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Updated: May 26, 2025
And now here I lie, and have not even the strength to die. You must promise me that you won't burden yourself on my account with anything that's beyond your ability you must leave the matter to the poor-law authorities. I've kept myself clear of them till now, but it was only my stupid pride. The poor man and the poor-laws belong together after all.
The most characteristic point of his speculations is his view of the poor-laws. Nobody could speak with more good sense and feeling of the demoralisation which they were actually producing, of the sapping of the spirit of independence, and of all the devices by which the agricultural labourer was losing the happiness enjoyed in early years. But Cobbett's deduction from his principles is peculiar.
These are the steps by which we reached the 750 mark exemption, and the unconditional share which is to be paid by the State. This share is nothing but a hint to the legislature how to distribute the care of the poor to the various county and other associations. Whatever is done, you will agree with me that we need a revision of our poor-laws.
It would be quite superfluous to dilate on the value of the information thus supplied, without which, indeed, much of our subsequent legislation on poor-laws, corn-laws, and all matters relating to rating and taxation, would have been impracticable or the merest guesswork.
Alms constitute the first step of Christian charity, such as must exist in France, for instance, to a great extent. There are no poor-laws in France, and every poor man has the right to starve to death if charitable people do not prevent him from doing so. Charity is the first duty, and the second is, the assistance given by districts and according to law.
But it so happens that the comparison affords an opportunity, which cannot be passed over, of referring to the changes which are going on in the world; and forcibly reminds us, that while some are rising, others are falling, and many are in the mire, trodden under foot, and forgotten. It is with the miserable beings who are in the last predicament, that poor-laws have to do.
He desires what seemed at that time to be almost hopeless, a national system of education; but his main doctrine is the wisdom of reliance upon individual effort. The truth of the maxim 'pas trop gouverner, he says, has never been better illustrated than by the contrast between friendly societies and the poor-laws.
Surely the world was a Hard and a Cruel and a Brutal one, when I was young bating the Poor-Laws, which were more merciful than at present; for now that I am old the Gazettes are full of the Tender Valour and Merciful Devotion of the Deal Boatmen, who, in the most tempestuous weather, will leave their warm beds, their wives and bairns, and put off, with the Sea running mountains high, to rescue Distraught Vessels and the Precious Lives that are within them.
In modern Europe, the checks appear in the most various forms; in Switzerland and Norway a frugal population in small villages sometimes instinctively understands the principle of population, and exhibits the 'moral restraint, while in England the poor-laws are producing a mass of hopeless and inert pauperism.
Although population had greatly increased, no new provision had been made for religious teaching, and there were no schools but those of Edward and Elizabeth. Defective poor-laws, which forbade laborers to move from one parish to another in search of work, made pauperism in many cases the inevitable fate of the industrious.
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