CHAPTER XII. CAUSES OF POVERTY. Mismanagement of resources.-Faulty Institutions.-Econo mical structure and habits of Nations.-Errors in all.Precarious position of the bulk of the British people.History of the Labouring Class of Britain.-Liberty and Pauperism coeval.—Origin, principle, means and results of the Poor-Law.-Prejudice against it.-Use confounded with abuse.-Its mal-administration.-Allowance System. -Reform of the Poor-Law.-Proposed Commutation of Poor-Tax for compulsory Mutual Assurance Fund.-Necessity of Poor Law for Ireland.-General Scheme of Emigration.-Summary of means for extinguishing Pau perism. MISMANAGEMENT, then-the most gross and palpable mismanagement of the resources at the disposal of man, in his collective or individual capacity is, we maintain, the sole cause of the existence of want or poverty upon earth, and of the dread array of physical and mental sufferings which poverty and want engender. Calamity resulting from casualties and disordered health is unavoidable;-instances there will always remain, we fear, of individual misery occasioned by individual misconduct, (though a system of general education in sound principles and virtuous habits will go far to put an end to this source of evil;)-but, unless through ill-health, accident, or misconduct, misery ought not to be found upon earth! Happinessall the happiness, at least, which is directly or in directly derivable from an abundance of the necessaries and conveniences of life-ought to be within the easy reach of every individual, even of the lowest class, in every human society. So great are the persevering industry and inventive genius,-so strong the passion for accumulation, so endless and insatiable the desires of man, that when the development of these qualities is not impeded by the rapacity of power or the trammels of officious legislation, his means for the production of enjoyment (both skill and capital) tend, as we have shown, to increase in a far more rapid ratio than his numbers. So that, under institutions securing a judicious management of a nation's resources, and an equitable distribution of their produce, (abstracting the interference of external and extraordinary causes of reaction, such as wars, pestilence, or famine,) the share of each individual in the community is sure to be continually increasing. Why such has not been the case hitherto in most civilized communities-why the progress of knowledge, the increase of the powers of man over nature, and the augmentation of his means for gratifying his desires, have not proportionately added to the general happiness;—why the mass of mankind, the greater number of almost every people under the sun, are yet insufficiently supplied even with the means of satisfying their coarsest wants; why poverty is yet so general as to seem the law of human existence rather than the exception;-why misery and its offspring, vice and crime, yet wield their iron sceptre over a large proportion of the human race;-why industry still fails to secure its reward;-why prudence is -- - FAULTY INSTITUTIONS. 295 yet no guarantee from distress;—why, as wealth increases, poverty does not diminish;-why the more men produce the less they usually have to consume; why the blessings of heaven are turned into curses;--why plenty seems to generate want, and abundance is complained of as the cause of privation;-why these strange anomalies exist, (as it cannot be denied that they do exist);—what, in short, is the nature of the mismanagement that occasions the economical evils under which man so cruelly suffers, and what are the means by which they are to be cured-is the question we now address ourselves to solve. Laws for protecting the production, enjoyment, and accumulation of property, and for regulating in some degree its distribution, are essential, as was shown in an earlier chapter, to the working of every system of social welfare. But as society complicates and subdivides itself, these laws, even though they were originally adapted with the utmost wisdom to its early condition, must, in order to answer their end, be made continually to yield and accommodate themselves to the altered form and disposition of its parts. In point of fact, however, the institutions of no nation ever possessed the perfection we have supposed. Far from having been framed at the first in a compact and well-ordered system with the view of securing the greatest attainable benefit to the community for which they were made, they have generally consisted of a bundle of shreds and patches, the work of accident, association, ignorance, force, or cunning, to the full as much as of wise and wellmeaning deliberation for the common welfare. The history of every nation exhibits a constant series of struggles on the part of the people to ameliorate their institutions, and accommodate them to their wants-a struggle which has but too rarely succeeded, being one of the simple against the crafty, the weak against the powerful, the industrious against the idle-a struggle of the many whose interests are those of the community at large, with the few who have acquired an interest in institutional abuses-a struggle of those who justly desire to enjoy the fruits of their labour, with those who desire unjustly to enjoy the fruits of the labour of others! Hence it happens that few societies have ever yet taken that form which, by doing justice to all classes, would allow each to claim and receive its due share of the general property and produce, according to the principles of equity, and the mode in which the efforts of unrestricted, unburdened industry would spontaneously distribute them. The varied circumstances that have affected different nations in the past periods of their history have impressed on each a form of social arrangements more or less peculiarly its own. When one nation has invaded another, the conqueror has generally carried with him a predilection for the institutions of his native state, and by his endeavours to impose them on his new acquisitions, has created a compound of the two. The maritime or inland. position of a country, the character of its climate, and the nature of its principal productions, have had a considerable influence on the institutions of its inhabitants, by determining their pursuits, and modifying their national character. The physical and mental disposition which a people inherit from their remote ancestry, and which has been by some ECONOMICAL HABITS OF NATIONS. 297 considered to characterize separate races-must in like manner have always exercised a very considerable influence over their social arrangements. The economical and political condition of every nation is, in short, the compound result of accidental extraneous circumstances and internal character. Where the latter is deficient in energy and the spirit of improvement, a people may retain for centuries the same unvaried habits, laws, and economical condition. When, on the contrary, these qualities are strongly developed, a process of internal fermentation will be continually going on, through the efforts of the people to avail themselves of every opportunity for the amelioration of their circumstances;-changes will occur in the form and character of their institutions, more or less sudden and violent, or gradual and gentle, according to the greater or less degree of resistance, which accident, or the stubbornness of the depositaries of power, may oppose to the natural tendency of the society to improvement. The nations of the East, and especially of the farthest East -China and Japan-offer an example of the first kind; the western states of Europe of the last. The former, though undeniably possessed at an exceedingly early period of a very considerable knowledge of the arts and sciences, have stagnated for centuries in the same torpid and unimproved condition; the increase even of their numbers being checked by the unelastic nature of their institutions, which forbid any enlargement of their resources at all proportionate to that of their wants. The latter, though dating their origin from a comparatively recent period, and having still more recently acquired that knowledge of the |