tions of our territory, where labour is in great de. mand, subsistence plentiful, and the fruits of industry large and abundant. The government which enforces his maintenance in useless labour or idleness at home, instead of effecting his removal to where his labour would be so beneficial to the community as well as to himself-neglects its duty both to the individual and to the community. Were such a general scheme of colonization adopted as we have here shadowed out, the relief of this country from the burden of poorrate would be great and immediate. Industrious pauperism would be no longer known, and poverty banished from the face of the country, or confined at least to the maimed, the infirm, and the decrepit, from whom the mutual assurance fund suggested above would remove the disgrace and demoralization of pauperism.

Emigration is a certain and effectual resource against any extension of pauperism and any redundancy of labour. We do not, however, mean that it is to be only employed as a last resource, when all others fail. On the contrary, we think a vent of this kind should always be kept open, and within reach of every labouring man in this —indeed, in every civilized country-of which he may easily avail himself whenever the means of gaining an industrious livelihood fail him in his native land. This would leave no palliation for crime, no necessity for the severe and brutalizing discipline of the workhouse, no excuse for that mischief-working, however well-meant, charity which encourages idleness, vice, and imposture.

But though we are of opinion that emigration

REMOVAL OF LEGISLATIVE RESTRAINTS.

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should be made available at all times and under all circumstances to the destitute-we think it exceedingly doubtful whether there is any one country in Europe whose internal resources for the employment and comfortable maintenance of its population would be found deficient, if it were not for the imposition and continuance of legislative shackles, which cramp the exertions of its inhabitants, and interfere with the natural, that is, the free direction of their industry, and the natural and equitable distribution of its produce.

Every civilized state offers examples of such artificial, needless, and injurious restraints. We must confine our attention to those which deform our own legislature, and of these we can only afford space to expose the most prominently mischievous. We shall class them for consideration into

1. Restraints on agriculture. 2. On commerce. 3. On manufactures. 4. Excessive and misdirected taxation. 5. Restraints on the just distribution of wealth.

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CHAPTER XIII.

RESTRAINTS ON AGRICULTURE

Tithe System-Local Taxation-Restrictions on Inclosure. Or the restraints imposed by the laws of this country on the free development of its agriculture, the most injurious, undoubtedly, is the Tithe System. A tax upon agriculturists, the amount of which increases with the productiveness of agriculture, must evidently operate as a constant check upon all attempts to increase that productiveness. The fallacy which so long blinded the defenders of this species of impost to its obnoxious character, lay in their assuming that the tax, being only onetenth of the produce, would leave the remaining nine-tenths to the cultivator, and so afford an amply sufficient inducement to the utmost exertion of his industry. They altogether overlooked that the profit, or 'increase,'—that is, whatever surplus of the gross produce remains after repaying the expenses of cultivation,—is all that falls to the share of the cultivator; and that this itself in general barely amounts to a tenth of the gross produce. So that the tithe is a tax of at least 100 per cent. on the net returns of the process of cultivation. In case of the tillage of the poorer soils this tax would swallow up the entire profit; and must, therefore, act as a complete interdict on their

cultivation. There is a very large proportion of the land of this country, which would return a profit of from five to fifteen per cent. upon the capital that might be expended in its conversion from pasture or a state of waste to arable, or its improvement by manuring, &c. if already in tillage. But so long as the gross produce of such expenditure is liable to a tax of 10 per cent., it is evident that a complete bar is placed to all such employment of capital, however desirable in a national and economical point of view. The tithe-tax thus acts directly as a penalty on the cultivation and improvement of land, and the growth of food. A thousand pounds expended in the employment of labour and machinery in the manufacture of cloth, or gloves, or silks, pays no tithe. The same sum laid out in the employment of labour and machinery in the growth of corn, butter, meat, and the primary necessaries of life, pays a tax of 10 per cent. on the gross return. And this most oppressive and most odious of all possible taxes has been levied nominally for the support of a religious establishment! Could any better means have been devised by the arch enemy of mankind for exciting hostility to the establishment, and bringing religion itself into discredit?

Within the last year or two public opinion has begun to express itself strongly on this ill-contrived system,-adopted in its origin, almost of necessity, from the penury of our forefathers,—but the maintenance of which, up to the present day, and in this enlightened country, is a disgrace to the age and nation. A general commutation of tithe into a fixed territorial impost has at length

been determined on by the Government, introduced by them to the legislature, and will be acceded to, we must hope, for its own sake, by the Church. A commutation for land offers by far the most advisable mode of investing this claim, though there are considerable practical difficulties in the way of such a change.

Unfortunately this measure has been delayed by the impolitic resistance of the Church, to a period when, from the feelings of animosity that have been kindled upon the subject, it can neither, perhaps, be delayed with safety, nor settled with justice to both parties, nor in that calm and temperate spirit of deliberation which is so greatly desirable where such large and important interestsare at stake.

It is of considerable moment that the real incidence of tithes, that is to say, the party upon whom the tax really falls, should be thoroughly ascertained before any change is adopted in the present system. The general belief is, that the tithe is paid exclusively by the land-owner; that it is a simple deduction from rent, and would be added to rent if abolished. This opinion arises from the knowledge that lands, now tithe-free, let for a rent which exceeds the rent of titheable land of equal quality, by exactly the amount of the title that would be due from them. if any single estate were exempted from tithe, no doubt the benefit would wholly go to the landlord, because any increased productiveness of that single estate consequent upon its exemption from the tax now levied on its gross produce, could in no perceptible degree influence the prices of the

And