e speak of the sum of two shillings a
week. If anybody supposes that two shillings a week is the maximum
to each individual, he will be greatly mistaken. Two shillings a
head per week is the sum we endeavoured to arrive at as the average
receipt of every man, woman, and child receiving assistance;
consequently, a man and his wife with a family of three or four
small children would receive, not two shillings, but ten or twelve
shillings from the fund--an amount not far short of that which in
prosperous times an honest and industrious labourer in other parts
of the country would obtain for the maintenance of his family. I am
not in the least afraid that, if we had fixed the amount at four
shillings or five shillings per head, such is the liberality of the
country, we should not have had sufficient means of doing so. But
were we justified in doing that? If we had raised their income
beyond that of the labouring man in ordinary times, we should have
gone far to destroy the most valuable feeling of the manufacturing
population--namely, that of honest self-reliance, and we should have
done our best, to a great extent, to demoralise a large portion of
the population, and induce them to prefer the wages of charitable
relief to the return of honest industry. But then we are told that
the rates are not sufficiently high in the distressed districts, and
that we ought to raise them before we come on the fund. In the first
place, we have no power to compel the guardians to raise the rates
beyond that which they think sufficient for the maintenance of those
to be relieved, and, naturally considering themselves the trustees
of the ratepayers, they are unwilling, and, indeed, ought not to
raise the amount beyond that which is called for by absolute
necessity. But suppose we had raised the relief from our committee
very far beyond the amount thought sufficient by the guardians, what
would have been the inevitable result? Why, that the rates which it
is desired to charge more heavily would have been relieved, because
persons would have taken themselves off the poor-rates, and placed
themselves on the charitable committee, and therefore the very
object theso objectors have in view in calling for an increase of
our donations would have been defeated by their own measure. I must
say, however, honestly speaking all I feel, that, with regard to the
amount of rates, there are some districts which have applied to us
for assistance which I think