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    may say to another , We do not want your labour , ' that other class may retort , ' We do not want your idleness . ' An exclusive right of inheritance in the food-producing earth , and a right to the means of sustaining life ; that is to say , private property and a poor law , are correlative principles . The one involves the other . It is as unjust as it is heartless , to tell starving men that there is no

    cover for them at Nature ' s table . It frees them from the obligation of respecting covers or seats , and legitimates a scramble . It is true that ' property must be protected from plunder ; ' it is not less true that humanity must be protected from starvation . The last must is quite as potent as the first . Happily the same means tend to the accomplishment of both purposes . If the wealthy keep the principle of the poor laws always in view , there will be little occasion for it ever to come into practical operation .

    It has been long understood that Ministers were concocting some measure of Poor Law Reform * They will probably lop off the grosser abuses , and nibble at the principle . That they will have wisdom and vigour enough to go to the root of the evil is beyond all hope . In fact they have already manifested their hostility to much of what we deem essential . A revision of the Corn Laws

    is got rid of , for the present session . They have declared themselves ready to resign sooner than remove the pressure of taxation from trade and industry to property . For free trade they may do something ; for the freedom of labour they have yet achieved , and apparently meditated little . In Church Reform , their great points seem to be the commutation of tithes , and the abolition of

    pluralities . Probably they will allow dissenting ministers to marry their people in their own chapels , and bury them in the parish church-yard , by way of propitiating the denominations . But all this will do little towards rendering the Church a great national good . The taxes on knowledge they have resolved to retain . The

    Reform Bill is their god Terminus . The magistracy they could amend if they would . And on the only remaining topic , Emigration , we see no reason to expect more than the timid , compromising , inefficient procedure , by which their whole policy is characterised .

    What hope , then , is there for the poor , and through them , for Society ? None , wave that which' Miss Martineau has indicated in the passage quoted from her preface , that the amelioration must sooner or later follow the exposure of the evil . There we rest ; not on Whig patriotism , but on public opinion . And our gratitude , and that of the public , is due to Miss Martineau , for the ability and benevolence with which she has co-operated in making the

    exposure . We look forward with interest to her exposition of the remedy . It is not , however , with perfect satisfaction that we regard this publication . We regret that Miss Martineau should have allowed her own attention , and that of the public , to be detracted from

    Untitled Article

    Poor Law * and Paupers . 875

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1833, page 375, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2616/page/15/