LIBRARY^ <$SUIBRARY0/ 
 
 I Y~* " 
 
 UlX I % 
 
 =c o 
 
 CAilFOfcfe, .^OFCAIIFO% 
 
 T* t>- * x^^w *7. 
 
 S5 
 
 [UKIVERS/A ,KlOSAVG[lj> 
 
 * ** >s ^^ ^ <i 
 
 ~ f > **~ ^ 
 
 UDNVSOl^ ^3AIXfi]lVv S 
 
 : UNIVERS/A. vvlOS ANGElfj> 
 
 *~ ^ >*N ^ 
 
 i I 
 
 % -*^-> i-< 
 
 ^KWITVD-JO^ ^80Jnv>JO^ 
 
 ^Of-CAllFO/i^ .^Of-CAllFO% 
 *" T. ^- ^^- * 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 T" >-
 
 PAPER 
 
 ON THE MEANS OF 
 
 REDUCING THE POORS RATES, 
 
 AND OF AFFORDING 
 
 EFFECTUAL AND PERMANENT 
 
 RELIEF TO THE LABOURING CLASSES, 
 
 Presented to the Chairman of the Committee on the Poor Laws. 
 
 BY MAJOR TORRENS, 
 
 ORIGINAL. 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 1817.
 
 PAPER, 
 
 THAT the poors rate of England, advancing as it does, at a 
 perpetually accelerating pace, and threatening in its ultimate 
 progress, to absorb che whole rental of the country, is an 
 enormous and insupportable evil, seems now to he univer- 
 sally acknowledged. The laws, however, by which paro- 
 chial support is afforded, have been so long in operation, 
 and the habits and conduct of the people have been to so 
 great an extent determined and regulated by their influence, 
 that to eradicate them from our political system requires 
 the most cautious and skilful management. Their cancer- 
 ous roots have now been permitted to strike so deep, 
 that there is danger lest, if attempted by persons not 
 sufficiently acquainted with the structure of society, the 
 operation which extracts them should touch the vitals of 
 the state. 
 
 It may be laid down as an incontrovertible position, that 
 in an old and populous country, where the good and well- 
 situated lands have been already appropriated and occupied, 
 the people cannot be rendered comfortable and independent,
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 Major Torrens on Reduction of Poors Rates. 51 
 
 unless means are adopted for regulating the population so 
 as to keep down the supply of labour to a level with the 
 demand. If, in any district, there is a capital sufficient, to 
 create a demand for a thousand labourers, while the supply 
 amounts to no more than nine hundred, then it is self- 
 evident that wages will be high, and that the labouring 
 classes will possess all the necessaries, and some of the 
 superfluities of life. But, on the other hand, if the capital 
 employed affords a demand for no more than nine hundred 
 labourers, while the supply amounts to a thousand, then it 
 is equally self-evident, that the competition of the labourers 
 to obtain work, will reduce wages below what is necessary 
 for the comfortable support of a family, and that poverty 
 and starvation must prevail. Nor is it possible, as the 
 following illustrative case will demonstrate, for human 
 wisdom to devise a plan of relief which can obviate this 
 result, and bestow any permanent comfort and independence 
 on a people whose numbers are not limited by the demand 
 for labour. 
 
 Let a district be supposed, in which rent, profit, and 
 wages, amount each to .1000 per ann. and where the 
 labouring classes exert no prudential check upon the 
 increase of their numbers, but breed up to the starving 
 point. Now it is self-evident, that beyond this point their 
 numbers cannot go ; and that if there should be neither 
 emigration, nor a prudential check, regulating the number 
 
 L~ of births, want and misery, and the diseases which they 
 
 ': engender, must annually cut off the excess of population, 
 ^ and apportion the supply of labour to the demand. Now, 
 
 - let the more wealthy inhabitants of the district endeavour 
 to obviate this most unhappy result j let the land proprie- 
 
 ; tors and capitalists, in compassion for the distress of the 
 labouring class, deprive themselves of a portion of the 
 superfluities they have been accustomed to enjoy, and 
 
 >i -
 
 512 Major Torrens on Reduction 
 
 devote a tenth of their incomes to remove the poverty of 
 those who live by wages. The relief which this would 
 afford would be immediate, but unfortunately, it would be 
 of short duration. As giving a tenth of the incomes arising 
 out of rent and profit, in aid of the incomes derived from 
 wages, could have no conceivable tendency either to pro- 
 mote emigration, or to regulate the number of births, the 
 people would continue to breed up to the extreme limit of 
 subsistence ; that is, until their numbers became so great, 
 that the earnings of labour, aided by the contributions from 
 rent and profit, would be just sufficient to support their 
 actual numbers ; and until, in consequence, want and 
 misery prevented all farther increase, and rendered the 
 deaths exactly equal to the births. If, on witnessing this 
 renewal of distress, the land proprierors and capitalists 
 should consent to give twenty, instead of ten per cent, upon 
 their incomes, in aid of wages, the same progress would be 
 repeated ; temporary relief would be again administered, 
 and permanent misery would again return. If thirty, forty, 
 fifty, nay, if an hundred per cent were yielded by the 
 land proprietors and capitalists, and the whole both of 
 rent and of profit were given in aid of wages, the process 
 and the result would, with respect to the labouring classes, 
 be precisely as before. Population would increase until 
 the wages of labour, aided by the whole rent and profits of 
 the district, were no more than sufficient to support the 
 actual number of labourers, and until want and misery 
 prevented their increase. 
 
 But although this Ultra Spencean system, which thus 
 distributed among the mass of the people, not only all the 
 rent, but also all the profit, created in the district, could 
 afford no permanent relief to the labouring class, it would 
 inflict the greatest injury and degradation upon the whole 
 community. In the first place, when a country possesses.
 
 of Poors Rates. 513 
 
 in the form of rent and profit, a surplus revenue beyond 
 what is necessary to subsist the population, it may, when a 
 deficient harvest occurs, export a portion of its luxuries 
 and refined manufactures, in exchange for provisions, and 
 thus avert the miseries of famine. But when rent and 
 profit, instead of existing in a net surplus revenue, are 
 given in aid of wages, and when, in consequence, the people 
 (as will inevitably be the case unless there is a prudential 
 check upon population) breed up to that point at which 
 the whole revenue of the country is absorbed in mere 
 subsistence, then there cannot be by possibility any surplus 
 articles for exportation : the universal poverty of the people 
 must render the purchase of foreign corn impracticable, 
 and deficient crops must inevitably lead to famine. 
 
 In the second place, partitioning rents and profits amongst 
 the people would speedily destroy all leisure, would put a 
 stop to every species of intellectual culture, and would 
 confine each and all to the business of providing for merely 
 animal wants. This admits of the clearest demonstration. 
 Supposing that each labourer in the country earns 3O 
 per annum, and that these earnings are just sufficient to 
 allow the existing population to be kept up. Then if, by 
 making an equal partition of the rental of the country, we 
 were to increase the income of each labourer to a60 per 
 ann. : the infallible consequence would be (the partition of 
 rent having no conceivable tendency to give operation to a 
 preventive check on procreation) that the number of 
 labourers would rapidly increase. Now this increase in 
 the supply of labour would, by a two-fold operation, 
 deteriorate the condition of the labourer. In the first place, 
 it would lower wages ; and in the second place, it would 
 cause the rental of the country to be partitioned among a 
 greater number of persons, and thus reduce the dividend 
 of each. Nor, in the absence of prudential controul,
 
 514 Major Torrens on Reduction 
 
 would there be any limit to the increase of numbers, and 
 the consequent deterioration of the condition of the people, 
 until the earnings of the labourer, and bis dividend of rent, 
 were reduced so low that, taken together, they were no 
 more than sufficient to keep up the existing population. 
 When things had arrived at this point, when the earnings 
 of incessant toil, aided by each individual portion of rent, 
 were no more than sufficient to supply animal want, it is 
 obvious that there could be neither leisure for intellectual 
 pursuit, nor demand for the productions of art. Not a 
 single mind would be left to cultivate the field of thought. 
 The progress of knowledge would be arrested ; nay, so far 
 from the human mind being, under such circumstances, 
 capable of farther advance, the attainments it had already 
 achieved would speedily be lost, and the darkest barbarism 
 return. 
 
 These objections to Spencean projects for partitioning 
 the rent or net produce of a country, apply in all their 
 force to a .plan which Mr. Owen of Lanark, has recently 
 brought forward for the purpose of affording general relief. 
 This gentleman belongs to the order of political Alchymists; 
 and seriously believing that he holds the philosopher's 
 stone in one hand, and the universal medicine in the other, 
 he walks forth to produce unlimited opulence, and to 
 eradicate every disorder which is incident to human society. 
 His confident anticipations of success, when contrasted with 
 the slender, and completely inadequate means by which he 
 proposes to accomplish it, are singularly amusing. The 
 principles on which his plan proceeds, and which it pleases 
 him to call fundamental, if they be not absolutely absurd, 
 are at least directly contrary to experience. He tells us, 
 that the amount of the ordinary labour of individuals, 
 judiciously directed to objects of a productive nature, 
 would be more than sufficient to maintain them in a high
 
 of Poors Rates. 515 
 
 degree of comfort ; and that human exertion, if properly 
 directed, would increase the objects of desire almost to 
 infinity, and thus enable each to obtain all that is necessary 
 to his well-being. Now it happens that these fundamental 
 principles of Mr. Owen, are at variance with the most 
 obvious and incontrovertible facts of political science. 
 The soil of any country, however fertile, or however culti- 
 vated, can support only a given number of inhabitants. 
 Each additional quantity of labour which is applied, yields 
 a less proportional return ; that is, if, on any given surface, 
 the labour of 10 men will raise subsistence for 20, then 
 the labour of 20 will not raise from it subsistence for 4O, 
 nor that of 30, subsistence for 6O ; but, on the contrary, 
 the labour of 20 may not be able to raise food for more 
 than 35, and that of 3O for more than 40. From this it 
 necessarily follows, that there must always be a point, at 
 which an additional quantity of labour bestowed upon the 
 soil, will not raise an additional quantity of food sufficient 
 to support the persons by whom it is performed ; and 
 hence the inherent properties of the soil present a natural 
 obstacle to the indefinite increase of the objects of our 
 want and desire, which no possible direction or application 
 of human labour can surmount. If we were to concede to 
 Mr. Owen the principle, that combined, is somewhat more 
 productive than independent labour, the result would be, 
 that any given territory might support a greater number of 
 persons than before ; and not that the objects of our desire 
 might be encreased almost to infinity. The manifest 
 absurdity, that a definite surface may be made to support 
 indefinite numbers, could not be maintained by any person 
 commonly acquainted with the principles of the production 
 of wealth. 
 
 But the question of affording comfort and independence 
 to the people, depends not only on the principles according
 
 516 Major Torrens on Reduction 
 
 to which wealth is produced, but also upon the principles 
 according to which wealth is distributed. Mr. Owen seems 
 totally ignorant of the important fact, that as population 
 and capital increase, and render it necessary either to bring 
 in inferior soils, or to bestow heightened cultivation on the 
 old, a greater proportion of the wealth of a country appears 
 in the form of rent. The condition of the labouring 
 classes must every where depend, not upon the quantity of 
 wealth produced, but on the quantity which the existing 
 state of the labour market may turn into the channel of 
 wages. If the labouring classes produce a greater number 
 of children than is requisite to supply the effectual demand 
 for labour, the superfluous numbers must necessarily die 
 off, for want of sufficient subsistence ; and, from the very 
 constitution of society, and from the natural order according 
 to which wealth distributes itself, a part of the community 
 will be suffering the extremes of misery, long before the 
 ultimate limits of produc:ion are obtained ; and even 
 while the more favoured classes are in the enjoyment of 
 superfluity and luxury. Should Mr. Owen contend that 
 this is a vicious state of things, and that in his new view of 
 society it is proposed to correct the inequalities in the 
 distribution of wealth, and to bring the surplus revenue 
 which now appears in the forms of rent and profit, to 
 supply the deficiency of wages, the obvious reply would be, 
 that his new view of society is nothing more than a Spen- 
 cean project in disguise ; and that it is liable to aU the 
 objections formerly urged. If his scheme were adopted, 
 the population would increase to the point at which the 
 utmost exertions of each family, when aided by their 
 dividend of rent and profit, would be just sufficient to 
 supply their animal wants : universal poverty would prevail : 
 not an individual would be left to cultivate art, or to in- 
 vestigate science j and in a short time, this boasted project
 
 of Poors Rates. 517 
 
 for ameliorating the condition of mankind, would reconduct 
 us to the savage state. 
 
 Should Mr. Owen urge, that his new view of society 
 comprises regulations for keeping the supply of labour 
 within the limits of the demand, it may fairly be required 
 of him, why he exhibits in the foreground, complex and 
 enormously expensive arrangements, which in themselves 
 are perfectly inefficacious, while he throws in shade, the 
 simple and obvious principle, the adoption of which would 
 immediately remove the misery he deplores. If population 
 can be so regulated, that the supply of labour shall not 
 exceed the demand, then poverty, and its train of evils, 
 moral and political, will be effectually eradicated ; but if 
 the numbers of the people cannot be so regulated, projects 
 for ameliorating their condition are but the pernicious 
 nostrums of a political empiricism, which aggravates the 
 disease it ignorantly pretends to cure. If Mr. Owen seems 
 to afford general relief by regulating population, his new 
 system, with all its complicated and enormously expensive 
 apparatus, is unnecessary and superfluous ; and if he does 
 not intend to induce the adoption of arrangements for 
 proportioning the supply of labour to the demand, then 
 this vaunted system would create a population so redundant, 
 that the whole of the net revenue of the country would be 
 required to supply the merely animal wants of the people ; 
 that arts, literature, and science, would be abandoned ; and 
 a more than Gothic ignorance prevail. 
 
 In vain may Mr. Owen refer us to the example of a 
 society established in the state of Pennsylvania, upon the 
 principle of combined labour. The society formed under 
 the name of Harmony has as yet an abundance of new and 
 fertile land, over which it can extend cultivation at pleasure. 
 In such a state of things, capital and subsistence may be 
 made to increase as fast as man can multiply his kind ;
 
 518 Major Torrens on Reduction 
 
 and consequently, poverty may long continue unknown. 
 Widely different is the case in England. When all the 
 good and well-situated lands of a country have already been 
 appropriated and occupied, it is found impossible to 
 increase capital and subsistence as rapidly as the powers of 
 procreation may multiply the people ; and there is no 
 possibility of obviating poverty and misery except by regu- 
 lating population. 
 
 Sufficient, it is hoped, has been said to establish the 
 important fact, that in a country where, in consequence of 
 all the good and well-situated lands being already appro- 
 priated and occupied, capital and subsistence can no longer 
 be kept up to the population, the only possible means of 
 eradicating pauperism, is by keeping dozen the population 
 to a level with capital and subsistence. Now there seem 
 to be only two ways of keeping down population to the 
 level of capital and subsistence : and these are, a prudential 
 or moral restraint for preventing the birth of superfluous 
 numbers ; and, a well-regulated system of colonization for 
 removing such numbers, should they be born. The first 
 must necessarily depend upon the extension of knowledge, 
 and the formation of prudential habits amongst the mass of 
 the people. And when we contemplate the probable 
 effects of the Schools of Bell and Lancaster, as well as of 
 our numerous banks for the accumulation of small savings, 
 we may anticipate an almost incalculable improvement in 
 the condition of the labouring classes, and look forward 
 with confidence to the period when a prudential check on 
 population shall apportion the supply of labour to the 
 demand, and thereby banish poverty, with its consequences, 
 discontent, and turbulence, and disaffection, from the 
 land. 
 
 But the benefit to be expected from our school and 
 bank societies, though certain, is remote ; and these
 
 of Poors Rales. 
 
 excellent institutions are calculated to prevent the future 
 recurrence of pauperism ; not to remove that which actually 
 exists. While, therefore, we adopt preventive measures 
 with a reference to the future, and employ our utmost 
 efforts to afford the people the means of moral instruction^ 
 and to present them with all possible inducement to the 
 acquiring of prudential habits, it is necessary, if we would 
 effect any immediate reduction in the enormous burthen of 
 the poors rate, and at the same time prevent a considerable 
 portion of the superfluous hands which the transition from 
 war to peace has thrown upon the labour market, from 
 perishing of famine, to resort to the second means of regu- 
 lating the amount of our population, and adopt a more 
 extended system of colonization. Happily, the vast regions 
 of Canada, the Cape of Good Hope, and New Holland, 
 furnish us with an almost unlimited vent for our redun- 
 dant population ; and enable us, without difficulty, and 
 without expence, to provide for every able-bodied pauper 
 in the United Kingdom. 
 
 When the knowledge and skill of an old and civilized 
 country are brought to bear upon the unexhausted soil of 
 a new settlement, the productive powers of industry, and 
 consequently, the profits of stock, and the wages of labour, 
 become so extremely high, that, under the guidance of 
 persons moderately acquainted with the nature and sources 
 of wealth, the colonists sent out from the different parishes 
 and workhouses might be furnished with the means, not 
 only of supporting themselves, but of replacing in a short 
 period, the expences of their transport. This will appear 
 abundantly evident to those who have attended to the 
 rapid manner in which new and back settlers in America, 
 not only raise for themselves an independent supply of 
 subsistence, but create a surplus for exchange. In the 
 year 1805, a society of German colonists, amounting to
 
 520 Major Torrens on Reduction 
 
 about ninety families, purchased a tract of ground on 
 Conaquenesing Creek, in the western territory of Pennsyl- 
 vania, and such, under right direction, were the productive 
 powers of their industry, that in 1809, four years after 
 their first establishment, they not only raised their own 
 subsistence, but sold 4000 bushels of grain, besides other 
 agricultural produce, and some wrought goods. In order, 
 therefore, to provide for our superfluous and starving 
 population, without incurring any permanent charge upon 
 the state, we have only to avail ourselves of the experienced 
 fact, that when the skill and capital of a civilized country 
 are applied to the unexhausted and fertile soil of a new 
 settlement, the produce of labour greatly exceeds what is 
 necessary to support the labourers. Supposing, that in our 
 colonies of Canada, the Cape, and New South Wales, the 
 wages of common labour are three shillings per diem, and 
 that, in consequence of the cheapness of provisions, the 
 labourer can subsist upon one ; then, the surplus earnings 
 of each labourer would be two shillings per diem. Now, 
 let it cost x25. to convey a man to Canada ; and then, 
 the value of his labour for 250 days will, besides maintain- 
 ing him while at work, replace the expence of sending him 
 out. Supposing it to cost JL50. to convey a man to the 
 Cape, and <7S. to convey him to New South Wales ; 
 then, the value of his labour and the deduction for his 
 maintenance being as before, the surplus earnings of 50O 
 days will be sufficient to replace the expence of sending him 
 to the former settlement ; and those of 750 days to the 
 latter. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to state, that the above data 
 respecting the cost of transport, and the value of labour in 
 the colonies, are assumed, not with a view to precise 
 accuracy, but merely for the purpose of illustrating the 
 principle upon which the expence of removing those who
 
 of Poors Rates. 521 
 
 are likely to become chargeable to the parishes, may be 
 replaced; and our superfluous, and therefore perishing, 
 population provided for, without entailing any permanent 
 burthen on the nation. When the skill of an improved 
 country is applied to the unexhausted and fertile districts of 
 a new settlement, the productive powers of industry are 
 astonishingly high ; provisions become cheap, and labour 
 dear ; and by consequence, the labourer is enabled to 
 earn considerably more than is necessary for his support. 
 It follows, that every able-bodied person may, on arriving 
 at a new and well-regulated settlement, immediately acquire 
 a disposable surplus revenue, which, previous to going out, 
 he may anticipate, and mortgage for the payment of his 
 passage. All, therefore, that is necessary, in order to reduce 
 the Poors Rates, and to relieve the prevailing distress, is, 
 to offer the persons capable of labour, who are chargeable 
 upon their parishes, grants of colonial land, upon the 
 condition that they shall, on arriving at their destination, 
 give in return such a portion of their labour, or of the 
 wages of their labour, as may be sufficient to replace the 
 expences incurred in sending them out. It is very unlikely 
 that an offer of this kind would be rejected by persons 
 reduced to a degrading and miserable dependence upon 
 parish support. If, however, the number of voluntary 
 emigrants should be insufficient to remove the redundant 
 supply of labour, then the legislature might interfere, and 
 enact, that all who married after a given time, and who 
 subsequently, in consequence of the labour market being 
 overstocked, became incapable of maintaining their 
 families at home, should no longer be entitled to parish aid, 
 but in lieu of it, should receive grants of colonial land, on 
 the conditions above detailed. But the probability is, that 
 the desire to accept these grants would be very general, 
 and that the number of voluntary colonists would exceed, 
 NO. XX. Pam. VOL. X. 2 L
 
 ,522 Major Torrens on Reduction 
 
 rather than fall short of what was necessary to equalize the. 
 supply of labour with the demand ; and that Government 
 might find it expedient not to stimulate, but to check 
 emigration. The amount of the Poors Rates would afford 
 an infallible political barometer for determining whether 
 emigration to the colonies was going on too slowly or too 
 fast. While able-bodied persons remained incapable of 
 earning independent subsistence for their families, we 
 should have clear demonstration that numbers continued 
 in excess ; and, on the contrary, when none received parish 
 relief, except persons incapable of labour, there would be a 
 certain indication, that the supply of labour had been 
 reduced within the limits of the demand, and that coloniza- 
 tion had, for the present, been pushed sufficiently far. 
 
 It is obvious that the conditions and arrangements made 
 respecting emigrant paupers, for the purpose of their 
 replacing to the public the expence of sending them to the 
 Colonies, might be rendered far more liberal and more 
 advantageous to them, than the contracts which have so 
 frequently been entered into, for discharging the debt 
 incurred to private individuals for a passage to the United 
 States. When a merchant, or a master of a vessel, agrees 
 to give a passage to emigrating paupers, and to receive in 
 payment, the disposal of their labour for a certain period, 
 he considers the contract as a transaction of trade, and 
 exacts from the emigrants a period of service, sufficient not 
 only to repay the actual expence of the voyage, but to yield 
 him, besides, an adequate, and too frequently, an enormous 
 profit. All, however, that the public would require from 
 the emigrating poor would be, such a portion of their 
 surplus labour as might be necessary just to replace the 
 expence of sending them out. Now, in a new and well- 
 regulated settlement, where, as all experience proves, 
 industry is unusually productive j and where, in consequence
 
 of Poors Rates. .523 
 
 of the abundance of land, little rent is paid, almost the 
 whole of the wealth annually created takes the form of 
 high profits and high wages : the surplus earnings of the 
 labourer become very considerable ; and, therefore, those 
 who obtained colonial grants might easily and speedily 
 fulfil their engagements to the public. 
 
 It would be superfluous to enter, in this place, into the 
 detail of the arrangements requisite to enable the emigrating 
 poor to replace in the easiest and most expeditious manner, 
 the expence of conveying them to their destination. These 
 arrangements, indeed, could scarcely be reduced to a gene- 
 ral system, applicable to colonies situated in different 
 quarters of the world, and existing in various stages of 
 advancement and civilization ; but they would, under the 
 peculiar circumstances of each particular case, naturally 
 suggest themselves to any persons acquainted with the 
 principles of production, to whom the management of new 
 settlements might be committed. 
 
 The great advantages which would result from the suc- 
 cessful adoption of the plan here proposed, it is almost 
 unnecessary farther to enforce. As the generative power 
 enables a thousand, or a million, to double their numbers as 
 rapidly as a single pair, it follows, that if population increase 
 at all, it must have a tendency to increase in a geometrical 
 ratio ; and that it would have been impossible progressively 
 to people a world of limited extent, without implanting a 
 principle whose operation should, at some period or other, 
 cause numbers to augment too rapidly for food. With 
 respect to England, this period has long since arrived. If 
 we were to extend tillage over inferior tracts, or to heighten 
 the cultivation of our fertile lands, each additional quantity 
 of capital applied to the soil, would yield a less proportional 
 return ; and while the generative powers (unless reduced 
 by the deterioration of the human constitution) remained
 
 524 Major Torrens on Reduction 
 
 unimpaired, the productive powers which supply subsistence 
 would be perpetually decreasing. It is impossible to repeat 
 too often, or to urge too strongly, that when the fertile and 
 well-situated lands of a country have .been already occupied, 
 it is impossible to apportion the supply of labour to the 
 limits of the demand, without a high degree of moral 
 culture, or an extensive system of colonization. Now, the 
 operation of our -admirable institutions for imparting to the 
 mass of the people an adequate knowledge of their duties, 
 must necessarily be slow and gradual. For the immediate 
 relief of actual distress there remains no remedy, except 
 an extension of colonization. This would produce an 
 instantaneous and almost magical effect. Transplanting to 
 the colonies those who cannot find employment at home, 
 would be followed at once by a reduction of the Poors 
 Rates, and by a mitigation of the distress which has over- 
 spread the country. While the glut of hands was thus 
 removed from the labour market, and while those who 
 remained received, inconsequence, a rate of wages adequate 
 to their support, want would cease to engender the desire 
 of change ; the ideas of relief and of revolution would 
 lose their fatal connexion in the minds of the multitude ; 
 and the spirit of discontent and disaffection, which rarely 
 becomes formidable except when aggravated and perpe- 
 tuated by the goad of famine, would no longer endanger 
 our establishments. To an old and populous country, in 
 which education and knowledge have not been sufficiently 
 extended to give operation to a prudential and moral check 
 upon the number of births, a well-regulated system of 
 colonization acts as a safety-valve to the political machine, 
 and allows the expanding vapour to escape, before it is 
 heated to explosion. 
 
 The general principle, that a populous country, in which 
 the progress of knowledge has not given effect to a
 
 of Poors Kate*. 515 
 
 prudential check upon increase, should adopt a liberal 
 system of colonization, applies with peculiar force to the 
 particular circumstances in which the United Kingdom is 
 at present placed. While the transition from war to peace, 
 and the loss of capital occasioned by the consequent change 
 in the channels of industry, have very much diminished the 
 demand for labour, the disbanding of our soldiers and 
 sailors has considerably increased the supply. Under such 
 circumstances, the reduction, nay, the total demolition of 
 our military and naval establishments, could have little 
 effect in lightening the burthens of the country - r for the 
 greater part of the men discharged must be supported by 
 their parishes ; and in whatever degree the minister's 
 estimates for the year might be thereby reduced, in that 
 degree would the Poors Rates be augmented. But while, 
 in the present state of the labour market, disbanding our 
 soldiers and sailors could effect but a trifling and inconsider- 
 able reduction in the sum to be raised by taxes and poors 
 rates, it would occasion a lamentable deterioration in the 
 condition of those who may have spent the best part of 
 their lives in the service of their country, would immure 
 them in the workhouse, or turn them out,, to " beg bitter 
 bread through realms their valour saved." Under these 
 circumstances, humanity and justice, no less than policy, 
 ^require that we should avail ourselves of the resources 
 placed in our hands by the vast extent of unappropriated 
 colonial territory, and offer our discharged soldiers and 
 sailors, who cannot find employment at home, provision in 
 distant settlements. 
 
 There is another circumstance which, though its occur- 
 rence may be somewhat remote, ought not to be excluded 
 from the comprehensive views of the statesman. All the 
 best-informed writers upon the state of Ireland, represent 
 the population as being more dense than that of England.
 
 526 Major Torrens on Reduction 
 
 Now, while a very considerable part of the thinner popula- 
 tion of England is engaged in manufactures, almost the 
 whole of the more dense population of Ireland is employed 
 upon the soil. Hence it is evident, that to cultivate any 
 given surface, or to raise any given produce, requires in 
 Ireland a much greater number of labourers than 'in 
 England. But unless Ireland should always remain 
 deficient in skill and capital, this is a state of things which 
 cannot last. If the improved modes of farming adopted 
 in England and Scotland should ever be extended to Ire- 
 land, it is probable that one half of the persons now 
 engaged in agriculture in that country, would be found 
 sufficient to raise a more abundant produce than is raised 
 at present. Here then, an important, a momentous ques- 
 tion arises. When increasing capital and skill enable the 
 business of agriculture in Ireland to be performed by a 
 smaller number of hands, how are those who must be 
 thrown out of their customary employment, to be provided 
 for ? Ireland, purchasing her wrought goods from England, 
 may extensively adopt the improved system of farming, 
 long before her manufactures become sufficiently flourishing 
 to give employment to the hands no longer required upon 
 the soil. In this case, unless some wise and energetic 
 measures of prevention be adopted, Ireland, in advancing 
 to wealth and prosperity, must necessarily pass through a 
 period of extreme distress. Her situation, on adopting an 
 improved system of agriculture, will be in some respects 
 similar to that in which England was placed in the times 
 of the Tudors ; when, on the transition from the feudal 
 state, the land proprietors began to expend their revenues 
 on luxuries and refined manufactures, then brought exclu- 
 sively from abroad, and dismissed the idle and unprofitable 
 retainers who had formerly consumed the produce of their
 
 of Poors Rates. 527 
 
 estates. The poor laws were enacted to remedy this 
 temporary evil ; and their effect has been, to perpetuate 
 pauperism in England. 
 
 If a sudden transition from a defective to an improved 
 system of farming, should, as we have contemplated, throw 
 a portion of the Irish agricultural population out of employ- 
 ment, the state of our colonies, and the increase of know- 
 ledge, will happily enable us to apply a more appropriate 
 remedy, and one which can be followed by no permanent 
 injury and exhaustion. 
 
 These speculations respecting the probable consequences 
 of suddenly introducing into Ireland an improved system, 
 of agriculture, causing any given quantity of produce to be 
 raised by a smaller number of hands, are submitted to the 
 candid and serious consideration of those who have had 
 more extensive opportunities of observing the internal 
 situation and economy of that country. They have, 
 confessedly, a reference to a period somewhat remote ; and 
 those who may admit their validity, may deem that sufficient 
 to the day is the evil thereof ; and that in times of such 
 immediate difficulty and pressure it is unnecessary to dive 
 into the future, in order to enforce the necessity of affording 
 settlements in the colonies to those who cannot find employ- 
 ment at home. The existing circumstances of the country, 
 the actual sufferings of the people, are sufficient, indepen- 
 dently of any anticipated aggravation, to establish the 
 conclusion which has here been drawn. All our fertile 
 and well-situated lands being already occupied, the power 
 of increasing subsistence is lower than the power of 
 increasing population; and therefore, until our institutions 
 for extending education, and moral and prudential habits, 
 have had time to give effect to a preventive check upon the 
 number of births, there can be neither relief nor safety,
 
 528 Major Torrens on Reduction of Poors Rates. 
 
 except in emigration. The hive contains more than it can 
 support j and if it be not permitted to swarm, the excess 
 must either perish of famine, or be destroyed by internal 
 contests for food. 

 
 rf 
 
 g