DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0070
54 INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL HISTORY.
ready for does not come within the range of practical politics. I
do not find fault with them for their hesitation. They have to
consider what they can do, and they know that what they can do
will be certainly criticized adversely, even by those who if they
were in office would imitate them exactly, and claim originality
for the imitation. And then the market was won. It seemed
the height of Quixotry to vindicate the freedom of the seas and
the freedom of the market for those who had taken no part in the
struggle. And then sliding inevitably into the pernicious doctrine
that private advantage is a public benefit, they complacently put
the cost of acquisition on one set of shoulders, extracting the
charge from other people's pockets, and coolly, and almost with
conscious virtue, shovelled the gains of the acquisition into their
own.
As population grew towards the close of the eighteenth century
so it sank deeper and deeper into misery. In Gregory King's time
the workmen who, even in these remote times, were seen to be in
some shadowy way the sole creators of wealth, were, notwith-
standing, declared by that acute reasoner to be a burden on the
wealth of the country, because without assistance from the poor
rate, the wages paid them were insufficient for their support.
Their lot was lightened greatly during the first sixty or seventy
years of the eighteenth century, for the new agriculture procured
abundance, and, as is always the case, wages rose during those cheap
times. But at the end of the century their misery was as marked
as their earlier and temporary asfluence. It became necessary, so
insusficient was the pittance which was paid them, to quarter
them permanently on the rates under the allowance system. But
no one seems to have dreamed of the machinery which had
beggared them. Sir Frederic Eden, with the most appalling
facts before him, wrote the history of the poor, collected the
justices' assessments as far as he could, and calmly surveyed the
surface, not giving the slightest heed to the manifest causes of the
situation.
I have done my best to make people better informed. The,
misery of the poor Avas the deliberate act of the legislature, of
the justices' assessments, of the enclosures, the appropriation of
commons, and the determination, as Mr. Mill has said, on the
ready for does not come within the range of practical politics. I
do not find fault with them for their hesitation. They have to
consider what they can do, and they know that what they can do
will be certainly criticized adversely, even by those who if they
were in office would imitate them exactly, and claim originality
for the imitation. And then the market was won. It seemed
the height of Quixotry to vindicate the freedom of the seas and
the freedom of the market for those who had taken no part in the
struggle. And then sliding inevitably into the pernicious doctrine
that private advantage is a public benefit, they complacently put
the cost of acquisition on one set of shoulders, extracting the
charge from other people's pockets, and coolly, and almost with
conscious virtue, shovelled the gains of the acquisition into their
own.
As population grew towards the close of the eighteenth century
so it sank deeper and deeper into misery. In Gregory King's time
the workmen who, even in these remote times, were seen to be in
some shadowy way the sole creators of wealth, were, notwith-
standing, declared by that acute reasoner to be a burden on the
wealth of the country, because without assistance from the poor
rate, the wages paid them were insufficient for their support.
Their lot was lightened greatly during the first sixty or seventy
years of the eighteenth century, for the new agriculture procured
abundance, and, as is always the case, wages rose during those cheap
times. But at the end of the century their misery was as marked
as their earlier and temporary asfluence. It became necessary, so
insusficient was the pittance which was paid them, to quarter
them permanently on the rates under the allowance system. But
no one seems to have dreamed of the machinery which had
beggared them. Sir Frederic Eden, with the most appalling
facts before him, wrote the history of the poor, collected the
justices' assessments as far as he could, and calmly surveyed the
surface, not giving the slightest heed to the manifest causes of the
situation.
I have done my best to make people better informed. The,
misery of the poor Avas the deliberate act of the legislature, of
the justices' assessments, of the enclosures, the appropriation of
commons, and the determination, as Mr. Mill has said, on the