ELIZABETH had been in force for | poor-rates? The poor-rates in two hundred and fifty years with- 1815 amounted, he says, to out producing a charge for rates 6,000,000 and odd pounds: and, of more than about forty pounds did not the taxes amount to more a year to each parish, that is to than 60,000,000 of pounds. ? say, not more than the amount Now, then, let us see how the of the then wages of two able la-Labourer has been affected by this bouring men; when he had showed taxing and paper-money system. this, one might have expected I have recently shown, in my him to endeavour to account for Letter to Mr. Attwood, how the the change, and to shew why it labourer has been robbed since was, that the rates, since 1750, the days of TULL; but, I will had risen to six millions, instead now take a little later period. It of remaining at their then amount will be seen by a reference to that of 600,000 and odd pounds. letter, that, in the time of TULL, This, which is every thing; this the labourer received 6s. a week, which is the all-in-all in the case, and that wheat was then 35. a the Lawyer wholly omitted; and bushel. Now, in 1815, the this, therefore, I shall supply. wages had not been doubled in the same county; and the wheat, on an average of years for many years before 1815, had been at about 12s. a bushel, which is four times the price in the time of TULL. But, besides this, his taxes have been tripled. detail of the effects of this infernal system of paper-money upon the labourer will be seen in Appendix No. III., which was written by the late Mr. BAVERSTOCK of ALTON, Hampshire, and who took the materials from account books of his father's, in his possession. It was published in the Register of 14th of Oct. 1809. The following table from it will show how the English labourer has been treated, and will also show the true cause of the increase of the poor-rates. The cause of the increase, as it is called, but which, in fact, it is not, as I shall clearly shew by and by; the cause has been the measures of an unwise and extravagant government laying enormous taxes, and using, at the same time, a paper-money system, which has continually been oppressing the English labourer more and more heavily; deducting from his wages the means of carrying on wars, of paying pensioners and placemen, of paying the interest of loans, of paying even the very poor-rates themselves, and, in addition to all the rest, making him contribute largely, as I shall shew fully, another time, towards the support of the poor in Scotland. The Lawyer begins with the year 1750. Then the poor-rates amounted to 689,971 pounds in the year. And, the whole of the taxes of that year amounted to 9,250,501 pounds. Was not this, even this, a thing to be stated, when a man was wanting to put a stop to the "evil" of increasing 1760. COMPARISON. The Cheese per pound Malt per bushel 0 0 0 3 Butter per pound Soft sugar do. Soap & candles do. 0 0 Do. women's 0 0 6 -0 I 6 0 03-0 0 10 0 5 0 3 4-0 0-10 to work, to get the same articles, 6-0 12 0 almost NINETEEN DAYS! Thus, then, in the year 1809, 6 0 13 the English labourer was in such 0-0 12 0 a state that he was robbed of one 0 076 half of his earnings, compared £1 05-2 16 9 with his state of 1760. Talk of increase of poor-rates indeed! Here is the truth; here is the The thing now called poor-rates real cause of the increase of the is a fund first taken from the lapoor rates. Here, you see, that, bourer's wages, and then given in 1760, when the late king came back to such poor souls as would to the throne, the husbandry La- actually perish without relief. bourer had to work not quite Neither landlords nor farmers nor three weeks to get this list of ar- any body but the Labourers of ticles; but, when the Jubilee was various descriptions have sufkept, the Labourer had to work fered from war and taxation and almost six weeks to get this list of loans until now. And now, when the necessaries of life! I beg the Labourer begins to take a you to read the whole article, in step back again towards happiNo. III. of the Appendix, and ness, we have project upon proto join me in revering the me- ject for the cure of " Agricultural "Distress." mory of the humane author, who The farmers gót put upon paper these proofs of rich, the landlords got rich, the the oppression of the infernal fundlords, the lords of the loom paper-money system. Observe, and of the anvil; they all got that a man does not want a pair rich; and, oh, what a “rich naof shoes so often as he wants a "tion" it was! What a "deal bushel of flour and a pound of" of capital." But all came out bacon and a bushel of malt. of the flesh and blood and bones These, and the cheese and butter of the Labourers, and particularly are his living. In summer he the English Labourers in husbanwants no candles, and in winter dry, who were chained to the spot little in amount compared with and the plough, and who had no his bread and meat. Now, then, means of combining, of turning observe. out, or of making, in any way, a stand against the horrible oppression. 1760 1809. s. d. s. d. Bushel flour 5 10 -16 8 The whole number of these labourers, taking in the labour of women and boys and girls, and allowing a certain portion of their labour to be reckoned as the la- bour of a man, does not amount to less than 2,500,000. Then there are the Smiths, Wrights, Collar - makers, and Country Handicrafts' men, who have all been kept down in the same pro portion. These two classes make used to endeavour to convince more than four millions, if we them, that, sooner or later, that allow something for the rather property would go to cram the less oppressed Handicraftsmen in maw of the monster. They were towns, and the rather less oppress-always for the war: they laughed ed Manufacturers. And all these at reform: and the main mass of have been receiving, one with them were always ready to peranother, on an average of the last secute, even to death, any one thirty years, or thereabouts, nine-who endeavoured to obtain that teen pounds a year each less than object. In short, their conhe ought to have received. Here stantly increasing riches naturally are nearly eighty millions a year made them like the thing that deducted from the wages of labour! puffed them up; and they felt No wonder, that Mr. BENNET of most viciously and malignantly Wiltshire (now a gentleman in towards every man who ever doors for that county) came, with made use of words in disapprobaother landlords and farmers, in tion of the system; aye, that 1814, or 1815, to a resolution same system which is now bring(afterwards put into a petition) ing them down upon their very that they had chearfully paid all knees. They were the for taxes, and were willing still to pay wardest in every thing calculated all taxes, income tax and all, if to uphold the infernal paperthe government would but secure system. Jubilees, rejoicings of them" remunerating prices !" all sorts, Pitt-Clubs, hunting No wonder; for, as long as they down, first Jacobins, and then had those prices, and gave a Radicals; in every thing of the gallon loaf and 3d. a week to kind they took the lead, having every person in a labourer's fa- the Parsons and Landlords for "mily," they well knew, that the prompters and backers-on. "Gotaxes all came out of the labour-"vernment must be supported” er's bones. was their motto; and their motive was, riches to themseves. The sort of government that was going on gave them gain; and, as to the labourer's perishing, they cared nothing about that. I beg your attention, my friend, to this remarkable circumstance. Never did the farmers, never did the landlords complain of the taxes, until now, "Give us re"munerating price," said they! Their viciousness, their spite, That is to say, in fact, enable us their malice, their brutality toto continue to deduct one half wards every one who showed a from the wages due to labour. disposition to put a stop to the I have talked to many many ruinous system were carried to farmers during the last twenty lengths perfectly monstrous. years, and I never could get but The week after I had been sent a comparatively few of them to to prison, in 1810, for remarking listen to me on the subject of the on the flogging of local-militia taxes and the Debt. Their an- men, at ELY, under a guard of swer was, “government must be Germans, with a sentence upon “supported, or else what is to my head of two years in Newgate "become of our property." If a thousand pounds fine to the king and bonds for seven years, five of tion that I state, that those farthese big farmers were spanking mers whom I have had the hapalong the road to Fareham piness to have for friends, have Market, cracking their whips, not been brought down, and will and bawling out their big talk to not be brought down, by this each other, when, coming to a change in the state of things. spot where a man of mine was They are all of them firm as rocks. putting up a fence to protect a The truth is, they have profited little plantation that I had made from my warnings: they have in the spring of that year, they been upon their guard: they have bawled out to him: "where be seen that the infernal system could "the hiron bars!" And then set not last for ever. Many, doubtup a horse-laugh to be heard for less, whom I have never persona mile. Four, out of the five, of ally known, have been friends these vagabonds, who hated me, also, and will have profited in because my conduct towards my like manner. labourers was a reproach upon them, bave, since that day, passed let me beg you, and all the Rethrough a jail, and are now formers, to bear in mind, that the crawling wretches, who would landlords and farmers never said think themselves happy to be in my service. The fifth vagabond staggers, I hear; and certain I am that Christmas will see him brought down. To return from this digression, a word against the Debt and taxes as long as high prices lasted; that is to say, as long as the taxes came out of the sweat of the labouring man. Paper-money was However, let me be just all the finest thing in the world. It through. If I have known brutes created such "prosperity." It like these amongst the farmers, made roads and canals and bridges I have known, and I still know, and new enclosures. It found out and am sure I always shall know, such lots of new manures. It enmany of a different description. closed all the wastes. And, so it Amongst farmers I count my best did; but, not by conjuraand most beloved friends. The tion; not by witchcraft; but by most sensible and best men that I deductions made from the meals have known, either in Americà of the millions; by making the or in England, were and are millions go half-naked; by makfarmers, and large farmers too. ing the millions sit shivering in Their pursuits I delight in. The the cold; by making the millions natural turn of their conversa- creep under rugs laid on beds of tion is what I perfer to all others. straw. Their very calling and state of As for the correctness of the life are calculated to make strong above table, we all know that the and wise and good men; to put a part relating to 1809 is correct; sound mind into a sound body. and, we have only to look at Such the farmers of Old England TULL's prices of 17 years before were, and, nothing but the in- (see letter. to ATTWOOD) to be fernal Pitt system of paper-mo- satisfied that Mr. BAVERSTOCK'S ney could have changed their cha- prices are correct; and, indeed, racter. It is with great satisfac- they are much less favourable to with ers did not go, as I did after an absence from the scenes of about twenty years, into the Labourer's dwelling, and see the misery, which had there come to oust the neatness and happiness which I had, in those dwellings, formerly beheld! the labourer than TULL's were. I never did after 1803) how such In fact, I myself remember prosperity could co-exist almost all the prices. I myself such taxation. But, these wonderremember the gallon loaf at 9d. and I was not born till 1766. I remember mutton at 4d. I remember bacon at 6d. And I never knew the wages so low as 7s. Hundreds of thousands of men, now alive, know, from memory, the thing to be true. But, if this be not true, let some Lawyer or some Parson show us the contrary. They cannot, and they dare not attempt it. The clock was gone; the brass kettle was gone; the pewter plates were gone; the beerbarrel was gone; the brass candlesticks were gone; the warming No wonder, then, that the big-pan was gone; the brass-topped farmers mounted their hunting dog-irons were gone; the halfhorses, and that Pianos got into dozen silver spoons and the two their houses. No wonder that they table spoons were gone; the feanever sought, and do not now ther bed was gone; the Sundayseek, for a reduction of taxes or coat was gone! All was gone! for any thing but high price. No How miserable, how deplorable, wonder that they were "loyal," how changed that Labourer's and that they were ready to run dwelling, which I, only twenty their swords down the throats of years before, had seen so neat all the poor creatures that were and so happy! "disaffected." No wonder that they burnt Tom Paine" in effigie, and felt such a holy zeal against "blasphemers." No wonder that the upstarts called the labourers "the peasantry," and made them stand, cap-in-hand, trembling before them. Some will say, and they' have had the assurance to say, that these pictures of misery are false; or, at least, greatly exaggerated; and that the Labourers are as well, or nearly as well off, as they formerly were. Now, then, observe, that, in 1743, we have Lawyers, Attorneys, Parsons, indubitable testimony, the lowest Landlords, Lords of the Loom labouring man earned two bushels and of the Anvil, Bankers and of the best wheat in a week; and Fundlords, all throve. New houses that this was his common pay. rose up every where. Scrip- Pray mark what I am going to castles started out of the earth. say. This was the state of the London was enlarged and embel- Labourer in 1743. When we lished. The wars went on. Sub-come to 1760, then we find, from sidies boundless were squandered. Mr. BAVERSTOCK's Table, that Even the printing for the Parlia-the Labourer earned in a week ment has cost a million or two. only a bushel and two fifths of Secret Service grants have wheat. Now, mind, in 1743, amounted to millions since the there was but very little pawar began. The world wondered, per money; for, no notes had ever nd we ourselves wondered (Ilbeen issued under TWENTY |