and stockings.
The latter trade, which
was once considerable, is in a manner wholly transpos’d into London, by the
vast quantities of worsted hose wove by the frame, which is a trade within this
20 years almost wholly new.
Now as the knitting
frame performs that in a day which would otherwise employ a poor woman eight or
ten days, by consequence a few frames perform’d the work of many thousand poor
people; and the consumption being not increased, the effect im- mediately
appear’d; so many stockings as were made in London so many the fewer were
demanded from Norwich; till in a few years the manufacture there wholly sunk,
the masters there turn’d their hands to other business; and whereas the hose
trade from Norfolk once return’d at least 5,000s. per week, and as some say
twice that sum, ’tis not now worth naming.
’Tis in fewer years,
and near our memory, that of Spittlefields men have fallen into another branch
of the Norwich trade, viz., making of stuffs, drugets, &c.
If any man say the
people of Norfolk are yet full of employ, and do not work; and some have been
so weak as to make that reply, avoiding the many other demonstrations which
could be given, this is past answering, viz. That the combers of wool in
Norfolk and Suffolk, who formerly had all, or ten parts in eleven of their yarn
manufactur’d in the country, now comb their wool indeed, and spin the yarn in
the country, but send vast quantities of it to London to be woven; will any man
question whether this be not a loss to Norwich; can there be as many weavers as
before? And are there not abundance of workmen and masters too remov’d to
London?
If it be so at Norwich,
Canterbury is yet more a melancholy instance of it, where the houses stand
empty, and the people go off, an d the trade dyes, because the weavers have
follow’d the manufacture to London; and whereas there was within few years 200
broad looms at work, I am well assur’d there are not 50 now employ’d in that
city.
These are the effects
of transposing manufactures, and interrupting the circulation of trade.
All methods to bring
our trade to be manag’d by fewer hands than it was before, are in themselves
pernicious to England in general, as they lessen the employment of the poor,
unhinge their hands from the labour, and tend to bring our hands to be superior
to our employ, which as yet they are not.
In Dorsetshire and
Somersetshire there always has been a very considerable manufacture for
stockings, at Colchester and Sudbury for bayes, saves,&c. most of the wool
these countries use is bought at London, and carried down into those counties,
and then the goods being manufactur’d are brought back to London to market;
upon transposing the manufacture as before, all the poor people and all the
cattel who hitherto were employ’d in that voiture, are immediately disbanded by
their country, the innkeepers on the roads must decay, so much land lye for
other uses, as the cattle employ’d, houses and tenement on the roads, and all
their dependencies sink in value.
’Tis hard to calculate
what a blow it would be to trade in general, should every county but
manufacture all the several sorts of goods they use, it would throw our inland
trade into strange convulsions, which at present is perhaps, or has been, in
the greatest regularity of any in the world.
What strange work must
it then make when every town shall have a manufacture, and every parish be a
ware-house; trade will be burthen’d with corporations, which are generally
equally destructive as monopolies, and by this method will easily be made so.
Parish stocks, under
the direction of Justices of Peace, may soon come to set up petty manufactures,
and here shall all useful things be made, and all the poorer sort of people
shall be aw’d or byass’d to trade there only. Thus the shop-keepers, who pay
taxes, and are the support of our inland circulation, will immediately be ruin’d,
and thus we shall beggar the nation to provide for the poor.
As this will make every
parish a market town, and every hospital a store-house, so in London, and the
adjacent parts, to which vast quantities of the woollen manufacture will be
thus transplanted, too great and disproportion’d numbers of the people will in
time assemble.
Tho’ the settled poor
can’t remove, yet single people will stroul about and follow the manufacturer;
and thus in time such vast numbers will be drawn about London, as may be
inconvenient to the government, and especially depopulating to those countries
where the numbers of people, by reason of these manufactures are very
considerable.
An eminent instance of
this we have in the present trade to Muscovy, which however design’d for an
improvement to the English nation, and boasted of as such, appears to be
converted into a monopoly, and proves injurious and destructive to the nation.
The persons concern’d removing and carrying out our people to teach that
unpolish’d nation the improvements they are capable of.
If the bringing the
Flemings to England brought with them their manufacture and trade, carrying our
people abroad, especially to a country where the people work for little or
nothing, what may it not do towards instructing that populous nation in such
manufactures as may in time tend to the destruction of our trade, or the
reducing our manufacture to an abatement in value, which will be felt at home
by an abatement of wages, and that in provisions, and that in rent of land; and
so the general stock sinks of course.
But as this is
preparing, by eminent hands, to be laid before this House as a grievance
meriting your care and concern, I omit insisting on it here.
And this removing of
people is attended with many inconveniences which are not easily perceived, as
1. The immediate fall
of the value of all lands in those counties where the manufactures were before;
for as the numbers of people, by the consumption of provisions, must where ever
they encrease make rents rise, and lands valuable; so those people removing,
tho’ the provisions would, if possible, follow them, yet the price of them must
fall by all that charge they are at for carriage, and consequently lands must
fall in proportion.
2. This transplanting
of families, in time, would introduce great and new alterations in the
countries they removed to, which as they would be to the profit of some places,
would be to the detriment of others, and can by no means be just any more than
it is convenient; for no wise government studies to put any branch of their
country to any particular disadvantages, tho’ it may be found in the general
account in another place.
If it be said here will
he manufactures in every parish, and that will keep the people at home,
I humbly represent what
strange confusion and particular detriment to the general circulation of trade
mention’d before it must be, to have every parish make its own manufactures.
1. It will make our
towns and counties independent of one another, and put a damp to
correspondence, which all will allow to be a great motive of trade in general.
2. It will fill us with
various sorts and kinds of manufactures, by which our stated sorts of goods
will in time dwindle away in reputation, and foreigners not know them one from
another. Our several manufactures are known by their respective names; and our
serges, bayes and other goods, are bought abroad by the character and reputation
of the places where they are made; when there shall come new and unheard of
kinds to market, some better, some worse, as to be sure new undertakers will
vary in kinds, the dignity and reputation of the English goods abroad will be
lost, and so many confusions in trade must follow as are too many to repeat.
3. Either our
parish-stock must sell by wholesale or by retail, or both; if the first, ’tis
doubted they will make sorry work of it, and having other business of their own
make but poor merchants; if by retail, then they turn pedlars, will be a
publick nusance to trade, and at last quite ruin it.
4. This will ruin all
the carriers in England, the wool will be all manufactured where it is sheer’d,
every body will make their own cloaths, and the trade which now lives by
running thro’ a multitude of hands, will go then through so few, that thousands
of families will want employment, and this is the only way to reduce us to the
condition spoken of, to have more hands than work.
’Tis the excellence of our
English manufacture, that it is so planted as to go thro’ as many hands as ’tis
possible; he that contrives to have it go thro’ fewer, ought at the same time
to provide work for the rest -- as it is it employs a great multitude of
people, and can employ more; but if a considerable number of these people be
unhing’d from their employment, it cannot but be detrimental to the whole.
When I say we could
employ more people in England, I do not mean that we cannot do our work with
those we have, but I mean thus:
First, It should be
more people brought over from foreign parts. I do not mean that those we have
should be taken from all common employments and put to our manufacture; we may
unequally dispose of our hands, and so have too many for some works, and too
few for others; and ’tis plain that in some parts of England it is so, what
else can be the reason, why in our southern parts of England, Kent in
particular, borrows 20,000 people of other counties to get in her harvest.
But if more forreigners
came among us, if it were 2 millions, it could do us no harm, because they
would consume our provisions, and we have land enough to produce much more than
we do, and they would consume our manufactures, and we have wool enough for any
quantity.
I think therefore, with
submission, to erect manufactures in every town to transpose the manufactures
from the settled places into private parishes and corporations, to parcel out
our trade to every door, it must be ruinous to the manufacturers themselves,
will turn thousands of families out of their employments, and take the bread
out of the mouths of diligent and industrious families to feed vagrants,
thieves and beggars, who ought much rather to be compell’d, by legal methods,
to seek that work which it is plain is to be had; and thus this Act will
instead of setting and relieving the poor, encrease their number, and starve
the best of them.
It remains now,
according to my first proposal page 37, to consider from whence proceeds the
poverty of our people, what accident, what decay of trade, what want of
employment, what strange revolution of circumstances makes our people poor, and
consequently burthensome, and our laws deficient, so as to make more and other
laws requisite, and the nation concerned to apply a remedy to this growing
disease. I answer,
I. Not for want of
work; and besides what has been said on that head, I humbly desire these two
things may be consider’d.
First, ’Tis apparent,
that if one man, woman, or child, can by his, or her labour, earn more money
than will subsist one body, there must consequently be no want of work, since
any man would work for just as much as would supply himself rather than starve.
-- What a vast difference then must there be between the work and the work-men,
when ’tis now known that in Spittle-fields, and other adjacent parts of the
city, there is nothing more frequent than for a journey-man weaver, of many
sorts, to gain from 15s. to 30s. per week wages, and I appeal to the silk
throwsters, whether they do not give 8s. 9s. and 10s. per week, to blind men
and cripples, to turn wheels, and do the meanest and most ordinary works.
Cur Moriatur Homo,
&c.
Why are the families of
these men starv’d, and their children in work-houses, and brought up by
charity; I am ready to produce to this Honourable House the man who for several
years has gain’d of me by his handy labour at the mean scoundrel employment of
tile making from 16s. to 20s. per week wages, and all that time would hardly
have a pair of shoes to his feet, or cloaths to cover his nakedness, and had
his wife and children kept by the parish.
The meanest labours in
this nation afford the workman sufficient to provide for himself and his family,
and that could never be if there was a want of work.
2. I humbly desire this
Honourable House to consider the present difficulty of rising soldiers in this
kingdom; the vast charge the kingdom is at to the officers to procure men; the
many little and not over honest methods made use of to bring them into the
service, the laws made to compel them; why are gaols rumag’d for malefactors,
and the Mint and prisons for debtors, the war is an employment of honour, and
suffers some scandal in having men taken from the gallows, and immediately from
villains, and housebreakers made gentlemen soldiers. If men wanted employment,
and consequently bread, this could never be, any man would carry a musket
rather than starve, and wear the Queen’s cloth, or any bodies cloth, rather
than go naked, and live in rags and want; tis plain the nation is full of
people, and ’tis as plain our people have no particular aversion to the war,
but they are not poor enough to go abroad; ’tis poverty makes men soldiers, and
drives crowds into the armies, and the difficulties to get English-men to list
is, because they live in plenty and ease, and he that can earn 20s. per week at
an easie, steady employment, must be drunk or mad when he lists for a soldier,
to be knock’d o’th’head for 3s. 6d. per week; but if there was no work to be
had, if the poor wanted employment, if they had not bread to eat, nor knew not
how to earn it, thousands of young lusty fellows would fly to the pike and
musket, and choose to dye like men in the face of the enemy, rather than lye at
home, starve, perish in poverty and distress.
From all these
particulars, and innumerable unhappy instances which might be given, ’tis
plain, the poverty of our people which is so burthensome, and increases upon us
so much, does not arise from want of proper employments, and for want of work,
or employers, and consequently,
Work-houses,
corporations, parish-stocks, and the like, to set them to work, as they are
pernicious to trade, injurious and impoverishing to those already employ’d, so
they are needless, and will come short of the end propos’d.
The poverty and
exigence of the poor in England, is plainly deriv’d from one of these two
particular causes,
Casualty or Crime.
By Casualty, I mean
sickness of families, loss of limbs or sight, and any, either natural or
accidental impotence as to labour.
These as infirmities
meerly providential are not at all concern’d in this debate; ever were, will,
and ought to be the charge and care of the respective parishes where such
unhappy people chance to live, nor is there any want of new laws to make
provision for them, our ancestors having been always careful to do it.
The crimes of our
people, and from whence their poverty derives, as the visible and direct
fountains are,
1. Luxury.
2. Sloath.
3. Pride.
Good husbandry is no
English vertue, it may have been brought over, and in some places where it has
been planted it has thriven well enough, but ’tis a forreign species, it
neither loves, nor is belov’d by an English-man; and ’tis observ’d nothing is
so universally hated, nothing treated with such a general contempt as a rich
covetous man, tho’ he does no man any wrong, only saves his own, every man will
have an ill word for him, if a misfortune happens to him, hang him a covetous
old rogue, ’tis no matter, he’s rich enough, nay when a certain great man’s
house was on fire, I have heard the people say one to another, let it burn and ’twill,
he’s a covetous old miserly dog, I wo’nt trouble my head to help him, he’d be
hang’d before he’d give us a bit of bread if we wanted it.
’Tho this be a fault,
yet I observe from it something of the natural temper and genius of the nation,
generally speaking, they cannot save their money.
’Tis generally said the
English get estates, and the Dutch save them; and this observation I have made
between forreigners and English-men that where an English-man earns 20s. per
week, and but just lives, as we call it, a Dutch-man grows rich, and leaves his
children in very good condition; where an English labouring man with his 9s.
per week lives wretchedly and poor, a Dutch-man with that wages will live very
tolerably well, keep the wolf from the door, and have every thing handsome
about him. In short, he will be rich with the same gain as makes the
English-man poor, he’ll thrive when the other goes in rags, and he’ll live when
the other starves, or goes a begging.
The reason is plain, a
man with good husbandry, and thought in his head, brings home his earnings
honestly to his family, commits it to the management of his wife, or otherwise
disposes it for proper subsistance, and this man with mean gains, lives
comfortably, and brings up a family, when a single man getting the same wages,
drinks it away at the ale-house, thinks not of to morrow, layes up nothing for
sickness, age, or disaster, and when any of these happen, he’s starv’d, and a
beggar.
This is so apparent in
every place, that I think it needs no explication; that English labouring
people eat and drink, but especially the latter three times as much in value as
any sort of forreigners of the same dimensions in the world.
I am not writing this
as a satyr on our people, ’tis a sad truth; and worthy the debate and
application of the nations physitians assembled in Parliament, the profuse
extravagant humour of our poor people in eating and drinking, keeps them low,
causes their children to be left naked and starving, to the care of the
parishes, whenever either sickness or disaster befalls the parent.
The next article is
their sloath.
We are the most lazy diligent
nation in the world, vast trade, rich manufactures, mighty wealth, universal
correspondence and happy success have been constant companions of England, and
given us the title of an industrious people, and so in general we are.
But there is a general
taint of slothfulness upon our poor, there’s nothing more frequent, than for an
English-man to work till he has got his pocket full of money, and then go and
be idle, or perhaps drunk, till, tis all gone, and perhaps himself in debt; and
ask him in his cups what he intends, he’ll tell you honestly, he’ll drink as
long as it lasts, and then go to work for more.
I humbly suggest this
distemper’s so general, so epidemick, and so deep rooted in the nature and
genius of the English, that I much doubt its being easily redress’d, and
question whether it be possible to reach it by an Act of Parliament.
This is the ruine of
our poor, the wife mourns, the children starves, the husband has work before
him, but lies at the ale-house, or otherwise idles away his time, and won’t
work.
’Tis the men that wont
work, not the men that can get no work, which makes the numbers of our poor;
all the work-houses in England, all the overseers setting up stocks and
manufactures won’t reach this case; and I humbly presume to say, if these two
articles are remov’d, there will be no need of the other.
I make no difficulty to
promise on a short summons, to produce above a thousand families in England,
within my particular knowledge, who go in rags, and their children wanting
bread, whose fathers can earn their 15 to 25s. per week, but will not work, who
may have work enough, but are too idle to seek after it, and hardly vouchsafe
to earn any thing more than bare subsistance, and spending money for
themselves.
I can give an incredible
number of examples in my own knowledge among our labouring poor. I once paid 6
or 7 men together on a Saturday night, the least 10s. and some 30s. for work,
and have seen them go with it directly to the ale-house, lie there till Monday,
spend it every penny, and run in debt to boot, and not give a farthing of it to
their families, tho’ all of them had wives and children.
From hence comes
poverty, parish charges, and beggary, if ever one of these wretches falls sick,
all they would ask was a pass to the parish they liv’d at, and the wife and
children to the door a begging.
If this Honourable
House can find out a remedy for this part of the mischief. If such Acts of
Parliament may be made as may effectually cure the sloath and luxury of our
poor, that shall make drunkards take care of wife and children, spendthrifts
lay up for a wet, day; idle, lazy fellows diligent; and thoughtless sottish
men, careful and provident.
If this can be done, I
presume to say, there will be no need of transposing and confounding our
manufactures, and the circulation of our trade; they will soon find work
enough, and there will soon be less poverty among us, and if this cannot be
done, setting them to work upon woollen manufactures, and thereby encroaching
upon those that now work at them, will but ruine our trade, and consequently
increase the number of the poor.
I do not presume to
offer the schemes I have now drawn of methods for the bringing much of this to
pass, because I shall not presume to lead a body so august, so wise, and so
capable as this Honourable Assembly.
I humbly submit what is
here offered, as reasons to prove the attempt now making insufficient; and
doubt not but in your great wisdom, you will find out ways and means to set
this matter in a clearer light, and on a right foot.
And if this obtains on
the House to examine farther into this matter, the author humbly recommends it
to their consideration to accept, in behalf of all the poor of this nation, a
clause in the room of this objected against, which shall answer the end without
this terrible ruin to our trade and people.
FINIS.