would remain with the peasant, as a source of self-support
and independence.

All this applies chiefly to the country;--in towns, and in
the manufacturing districts, the evil could hardly be
diminished by such regulations. There would, perhaps, be no
means so effectual as that (which will never be listened to)
of taxing the manufacturers according to the number of hands
which they employ on an average, and applying the produce in
maintaining the manufacturing poor. If it should be alleged
that this would injure the manufacturers, I would boldly
reply,--"And why not injure, or rather limit, speculations,
the excessive stretch of which has been productive of so
much damage to the principles of the country, and to the
population, whom it has, in so many respects, degraded and
demoralized?" For a great many years, manufactures, taken in
a general point of view, have not partaken of the character
of a regular profession, in which all who engaged with
honest industry and a sufficient capital might reasonably
expect returns proportional to their advances and labor--but
have, on the contrary, rather resembled a lottery, in which
the great majority of the adventurers are sure to be losers,
although some may draw considerable advantage. Men continued
for a great many years to exert themselves, and to pay
extravagant wages, not in hopes that there could be a
reasonable prospect of an orderly and regular demand for the
goods they wrought {p.180} up, but in order that they might
be the first to take advantage of some casual opening which
might consume their cargo, let others shift as they could.
Hence extravagant wages on some occasions; for these
adventurers who thus played at hit or miss, stood on no
scruples while the chance of success remained open. Hence,
also, the stoppage of work, and the discharge of the
workmen, when the speculators failed of their object. All
this while the country was the sufferer;--for whoever
gained, the result, being upon the whole a loss, fell on the
nation, together with the task of maintaining a poor,
rendered effeminate and vicious by over-wages and
over-living, and necessarily cast loose upon society. I
cannot but think that the necessity of making some fund
beforehand, for the provision of those who