both establish the rights of the know, that your masters will poor, but Christ enjoins nothing be losing by this; but, for that about tithes. they care not, if they can but

To the land, therefore, are shift the burden from their own you to look, when wages are in-shoulders. It is said, that, in sufficient; that is to say, to the some parishes, the Overseers have law for your relief; to the lawg ven part of the rates in the way made to prevent the poor from of subscription to the turn-out starving; to the parish rates, fund! If this be true, what a which is the share, which the law monstrous thing is here! This is has provided for the poor; which not charity, but malignity: it is rates were intended to supply the

ce of that taking in kind, which existed before those rates

benevolence" proceeding from the basest of selfishness. It is wholly unlawful; no man is compelled to pay rates applied to

were imposed; for, before that time, the tithes were, as far as such a purpose; and, such over- . they were wanted for that pur-seers may be, and ought to be, pose, to go to the support of the severely punished. It is very poor. The rates are no hardship laudable in you to wish to keep to the Landlord or Tenant, any fom the parish; but in this case more than tithes are a hardship. you do not so keep. You are The tithes are not the property of here receiving parish relief as a Landlord or Tenant; nor are the favour; as an alms; when you rates; they belong to the poor. might receive it as a right.

Here, then, is your remedy; The conduct of such OVERhere is your only real remedy; SEERS is, however, foolish as wel your lawful remedy for incessant as unlawful and unjust. They hunger under incessant toil. No make their parishes combine for wonder that there should be the purpose of compelling your parishes to prompt you to con-masters to give you, to their own tinue the turn-out for wages. Those who pay the rates, and who thus stimulate you, wish to keep you off the rates. They wish to make your masters pay you in a way that will keep you from the parish. They must

loss, that which you ought to have out of the rates. But, can this succeed? No: for, if the masters, who may, perhaps, be as rich as the Cotton Lords, were actually to yield, they must very soon be totally ruined. They

.

must soon become" Bag-Ho-their trade, they will carry it on: siers," and sooner after that if they cannot, they will leave the Beggars, or, at least, Paupers; trade: they will never remain to and, then, the Parishes must sup- reduce themselves to beggary, port you. But, the Lords of the for the purpose of easing the Loom are not such fools as to rates; that is to say, they will neremain in that state, 'till they be ver remain to give up their for

1

tunes for the supposed benefit of the Landlords andLand-occupiers, who have been so long profiting from the labour and care of almost

But, now, what is the cause, the primary cause, of all this turmoil; of all this unnatural

ruined. If it were possible for you to be kept out of work for any length of time; for a year, for instance; the chances are, that Lords of the Loom would all the rest of the community. quit their concern, and become gentlemen. They might come up to London, have their box within the bills of mortality, or go to strife between masters and men? France, or while away their time in For, I like these words a great some other place. They would, deal better than the newfangled probably, for the greater part, jargon of " Employer and Operabecome stock-holders; and then " "tive." When master and man they would have a fair chance of were the terms, every one was in vengeance on the "Lords of the his place; and all were free. "Soil."

Now, in fact, it is an affair of masters and slaves, and the word, master, seems to be avoided only for the purpose of covering our shame. What, I say, is the primary cause of all this unnatural

However, this is what will not happen. Some will thus retire; others will remain; stockings wil continue to be worn, and, of course, continue to be made; and you will receive, in the shape strife? To see bands of stockingof wages, as much as your masters makers prowling about from town can pay you, leaving a sufficient to town, dragging waggon loads profit to themselves; and you of coals, as is, at this moment the will, in that shape, receive no case; to see bands of their wives more, do what you will, or let and daughters, which is also actuNoblemen, Gentlemen, and Over-ally the case, dragging waggons seers do what they will for you. loaded with coals or chalk or If the masters can get a profit by stone, from town to town. To

see these things; to see you, the that is to say, false money, was ingenious and industrious people strength at the beginning and of England, prowling about in weakness at the end. I showed how begging bands, with inscriptions it worked to produce the strength, and devices to call forth charity. and how it worked to produce the To see fathers of families, engag-weakness. I supposed this case : ed in this manner, run over and here is a village of a thousand wounded, or killed, by the very inhabitants, and one gentleman. waggon, which they themselves While the gentleman confines his are dragging, as was the case expenditure to his real solid inonly last week. To behold these come, the village remains in the things, and to suppose that the state, in which it has been for cause is to be removed by a turn-ages. But, let him get a parcel out of workmen for an addition of bank-notes, no matter how, of wages, is to evince a symptom and expend them in the village, of stark madness. up rises new houses, and all is We must look for this cause suddenly in what is called a flouelsewhere than in the avarice of rishing state. This keeps on for your masters. There must be some years; and we admire this something at work far more pow-flourishing affair. But, all at erful than that. During the war once, the supply of bank notes your wages were high. During ceases; and all crumbles into dethe war they would have been cay. Some of the village are in low; but the Landlords and Bo-debt to others, and the debtors rough Lords, who are all one become paupers, while the Genbody, borrowed money and creat-leman himself loses his estate. ed first what they borrowed. This Indeed he has no longer any relieved them; for the war was right to it. He has borrowed carried on, and the country filled with money, without their contributing, in fact, any thing. In the first Register that I published after my last return to England, 1 explained to Lord Liverpool the way in which a false money works. Mr. PAINE had, before, and long before, sid, that Paper-money,

the bank-notes; and though they were intrinsically worth nothing, they obtained him labour and the fruit of labour, on which having expended the amount of his estate, the estate is no longer his. Another comes and possesses the estate; but this other cannot borrow as the gentleman did. He

lives upon the real income, and not money that the gentleman the village, blown up by an un- borrowed. It was a false thing. natural prosperity, gradually sinks It was a shuffling of paper about. back into its former state. But it answered his purpose. The This has been the case, with vagabonds, who made it for him, this nation, which is now coming were possessed of no property. back to its former state. BARING It was the representative of nohas, very recently, made use of thing valuable. But, it served this very illustration in the House his turn for the time. Those, vaof Commons, for which, in any gabonds, in the end, however, fair and honest court of criticism, get his estate; and, the village, he would be condemned to wear the "flourishing" village is the dunce's cap. I must get some going to decay.

The state of this gentleman

poet to write me a Political Dunciad, and put me all these will finally be that of all the plagiarists on a string. Spit them Landlords in England, unless they as we do small-birds, so that they cancel the bonds, unless they remay be twirled round, and de-fuse to pay the debts contracted, cently roasted. unless they refuse to surrender But, to return, the nation is their estates. The weakest will now tasting the consequences of go to the wall first; but, the turn a false-money. All classes, ex-of all will come. To be sure, it cept the tax-eaters, suffer, and is melancholy to think of the exit except the labourers in husbandry of the ancient "Lords of the and in things closely connected" Soil; " of such men as Trafwith husbandry, who do not suffer fard of Traffard, Hulton of Hulso much as they did, because ton, De Burgh of De Burgh, De they are so very near to the Dunstaville of de Basset, and the food; because it necessarily passes like, all as old as "the Conthrough their hands; and because quest," and some as old as low-price necessarily throws so Cain, or any of the much in their way, a matter the Land of Nod. fully explained in my Letters to one reflects on the sufferings of GAFFER Gooch. With these the Reformers who have been, exceptions, the whole nation suf- and who are, in dungeons, one fers, just as the village, above feels, if not absolute consolatino, supposed, would suffer. It was something else nearly as gratify

66

E

people of

But, when

ing, and as satisfactory to the mush and mash it about, and call human heart. it your own. Do not take my

Serve them up neat, as they come

from the shop, or let them alone.

Excuse me, my good friends, for this digression. When we find our property in other hands, we are very apt to stop to take it. The Landlords have, for years, been borrowing, and scattering a thing over the country which they called money. It was, as in the case of the village above supposed, not money, nor the representative of any thing of real vulue. It was, as Mr. PAINE so emphatically and truly observed, not who should lend money, but who should write his name. Beggars have become richer than Lords,

The fact is, that the Land-good, clean, solid joints, just lords have, for many years, been done and full of gravy, and borrowing in order to keep for send them forth hashed up their own speeding the incomes amongst your Dutch sour-crout. of their estates; and, BARING boldly told them the other night, that they now wanted to cheat their creditors! Oh! fie! call the great "Lords of the Soil" cheats! Fie Mr. BARING! But, robbery is as bad as cheating, and let me beg of you not to rob me any more. I like you very much. You are a bold, stirring, working blade; and you bolt out a great deal of my good stuff; but, as you are so anxious to prevent the Fund-holders from being robbed, pray have a little mercy upon me. Pay your debts to me you cannot; for you have nothing, in my way, of your own; but, you may acknowledge and have, too, partly got their them at any rate. You are worse, estates, parks and mansions alin this respect, than the Land-ready; and they will have the lords, for they do acknowledge rest. Jew Orange Boys are now. their debts; they do say, that they become great landed proprietors. borrowed the thing, though the But, the stuff, no matter what it do not seem to be disposed to was, answered, for the time, the pay. Make them pay by all purpose of money. It puffed all means; and all I ask of you is to up into prosperity, and war, alacknowledge that you have bor- ways, before, the cause of porowed of me. Take a Register verty, was now thought to create and read it to your audience, riches. Peace, as I always said with all my heart; but do not it would, put an end to the flowry