7

CHAPTER II.

EVIDENCES OF OVER-POPULATION IN ENGLAND AND WALES.

Kind of Evidence admissible.

Proposed Test of Overpopulation. Actual Remuneration of agricultural Labour where highest,-in Lincolnshire, Rutland, Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland; and where lowest,-in Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, Somersetshire. Condition of agricultural Labourers in Kent, Norfolk, Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, South Wales. Condition of other Labourers in rural Districts. Migration from the Country into Towns. State of Town Labourers. Their recent severe Distress. Examples of it at Stockport and other Places. - Brief Duration of this Distress. - Digression respecting the Causes from which it proceeded. Comparative Prosperity of the urban labouring Population in ordinary Times. Differences in Remuneration of different Classes of Town Labourers. — Trades' Unions. Long-continued Distress of Handloom Weavers.Sufferings of indigent Strangers in Towns; and of selfdependent Females and Children. General Conclusions as to the Extent of the Redundancy of Population in rural Districts and in Towns. Amount of Pauperism relieved by public Charity.

It follows, from the remarks made in the preceding chapter, that the only unquestionable evidence respecting the existence of over-population, is the condition of the labouring class; and this cannot be ascertained satisfactorily except by reference to the remuneration of labour. It is only when the average earnings of labourers are insufficient for their average requirements that labourers

can be safely pronounced to be too numerous. An inquiry into the evidences of over-population is therefore little more than an inquiry into the wages or other reward of labour.

Unfortunately, there is infinite diversity of opinion as to what constitutes a sufficient subsistence. No one will deny that a labourer's food, clothing, and lodging, should be such as to maintain him in health and strength; but it will not be so easily settled whether he should eat meat, wear broad cloth, and dwell in a neat cottage, or content himself with potatoes, fustian, and a mud cabin. Upon these points the reader will for the present be left to form his own judgment, but it should be clearly understood, that wages must not be merely sufficient for the subsistence of the labourer himself. In every community there are many persons physically disqualified for labour; in fact, one half of mankind are so disqualified to a certain extent by sex alone, and very young children and very old men are likewise disqualified. But where able-bodied men can earn only a bare subsistence, feebler persons are not prevented from maintaining themselves by physical weakness only. They would still be unable to earn a competent livelihood, even if they could work as well as the rest, for their competition would then reduce the wages of labour below the amount necessary for subsistence. Such a state of things has already been shown to constitute over-population. Where population is confined within proper limits, the earnings of those members of the labouring class

who can work, will suffice to maintain not only themselves, but also those who cannot work. The rate of wages ought to be such, as, supposing the care of maintaining the helpless members of their class to belong equally to all the able-bodied, would enable each of the latter to keep his fair proportion of dependents as well as himself. Now, even supposing that children above ten years of age, and women under sixty, can earn enough to defray their own expenses, there will still remain a vast number of persons who may be regarded as almost entirely helpless; for children under ten years of age, old women of sixty, and old men of seventy, are generally incapable of earning any thing worth mentioning. It was ascertained at the last census, that the number of such persons is, to the number of males between the ages of twenty and seventy, as 4,566,813 to 3,670,677, or as about 14 to 1. In England, therefore, the average earnings of an able-bodied male adult, whether married or single, ought, after supplying his own personal wants, to yield a surplus which would suffice for the subsistence of 14 other persons. If the average rate of wages be anywhere insufficient for this purpose, that part of the country may be considered to be overpeopled. is, however, no sign of over-population that a man's income is too small to allow of his maintaining a more than average family. His distress in such a case proceeds from causes peculiar to himself. It does not spring from any excess of labourers, nor, strictly speaking, from the low

It

remuneration of labour, but merely from the unusual largeness of his family, and the extreme youth or other infirmity by which an unusually large proportion of its members are disqualified from earning their own livelihood, and are rendered dependent on their parents.

The labouring population has hitherto been spoken of as if it formed only one class, but it is really divided into several, among which the rates of remuneration are far from being uniform. It might be supposed that competition would render the price of labour everywhere the same, and that the only differences in the rate of wages would arise from the superior hardship or delicacy of particular occupations. In reality, however, there are monopolies of labour as well as of other commodities. Various causes, both natural and artificial, prevent labour from flowing freely in every direction; and wherever the supply is deficient, it finds of course a better market than elsewhere. Wages, consequently, vary exceedingly in different occupations; so that, in order to represent with perfect fidelity the state of the labouring population, it would be necessary to describe each class separately. But this is neither permitted by the limits nor required by the object of this work, for the latter of which a much ruder and more hasty sketch will suffice. The working population will be treated under the separate heads of rural and urban, but many minor subdivisions, which exhibit no signs of general distress, may be altogether overlooked, and attention will be chiefly

directed to agricultural and common day labourers, and to those engaged in some branches of manufacture.

Agricultural labourers claim the first notice, as well on account of the importance of their occupation, as of their forming, with the single excep. tion of domestic servants, the most numerous class in the country. According to the census of 1841, their whole number, including women and children, in England and Wales, was 966,271; of whom 772,072 were male adults. The nature of field labour being much the same in every part of the country, it might have been expected that the earnings of agricultural labourers would likewise be everywhere pretty nearly equal; but although subject to less striking variations than wages in other departments of industry, they do really vary very materially, not only in different counties but in different parts of the same county. It may seem strange, that where wages are unusually high, they should not be immediately reduced to the common level by the migration of labourers from other quarters; but, besides that there is some foundation for Adam Smith's assertion, that "man is the least transportable species of luggage," the comparative isolation and the illiterateness of agricultural labourers prevent their knowing much of the state of affairs beyond their own neighbourhood. Moreover, until the late change in the poor-law, the laws affecting the settlement. of paupers virtually almost confined the English field labourer to his native parish; and would often