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The precise mode of legislation on the theory which I think I have established, is a question that does not affect the theory itself. The Act of the 43d Elizabeth, which entrusted the disposal of the money to the churchwardens and a certain number of substantial householders, was designed to blend the ancient ecclesiastical establishment with the systems of municipal regulations then growing into use in consequence of the increasing civilization of the age. The system was analogous to English manners, and to the principles of the English constitution, which leave the disposal of money under the superintendance of those who contribute it. It had, moreover, this political advantage; that, instead of locking up land from the proprietor, and consequently preventing him from cultivating it to the best advantage, as in those countries which are under a system of modified prædial servitude, or in those where it is in mortmain, as in the possession of ecclesiastic or even municipal corporations, it leaves it alienable and convertible, satisfying the claims of indigence only in the best form of direct taxation, that of a money payment deducted from annual revenue. Its object was to provide discriminate relief by the leading divisions of the Act. The moral feeling of mankind is in favour of relief of the indigent; this feeling has in all ages anticipated and con

curred with the exertions of the State. To this we must attribute the existence of those establishments which can be traced previous to the Christian dispensation, and those which now exist without the pale of it, for the relief of suffering humanity. To this must be attributed those also, which, since the Christian dispensation, have been extended almost to superfluity, and sometimes to an excess which has rendered the interference of the State necessary to restrain them. But this, if an abuse, was the abuse of a principle which was faintly shown by the light of Nature, but which Christianity has exalted into a virtue of the sublimest kind, and into a principle of action far exceeding the influence of any one virtuous motive before that period.

As private and occasional charity naturally attaches itself to public societies, so permanent charity has, in all ages subsequent to Christianity, attached itself to the State, to secure perpetuity to its intentions.

Previous to the Reformation, and still in countries where the Catholic religion subsists, we find the establishments for charitable purposes connected with religious foundations, but mixed with superstitious abuses. Among other blessings which attended the Reformation, charity took a better direction than it had formerly done. It had seen the abuses of indiscriminate relief, and

the mischief of ignorance; and therefore houses of industry and schools were substituted for masses for the souls in purgatory.

To these establishments the spirit of charity in that age tended; and legislation, which generally follows the spirit of the age, combined it with its enactments in the other clause of the 43 Elizabeth, c. 2, which directs that "The churchwardens and overseers of the poor shall take order from time to time for setting to work the children of all such whose parents shall not, by the said churchwardens and overseers, or the greater part of them, be thought able to keep and maintain their children and also for setting to work all such persons, married or unmarried, having no means to maintain them, and use (using) no ordinary and daily trade of life to get their living by."

"And also to raise, by taxation, &c. a convenient stock of flax, hemp, thread, wool, iron, and other necessary ware and stuff, to set the poor on work." (Clause 1.)

This clause proceeded from an opinion existing at the time, perhaps a just one, that capital was wanting for the encouragement and employment of labourers. It was in the spirit of the age. In the two principal towns of the county of Berks, about the same period, very large sums were bequeathed for this purpose, which have

been almost irrecoverably lost, owing to the mistake in the principle, which presumed that labour thus supported could enter into competition with a similar application of private capital; and doubtless these are far from solitary instances. If it was an error, the legislators of the time of Elizabeth may be excused for it, because it is one into which the ablest and most benevolent men, who have turned their attention to the subject for two hundred years since that time, have fallen; from the time of Hale, Locke, Firmin, and others, down to the present moment, when the plan is hashed up with the systems of agrarian laws and prædial servitude, and endeavoured to be reduced to practice in the parallelograms of Mr. Owen.

I am aware of the arguments that have been urged against both parts of this law by men, the goodness of whose intentions, and sincerity of whose views, I have not the least wish to impeach; and particularly by Mr. Malthus.

The abuses of institutions on which man might depend for his support, without the exertions of industry, were not overlooked by the ancient moralists. It is to the scandalous waste of the public revenues among the idle and dissolute Athenian mob by the demagogues of his day, that Aristotle alludes, when he observes that it was "like pouring water into a sieve ;" and that the real friend to republican polity ought to study to

keep the people above want, and to apply the sums which were drawn from the wealthy, and expended in useless public shows and feasts (λTovgya), to forward their exertions in agricultural or commercial industry*.

Cicero also deprecates the inordinate largesses from the funds of the State, in full force in his time, which, combining with the legalized violations of private property, tended to the equalization of that property for the protection of which civil society was first instituted.

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But both Aristotle and Cicero recognise the right of the indigent to a moderate supply from the State the former holds up to the Athenian people the practice of Carthage and Tarentum, where a more rational system of administration took place; the latter approves a modified relief of indigence §.

But the representations of the philosopher and the statesman were alike ineffectual. Athens

Aristot. de Republica, lib. 6. c. 5.

"Hanc enim ob causam maxime ut sua tenerent respublicæ civitatesque constitutæ sunt."—De Officiis, lib. 2. c. 19.

Aristot. de Republica, lib. 6. c. 5. The passage which speaks of the Tarentines is very remarkable, as it seems to imply that the relief of the poor out of the abundance of the rich was their regular policy: its effect was to make the commonalty well disposed and quiet : “ κοινα ποιούντες τα κτήματα τοις απόροις επι την χρησιν, ευνουν παρασκευάζουσι το πληθος.”

§ "C. Gracchi frumentaria magna largitio exhauriebat ærarium-modica M. Octavii et reipublicæ tolerabilis et plebi necessaria, ergo et civibus et reipublicæ salutaris."-De Offic. ii. 21.

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