Notes

1 For what reason is the money-holder prohibited from taking the highest interest, or premium, which he can bargain with the borrower to give? Chiefly, that he may not thus have it in his power to damp the active spirit of commerce and of industry, by levying too high a tax on the means by which it is to be exerted. Why then should not the landholder be restrained from taxing at too high a rate the means of exerting that sort of industry which is of all others the most essential to the community; and is even necessary for the salutary occupation and best condition of the greater number of its members? In restraining the interest of money, the legislatures of most countries have not feared to impose a check on the free enjoyment of the reward of industry in its most recent form; for that reward in its first accumulation, and nearest to the sources, consists always of money, to be lent out at interest, which is afterwards converted into property in land.

All other kinds of property, as that of the money-holder in his cash, of the inventor in his inventions, even that of the writer in his books, are limited and regulated, by the consideration of what is supposed to tend to the greatest public utility: why ought not then the property of the landholder in his lands, which is the most extensive and most important of all, be submitted to restrictions of the same tendency?

Much praise has been bestowed, and not unjustly, on the advantages of that free circulation and ready commerce which is now established in most countries of Europe. It is, indeed, extremely favourable to the industry of men, and to the provision of a supply for all their wants, that whoever possesses skill, art, or diligence of any kind, may find the materials whereon to exercise his talents at a moderate price; and may bring the produce of his labour to a free market.

This freedom is enjoyed completely by every sort of mechanic, manufacturer, and artist, excepting only the cultivator of the ground, who is of all others the most essential artisan to the welfare of the community. -- He, indeed, in many countries may now bring his produce to a free and open market, but he cannot so easily find the rude materials of his industry at a reasonable price: for he is confined in his inquiry and choice to that narrow district of country with which he is acquainted, and even to the small number of farms that may happen to fall vacant about the same time with his own: in this narrow district a monopoly is established against him in the hands of a few landholders; in this respect his situation is much inferior to that of the artisan, who can go to a cheap market wherever it is found, and can bring his rude materials from a great distance to his home; but the cultivator must carry his home to his rude materials when he has found them.

In another more important respect, the condition of the cultivator is still worse: every other artisan, when he has purchased his rude materials, becomes sole proprietor of them for ever, and whatever skill or diligence he bestows in improving or refining them, whatever additional value he gives them, no other person has any right to the whole or to any part of it. It is rarely, indeed, that the cultivator can purchase his materials on such terms; the fields he has improved he must surrender at a fixed period, and cannot separate the improvements he has made to carry them away with him. Is he not nearly in the state of a borrower of money, who, after thirty-one years' certain possession of the sum borrowed, paying regularly a large interest, should be obliged to refund the capital, and to pay along with it whatever he had gained by the use of the money, and had not thought proper to spend in his daily subsistence?

Would it not at least be fair, that if the cultivator cannot purchase his rude materials in perpetual property, he may be permitted to carry off the additional improvement he has made; or (if that cannot be separated from the original subject) entitled to require some equivalent for its value?

2 The monopoly of rude materials, indispensably requisite for carrying on any branch of industry, is far more pernicious than the monopoly of manufactured commodities ready for consumption. The monopoly possessed by landholders is of the first sort, and affects the prime material of the most essential industry.

This monopoly, indeed, cannot be said to take place in any country, until the age of military suite and services be past, and the reign of law and of order well established. Till that time the landholder stands no less in need of brave and strong men to assist and defend him, and attached to his interest, than these men stand in need of cultivable soil on which their industry may be exercised in the intervals of tumult, and from which the subsistence of their families may be procured. Each party, therefore, having a commodity to traffic, of which the other stands in need, the bargain will be made on equitable terms.

The monopoly possessed by landholders enables them to deprive the peasants not only of the due reward of industry exercised on the soil, but also of that which they may have opportunity of exercising in any other way, and on any other subject; and hence arises the most obvious interest of the landholder, in promoting manufactures.

There are districts in which the landholder's rents have been doubled within fifty years, in consequence of a branch of manufacture being introduced and flourishing, without any improvement in the mode of agriculture, or any considerable increase of the produce of the soil. Here, therefore, the landlords are great gainers, but by what industry or attention have they earned their profits? How have they contributed to the progress of this manufacture, unless by forbearing to obstruct it? and yet from the necessity under which the manufacturing poor lived, of resorting to these landholders to purchase from them the use of houses and land, for the residence of their families, they have been enabled to tax their humble industry at a very high rate, and to rob them of perhaps more than one-half of its reward.

Had the manufacturers of such districts possessed what every citizen seems entitled to have, a secure home of their own, had they enjoyed full property in their lands, would not then the reward of their industrious labour have remained entire in their own hands?

3 What it is that in England restrains the early marriages of the poor and industrious classes of men? Alas ! not the Marriage Act, but a system of institutions more difficult to be reformed; establishing in a few hands that monopoly of land by which the improvable as well as the improved value of the soil is engrossed. It is this which chiefly occasions the difficulty of their finding early and comfortable settlements in life, and so prevents the consent of parents from being given before the legal age. It is this difficulty which even after that age is passed still withholds the consent of parents, restrains the inclinations of the parties themselves, and keeps so great a number of the lower classes unmarried to their thirtieth or fortieth years, perhaps for their whole lives.

4 Let it be considered what regulations a colony of men settling in a small island, just sufficient to furnish them subsistence, by the aid of high cultivation, would probably establish in order to render the independent subsistence of each individual secure, and to prevent any one, or a few, from engrossing the territory, or acquiring a greater share than might be consistent with the public good? Just such regulations respecting property in land, it would be the interest of every state to establish at any period of its history. The supposed state of this colony, whose land, aided by the highest cultivation, is but just sufficient to maintain its people, is that to which every nation ought to aspire, as to its most perfect state; and to that state the progress of physical causes will bring it forward, if no political obstructions are interposed.

5 It has been required of the magistrate that he should with the same assiduity apply rewards to virtue as punishment to vice. The part which he has to act in I respect of these cases is very different. The natural sentiments of men are sufficient to repress smaller vices, 1 and to encourage and reward great and striking virtues; bat they are not vigorous enough to apply adequate punishment to great crimes, nor steady and uniform enough to secure due reward and regular encouragement to the common and ordinary virtues of human life. It is to great crimes, therefore, that the magistrate must apply fit punishment, and protection he must give to the ordinary virtues. Of these there is none which will stand more in need of his protection, or may be more effectually reached by his care, than industry. The cultivation of the soil is by far the most extensive and most important branch of national industry, and in 1 all respects most worthy of the magistrate's peculiar attention.

Every man, and every order of men, have their peculiar commodity, which they bring to market for the service of the community, and for procuring the means of their own subsistence. It would be injustice and oppression, therefore, in any one order to impose restrictions on any other, respecting the price they may demand for their peculiar commodity. This injustice, however, certain higher orders have attempted, though generally without success, to put in practice, on various occasions, against their inferiors -- against hired servants, day labourers, journeymen, and artists of various kinds -- by prescribing limits to the wages they are allowed to ask or to receive.

These lower classes of citizens have only the labour of their hands for their commodity, and if any is more than another entitled to the privileges of a free and equal market, it is surely that which may be accounted more immediately the gift of nature to each.

The community has a right, no doubt, to restrain • individuals from doing aught that may be pernicious or offensive: what right it can have to compel them to exert their industry for the public service, at a regulated price, may admit of question, excepting only those cases in which the safety of the State is brought into immediate and evident danger. This will not be alleged when journeymen tailors, or even farm servants, refuse to work without an increase of wages.

6 England virtually acknowledges, by the system of her poor laws, that right of common occupation of the territory of the State which belongs to every individual citizen, and has only varied, perhaps mistaken, the natural means of rendering that right effectual.

It has been common of late to complain of, and to traduce, this the most generous and the most respectable establishment of which the jurisprudence of nations can boast. It is the monopoly of landholders that renders such an establishment necessary; it is their discontent that aggravates the complaints against it. All men who can regard the interests of the poor, and of the landholders, with an impartial eye, will perceive that it is not less just than generous, and will find reason to think that it has proved highly beneficial to England, in respect of the spirit of her people.

The abuses which may have crept into this respectable system of laws, ought not to be alleged against its utility, for even in the most perverted state of the institution the abuses are fully compensated by equivalent advantages; and that they are not in a great measure rectified and removed is the fault of those only whose interest.and whose duty require them to attend to this care.

Even while they subsist, the chief abuses of the poor laws tend more to the advantage of the poor than of the rich; and of all permanent institutions, there is no other, perhaps, of which this can be affirmed.

No regulation could tend more effectually to promote a reduction of poor rates than the establishment of certain branches of a progressive Agrarian law; and it might deserve consideration, whether other methods of reducing these rates, which are attempted, and which may be supposed by the poor themselves to bear hard on the freedom of their condition, ought not to be accompanied with some establishment of that nature; which, whilst it might contribute effectually to alleviate the burden of the rates, would tend, at the same time, to convert this class of men into a new source of national wealth and of increasing force.

The great amount of the poor rates is justly imputed to this, that, whilst young and healthy, the lower classes of labourers and servants do not save their wages as they might, for the assistance of their old age. The reason why they do not save for that purpose, is supposed to be the assurance they have of being maintained by the parish when they come to stand in need of it. Another reason might be given: they do not save, because they see no probable view of obtaining by such saving a comfortable settlement, in which they may spend their old age with their families around them. " I never yet knew," says a writer who has observed them well (Farmer's Letters, p. 294), " one instance of any poor man's working diligently, while in health, to escape coming to the parish when ill or old. Some will aim at taking little farms; but if by any means they are disappointed in their endeavours, they consider the money they have already saved as of no further value, and spend it long before they really need it." Almost all of them, it may be believed, would aim at taking small farms, were the opportunities frequent, and the terms easy.

That much of the dissipation and profligacy of the poor arises from their not having a proper object of saving offered to their hopes, was surely the opinion of those who framed an excellent bill which, in 1773, passed through the House of Commons, for inviting the poor to set apart money, for the purchase of annuities, in their respective parishes and townships. .

An annuity may be a very proper object for the unmarried, and those who purpose to have none but themselves to care for; but the natural object of every young peasant is a small- farm on which he may settle with the companion of his affections, and raise a family of his own; for this object, if it appears attainable, far the greater number of them will work hard and save with economy. \ Perhaps no better reason can be given for the great increase of poor rates in England, since the reign of Charles II. (while in Wales, they remain almost the same) than the increase of manufactures and the diminished number of small farms.

7 Sumptuary laws have been frequently turned into ridicule, and not unjustly, as pretending to maintain an impracticable simplicity.'and an'unnecessary'austerity of manners, among the great body of citizens; but they deserve a very different estimation, if considered as means of directing the public industry to those exertions which may be productive of the most extensive utility, and most valuable enjoyments to the community at large.

If those persons who spend their days in^the manufactures of velvet and of lace could be induced to employ the same industry in raising grain, potatoes, and flax, would they not, by increasing the plenty of these necessary commodities, augment the real accommodation of a very numerous class of citizens? And would not the happiness thence arising more than compensate the scarcity of those frivolous refinements which may be required for the gratification of a few?

Why should it be necessary to restrain the industry which ministers to luxury? Because the industry which is productive of essential plenty is restrained. If the cultivation of the fields was laid open on reasonable terms, would not the imposition of taxes on arts and manufactures, subservient to luxury, tend to encourage the increase of useful commodities, fit for general consumption?

8 To a wise and benevolent legislature it can never appear that the free course of emigration could prove detrimental to the community over which that legislature presides. For what are the effects of a free and a brisk emigration? It operates in two ways, on two different classes of men. It betters the circumstances of all those who derive their subsistence from the produce of their labour. It impairs the circumstances of all those who are supported by a tax or impost, collected from the labour of other people. It betters, therefore, the circumstances of nine millions eight hundred thousand out of ten millions of people; it impairs the circumstances of one hundred thousand; and to a hundred thousand persons, who live partly on the produce of their own labour, and partly on a tax collected from others, the effect is indifferent.

Emigration is part of the plan pursued by nature in peopling the earth; and laws directed to oppose or restrain it may be suspected of the same absurd and unnatural tendency as laws for restraining population itself.