this I will confine myself, though not insensible to
the objection which may reasonably be brought against treating a portion
of this, or any other, great scheme of civil polity separately from the
whole. The point to which I wish to draw the reader's attention is, that
_all_ persons who cannot find employment, or procure wages sufficient
to support the body in health and strength, are entitled to a
maintenance by law.

This dictate of humanity is acknowledged in the Report of the
Commissioners: but is there not room for apprehension that some of the
regulations of the new Act have a tendency to render the principle
nugatory by difficulties thrown in the way of applying it? If this be
so, persons will not be wanting to show it, by examining the provisions
of the Act in detail,--an attempt which would be quite out of place
here; but it will not, therefore, be deemed unbecoming in one who fears
that the prudence of the head may, in framing some of those provisions,
have supplanted the wisdom of the heart, to enforce a principle which
cannot be violated without infringing upon one of the most precious
rights of the English people, and opposing one of the most sacred claims
of civilised humanity.

There can be no greater error, in this department of legislation, than
the belief that this principle does by necessity operate for the
degradation of those who claim, or are so circumstanced as to make it
likely they may claim, through laws founded upon it, relief or
assistance. The direct contrary is the truth: it may be unanswerably
maintained that its tendency is to raise, not to depress; by stamping a
value upon life, which can belong to it only where the laws have placed
men who are willing to work, and yet cannot find employment, above the
necessity of looking for protection against hunger and other natural
evils, either to individual and casual charity, to despair and death, or
to the breach of law by theft or violence.

And here, as in the Report of the Commissioners, the fundamental
principle has been recognised, I am not at issue with them any farther
than I am compelled to believe that their 'remedial measures' obstruct
the application of it more than the interests of society require.

And calling to mind the doctrines of political economy which are now
prevalent, I cannot forbear to enforce the justice of the principle, and
to insist upon its salutary operation.

And first for its justice: If self-preservation b