law_." Well, then, if the salvation of the people
be the first law, the _salvation of life_ is really and bona fide the
salvation of the people; and, if the ordinary laws may be dispensed with,
in order to obviate a possible and speculative danger, surely they may be
dispensed with, in cases where to dispense with them is visibly,
demonstrably, notoriously, necessary to the salvation of _the lives_ of
the people: surely, bread is as necessary to the lips of the starving man,
as a new law could be necessary to prevent either house of parliament from
being brought into _contempt_; and surely, therefore, _Salus populi
suprema lex_ may come from the lips of the famishing people with as much
propriety as they came from those of the Lord Chancellor!

53. Again, however, I observe, and with this I conclude, that we have
nothing to do but to adhere to the poor-laws which we have; that the poor
have nothing to do, but to apply to the overseer, or to appeal from him to
the magistrate; that the magistrate has nothing to do but duly to enforce
the law; and that the government has nothing to do, in order to secure the
peace of the country, amidst all the difficulties that are approaching,
great and numerous as they are; that it has nothing to do, but to enjoin
on the magistrates to do their duty according to our excellent law; and,
at the same time, the government ought to discourage, by all the means in
their power, all projects for maintaining the poor _by any other than
legal means_; to discourage all begging-box affairs; all miserable
expedients; and also to discourage, and, where it is possible, fix its
mark of reprobation upon all those detestable projectors, who are hatching
schemes for what is called, in the blasphemous slang of the day,
"_checking the surplus population_" who are hatching schemes for
_preventing the labouring people from having children_: who are about
spreading their nasty beastly publications; who are hatching schemes of
_emigration_; and who, in short, seem to be doing every-thing in their
power to widen the fearful breach that has already been made between the
poor and the rich. The government has nothing to do but to cause the law
to be honestly enforced; and then we shall see no starvation, and none of
those dreadful conflicts which the fear of want, as well as actual want,
never fail to produce. The bare thought of _forced emigration_ to a
foreign state, including, as it must, a _transfer of all alleg