POOR—ALLOTMENTS OF LAND. (Hansard, 15 March 1832)

§ Mr. Weyland

had to propose a measure fur the amelioration of the condition of the labouring classes of society, and when it was considered that he addressed a British House of Commons, he might with confidence, if it were necessary, call for a large share of their patience and attention. He very much lamented that the successive Administrations who had governed the affairs of this country had been deterred, by an exaggerated view of the difficulties involved, in the subject, from taking an enlarged and comprehensive view of the interests of this all-important class of the community, and from laying down fixed principles upon which their conduct towards them ought to be regulated. He did not state this as matter of accusation and reproach against these Administrations, and least of all against the present Government. He knew well the pressure under which they acted in that louse, from what were called the great interests of the country, and that they were often precluded from adopting measures which their hearts and consciences would approve with respect to the labouring classes; in fact, that they were too frequently compelled to pay exclusive attention to the pounds, neglecting the 287 pence—thereby reversing the old proverb, which concentrated the wisdom of ages, that if you will only take care of the pence, the pounds will take care of themselves. There never was a more true axiom propounded in politics than this—that no commonwealth could be in a safe and satisfactory state which was not based upon the solid foundation of a labouring population, sound in morals, solvent in circumstances, and happy in their temporal condition. To take upon this occasion only a financial view of the question—it was idle to talk of supporting the revenues of a great and industrious community by the mere contributions of the rich, or by the purchases they could make of taxed articles for consumption. It was the great mass of the people which ought always to be the great consumers, and who could alone be the solid supporters of the revenues of any great state. The revenue of the British empire had decreased, and was still rapidly decreasing, and, on investigating the heads under which the principle deficiency was to be found, it would be seen that the deficiency existed in those articles of general consumption of which a prospering and solvent people were the chief purchasers. If this was the melancholy fact, in what manner ought it to be met? He conceived the rule ought to be this—that, wherever the industry, intelligence, and capital of any portion of the community, had built up for themselves a thriving and prosperous source of industry and employment, it ought to be considered by a paternal Legislature and Government as a vested interest not to be lightly dealt with upon mere general and theoretical principle, but nursed as a substantial acquisition, carrying on the community in its career of happiness and prosperity. But, as in a highly commercial country like the British empire it was impossible to carry out this principle in all its strictness, because the competition with articles grown or manufactured in countries in a more simple state of society, and less highly taxed than our own, must in some degree prevail, the Legislature was reduced to a dilemma of some difficulty. It was clear, that, in proportion as these foreign articles came into competition with our own, the prices were reduced; and although consumption, and often even domestic production was increased, it was always at the expense of a great reduction of the profits of stock, and the wages of labour; and the result was, an operative 288 class more intensely worked and more scantily paid, producing turbulence, discontent, and all the wretched consequences which had lately been exemplified in almost every corner of the land. The comforts of life, according to the scale upon which the general progress of society had taught the people to estimate them, were denied to the labouring class as the due return for their labour; and the peace of society required that they should be made up from other sources. There were but two ways in which this compensation could be made, either by the degrading and debasing system of making up the deficiency of wages from the poor-rates, or by giving the people a more direct participation in the produce of the soil. The first was morally bad, and politically insufficient. The last, as experience had fully shown, was not only politically good, but was, perhaps, the only system still left, by which the moral welfare, the real independence, and the temporal happiness of the labourer might really be promoted. The measure he had to propose was a step, and he lamented to say, a short step in this desirable progress—but it was such a step as an humble individual like himself might hope to succeed in urging, in the expectation that, should it be found a safe and a firm step, those who alone could have the power of forming a further progress, might at length betake themselves to that salutary course. He would endeavour to explain, very briefly, the object of the measure he had to propose to the House. As he understood that the introduction of it would not be opposed, he would not anticipate the objections which in a future stage might, perhaps, be made to the details of the Bill. Within the last eighty years about 4,000 Acts of Enclosure had passed the Legislature, in very many of which allotments had been made for the benefit of the poor, which now, if not entirely useless, did at least produce much less benefit than they would confer, if industrious cottagers of good character were allowed to occupy them at a fair rent, in such small portions as would enable them to bestow their superfluous time on the cultivation of them, and to carry home the produce to increase the comforts of their domestic establishments. He should not go beyond the truth in saying, that the occupation of three-fourths of an acre by an industrious cottager would just make this difference in his condition; that, instead of being a dependent upon the parish 289 rates in case of accident, or of his having a large family of children, he would not only be able to subsist in comparative independence, but would have the means of training up his family in those habits of industry, sobriety, and self-dependence which heretofore formed so remarkable a feature in the character of our English peasantry. These were the main objects of the Bill which he now ventured to propose to the House; and, as he was not to be met by a negative from his Majesty's Government, he trusted that he should experience the same forbearance from those hon. Gentlemen who, too frequently opposed to measures of this description, the strict and stringent principles of the science which they were pleased to call political economy. He venerated those principles in the abstract, and thought that no man who presumed to meddle with political affairs ought to be ignorant of them. But it was an indolent sort of statesmanship that would apply them without inquiry to our complicated state of society, the prosperity of which had been gradually built up before those principles were fully known and developed; so that the chain which bound it together would be fatally shattered by the rude shock which the indiscriminate application of those principles would be liable to inflict. To Gentlemen of this way of thinking he would humbly submit a quotation from Lord Bacon, who said:— There are counsellors and statesmen which can make a small state great, and yet cannot fiddle—i. e. make fine speeches, nothing in substance, but in tone as the sounding brass and the tinkling cymbal; as, on the other side, there will be found a great many that can fiddle very cunningly, but yet are so far from being able to make a small state great, as their gift lieth altogether the other way; to bring a great and flourishing state to ruin and decay. But let counsellors and governors be held in any degree negotiis pares able to manage affairs; be the workmen what they may, the work is the main object, that is the true greatness of kingdoms and estates, and the means thereof. If, then, the true greatness of kingdoms and estates depended upon a good moral and political condition of the mass of the people, it might be worth inquiry how far preceding governments and Legislatures had or had not been a little too much addicted to fiddling; and if so whether the House now had not better throw away the violins and betake itself to the more serious and practical inquiries which the times de- 290 manded. He should beg to move for leave to bring in a Bill to authorise (in parishes inclosed under any act of Parliament) the letting of the poor allotments in small portions to industrious cottagers, and to extend the provisions of the Acts 1st and 2nd William 4th, cap. 42 and 59.