id not rely on parish assistance for support in case of
accidents. And that the poor employed in manufactures consider this
assistance as a reason why they may spend all the wages they earn and
enjoy themselves while they can appears to be evident from the number
of families that, upon the failure of any great manufactory,
immediately fall upon the parish, when perhaps the wages earned in this
manufactory while it flourished were sufficiently above the price of
common country labour to have allowed them to save enough for their
support till they could find some other channel for their industry.

A man who might not be deterred from going to the ale-house from the
consideration that on his death, or sickness, he should leave his wife
and family upon the parish might yet hesitate in thus dissipating his
earnings if he were assured that, in either of these cases, his family
must starve or be left to the support of casual bounty. In China, where
the real as well as nominal price of labour is very low, sons are yet
obliged by law to support their aged and helpless parents. Whether such
a law would be advisable in this country I will not pretend to
determine. But it seems at any rate highly improper, by positive
institutions, which render dependent poverty so general, to weaken that
disgrace, which for the best and most humane reasons ought to attach to
it.

The mass of happiness among the common people cannot but be diminished
when one of the strongest checks to idleness and dissipation is thus
removed, and when men are thus allured to marry with little or no
prospect of being able to maintain a family in independence. Every
obstacle in the way of marriage must undoubtedly be considered as a
species of unhappiness. But as from the laws of our nature some check
to population must exist, it is better that it should be checked from a
foresight of the difficulties attending a family and the fear of
dependent poverty than that it should be encouraged, only to be
repressed afterwards by want and sickness.

It should be remembered always that there is an essential difference
between food and those wrought commodities, the raw materials of which
are in great plenty. A demand for these last will not fail to create
them in as great a quantity as they are wanted. The demand for food has
by no means the same creative power. In a country where all the fertile
spots have been seized, high offers are necessary to encourage the
farmer to