"it is not true that the rate of wages has not encreased with the nominal price of provifions;" and that it ought not always to bear the fame proportion to the price of provifions, Mr. Young, in a late number of his Annals of Agriculture, has contended that a neceffary rise in the rate of wages has been prevented, and laments fuch prevention as an evil. "Who can decide when Doctors difagree?" We fhall not attempt to decide, but we certainly think that there are much strength and judgement in Mr. Burke's remarks on the labouring poor, and on their wages; though, at the fame time, we are of opinion, that it is not impracticable to regulate wages at all times, on a general principle, fo as to establish a due proportion between the wages and the valuable labour for which they are the reward. The grand object to be attained is to enable the labourer in hufbandry, at all times, to buy the fame given quantity of the produce of the land with his weekly allowance. The fubject is one of great difficulty, and much delicacy is required in the difcuffion of it. In the juftice of the following obfervations we fully concur: "If the happiness of the animal man (which certainly goes fomewhere towards the happiness of the rational man) be the object of our estimate, then I affert, without the leaft hesitation, that the condition of those who labour (in all defcriptions of labour, and in all gra dations of labour, from the highest to the lowest inclufively) is on the whole extremely meliorated, if more and better food is any ftandard of melioration. They work more, it is certain; but they have the advantage of their augmented labour; yet whether that increase of labour be on the whole a good or an evil, is a confideration that would lead us a great way, and is not for my prefent purpofe. But as to the fact of the melioration of their diet, I fhall enter into the detail of proof whenever I am called upon: in the mean time, the known difficulty of contenting them with any thing but bread made of the finest flour, and meat of the first quality, is proof fufficient. "I further affert, that even, under all the hardships of the laft year, the labouring people did, either out of their direct gains, or from charity, (which it feems is now an infult to them) in fact, fare better than they did, in feafons of common plenty, 50 or 60 years ago; or even at the period of my English obfervation, which is about 44 years. I even affert, that full as many in that class, as ever were known to do it before, continued to fave money; and this I can prove, fo far as my own information and experience extend.” The next leading principle, developed in this tract, is the impropriety and impolicy of all legislative interference in regulating the price of provifions; and freedom, in its most comprehenfive and unlimited fenfe, is confidered as the very foul of all commerce. Here practice and theory are certainly at variance. Under the ancient Monarchy of France, in most of the the cities of that vaft and well-regulated kingdom, the price of provifions was exprefsly regulated by law; and never did the writer of this article, during a long refidence in that country, hear a fingle complaint uttered, either by farmer, dealer, or confumer, against fuch regulation, or of any one evil confequence that was ever known to refult from it. But, not to go fo far for proofs, let us afk what is the affize of bread but a regulation of the price of provifion by law? However ingenious, then, the fpeculations of theoretical writers may be, however ftrong their objections may appear upon paper, until the principle which they reprobate fhall have been proved, by experience, to be deferving of reprobation, we fhall continue to oppose fact to argument. The fame objections may be made to the reasoning upon the freedom of commerce; almost the whole code of our commercial laws, our restrictions upon the Eaft-India trade, all our provifions against fmuggling, and all our Excife laws, fuffice to fhew that the moft rigid and fevere regulations may be adopted which all operate as checks upon fuch freedom, without the fmalleft danger to, or diminution of, commerce. The example of these laft laws may farther serve as an answer to thofe who contend that we have no right to take any farmer's or dealer's stock of corn. We have, at all times, a right to render private convenience fubfervient to public good, and fhould exercife fuch right, whenever the welfare of the State requires it. On the other hand, private individuals fhould never be allowed to profit by public calamity any further than the abfolute neceffity of the cafe requires. What we have formerly faid upon this fubject we fhall here repeat, that the first step to be taken, is to relieve the public mind from all doubt and uncertainty; this can only be done by afcertaining the quantum of corn in the kingdom; if it be proved that there is fuch a scarcity as will juftify the present high price, the difpenfations of Providence must be submitted to with refignation, and not a murmur, we are perfuaded, will be heard. In that cafe, too, we fhould deem it highly expedient to pass a law, prohibiting the ufe of rye, barley, and oats, for any other purpose than that of making bread, either with or without a mixture of wheat flour. If a farmer had really the right, as it is contended he has in the tract before us, to fend his corn to market, or to keep it back, in fhort, to fupply or not to fupply the public wants, as his intereft or caprice may fuggeft, it follows, of course, that he would have a right entirely to withhold it, or, in other words, to ftarve the public! What Mr. Burke fays of the condition of farmers is directly contradictory to our no very limited experience on the subject. It is very rare that the moft profperous farmer, counting the value of his quick and dead ftock, the intereft of the money he turns, together with his own wages as a bailiff or overfeer, ever does make twelve or fifteen per centum by the year on his capital. I fpeak of the profperous. In most of the parts of England which have fallen within my obfervation, I have rarely known a farmer, who to his own trade has not added some other employment or traffic, that, after a course of the most unremitting parfimony and labour (fuch for the greater part is theirs), and perfevering in his bufinefs for a long courfe of years, died worth more than paid his debts, leaving his pofterity to continue in nearly the fame equal conflict between industry and want, in which the laft predeceffor, and a long line of predeceffors before him, lived and died. "Obferve that I fpeak of the generality of farmers who have not more than from one hundred and fifty to three or four hundred acres." All that we have seen of this defcription of men has led us to draw a very different conclufion. We have known numbers of them who have made ample fortures; and their mode of living, and of educating their children, far exceeds, in point of melioration and improvement, or, more properly speaking, of fhow and expence, every thing which Mr. Burke has fo justly stated refpecting the poor. Equally contrary to our experience and belief is the doctrine advanced concerning middle men. "What is true of the farmer is equally true of the middle man ; whether the middle man acts as factor, jobber, falefman, or fpeculator, in the markets of grain. Thefe traders are to be left to their free course; and the more they make, and the richer they are, and the more largely they deal, the better both for the farmer and confumer, between whom they form a natural and most useful link of connection; though, by the machinations of the oid evil counsellor, Envy, they are hated and maligned by both parties.” To us it appears, that the profits of these intermediate agents muft inevitably enhance the price of the article which they are employed to fell; and that though, in some instances, they cannot well be difpénfed with, they can, at beft, be confidered only as neceffary evils. On the fubject of Gin we have again the misfortune to differ most effentially from Mr. Burke. As to what is faid, in a phyfical and moral view, against the home confumption of fpirits, experience has long fince taught me very little to refpect the declamations on that fubject, whether the thunder of the laws, or the thunder of eloquence, is hurled on gin,' always I am thunder-proof. The alembic, in my mind, has furnished to the world a far greater benefit and bleffing, than if the opus maximum had had been really found by chemistry, and, like Midas, we could turn every thing into gold. It "Undoubtedly there may be a dangerous abufe in the excess of fpirits; and at one time I am ready to believe the abufe was great. When fpirits are cheap, the business of drunkenness is atchieved with little time or labour; but that evil I confider to be wholly done away. Obfervation for the laft forty years, and very particularly for the laft thirty, has furnished me with ten inftances of drunkennefs from other caufes, for one from this. Ardent spirit is a great medicine, often to remove distempers, much more frequently to prevent them, or to chase them away in their beginnings. It is not nutritive in any great degree. But, if not food, it greatly alleviates the want of it. invigorates the ftomach for the digeftion of poor meagre diet, not eafily alliable to the human conftitution. Wine the poor cannot touch. Beer, as applied to many occafions, (as among feamen and fishermen for inftance) will by no means do the bufinefs. Let me add, what wits infpired with champaign and claret, will turn into ridicule ; it is a medicine for the mind. Under the preffure of the cares and forrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in fome phyfical aid to their moral confolations; wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco. "I confider therefore the ftopping of the diftillery, œconomically, financially, commercially, medicinally, and in fome degree morally too, as a measure rather well meant than well confidered. It is too precious a facrifice to prejudice." We are fully convinced, and our conviction is the result of attentive confideration, and much opportunity for deep observation, that the home confumption of fpirits is as exceffive as ever; and that it has tended, and ftill tends, more to injure the health, and to corrupt the morals, of the lower claffes of people than any other caufe (we had nearly faid than all other caufes) whatever!-It is therefore phyfically and morally bad; and we cannot but confider the beneficial effects here afcribed to it, as favouring much more strongly of prejudice, than the ftoppage of the distillery, which to us, we confess, has appeared not merely a falutary, but a necessary, measure. We have bestowed more attention, and commented with greater freedom, on this tract, because our known attachment to Mr. Burke, and our known admiration of his political principles, will effectually fecure us from all imputation of prejudice against him; and because we know that every thing which comes from his pen will be read by his friends, and by the public at large, who have not the duty of critics impofed upon them, with that predilection in its favour, which too often precludes the exercise of cool reason, and deliberative judg ment. ART. ART. X. The Charge of Samuel, Lord Bishop of Rochester, to the Clergy of his Diocefe, delivered at his fecond General Vifitation in the Year 1800. Published at the Request of the Clergy. 4to. Pr. 36. 1s. 6d. Robfon. London. THE HE true Chriftian zeal and vigilance of our Prelates, exercifed at a period when zeal and vigilance are more peculiarly and more generally neceffary, than at any other period within the recollection of the oldeft man living, cannot fail to afford the highest fatisfaction to all who take a deep and active concern in the general interefts of religion, and the welfare of the established Church. If their examples were univerfally followed by the Minifters of the Establishment, if the fame fpirit, the fame fenfe of duty, pervaded every class of its members, its enemies would have little to hope, its friends but little to dread. The learned Prelate, whofe Charge is before us, begins his paftoral admonition, with a brief reference to the prefent ftate of the Chriftian world, and to the caufes by which it was produced. Here, as might be expected, his Lordship delineates, in ftrong but true colours, the characters of the French Atheifts; and accurately describes the nature and tendency of their peftiferous productions. After a general notice of the numerous vehicles, by which they have fpread the poifon, " in the most unfufpicious form, wide over the civilized world," the Bishop proceeds to particularize: "Of many inftances, which I might produce in proof of this affertion, I fhall felect only two: the one, a work univerfally known and redde; the other, from the abftrufenefs of the fubject, redde only by fcholars of a particular clafs, for by fuch only can it be redde, and known perhaps to no other: yet both works, in a scientific light, of a very fuperior caft. The onc is the famous Encyclopedie. This was undertaken by a knot of Atheists, at the fuggestion of the leader of the band, as a work which would prove highly conducive to the fuccefs of their plot, by the opportunities it would afford them, in the way in which it was propofed to them to manage it, in which indeed they have managed it, of diffeminating their own principles, of bringing darknefs, doubt, and uncertainty, upon the first principles of Religion and Morals, and of perplexing the inquifitive mind with the fubtlety of difmembered difquifition upon abftrufe metaphyfical queftions; difquifition, not given altogether, but broken into parts, and fcattered as it were in fragments through the work; care being taken, that what feems proved in one article thall feem to be confuted under another; while the reader is ftudioully referred from one to the other of these contradictory articles; that, if he is a ftudious enquirer after Truth, he may derive nothing from the most diligent confultation of these omnifcient volumes but the torment of Doubt, Mistrust, and univerfal Scepticifin. Floundering in that muddy NO. XXIX, VOL, VII, X ocean, |
