pend on the people. The second is, that the clergy, of both communities, seem perfectly to accord in minor matters. The Protestant clergy use churches which were formerly Catholic; the cross and other symbols still remain. No clergyman here can envy the wealth of another of a different denomination, nor can the flock of any one say, that the minister of the other spends his days in indolence, and his nights in debauchery; in fox hunting at home, or at watering places abroad; the supplies for which are drawn, by rigorous laws, from the produce of their own labour, though they receive not any spiritual consolation as an equivalent.— There is, however, a country which (permits a despicable faction to) boast of its glorious constitution, and suffers such anomaly to exist. This is not Holland." No; Holland is not foolish enough, nor wicked enough, wilfully to prevent the developement of her natural resources, and keep a large proportion of her people in a miserable and discontented state, for the gratification of a malignant faction at home, and the accomplishment of the hopes of her bitterest foreign enemies. Holland, and her continental neighbour, France, and the members of the Un-Holy Alliance, together with the North American republicans, well know, that union is strength; and secretly rejoice to see the inhabitants of the natural garrison of Eu

rope, (the Britannic isles,) divided and discontented, and ready to deliver up an important part of the citadel to their common enemies; but, for that concealed motive, we should have had the demands for the abolition of negro slavery indignantly met by counter-demands for the abolition of Catholic slavery.

Mr. Malthus very complacently talks of the "evil effects of the poor laws," reiterating the assertion in almost every page. We here, once for all, defy him to prove his assertion, concerning the nature of those effects, always excepting the wilful abuse of those laws, by aristocratical, hierarchal, and squirarchal, justices of the peace; because, those abuses cannot honestly be exhibited as effects of the poor laws.

CHAPTER XII.

"CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT."

"THE increasing portion of the society, which has, of late years, become dependent upon parish assistance, together with the increasing burden of the poor rates on the" capitalists and labourers,* has, of course, drawn the public attention strongly to this subject. And wicked, interested, and mistaken men, perceiving this, instead of honestly stating that it is solely caused by the pressure of taxation on the labourers and capitalists, have asserted and taught, that it is owing to the legal provision for the poor. "The distress, which followed the peace of 1815, was entirely owing to the previous and subsequent measures of Government, or rather to the domineering influence of the landed interest, by which a redundant population having been excited into existence,

* Mr. Ricardo has clearly demonstrated the falsehood of the assertion, that poor rates fall peculiarly on land rent.

was thrown, by the peace, upon the rest of the community. This happened at the time, when, owing to the cessation of the expenditure of borrowed capital, the increase of taxation on labour, and the repeal of that on property, a large portion of the people was deprived of profitable employment, and yet compelled to pay the former amount of taxation, greatly increased, moreover, by the approximation to a sound currency. All this could not fail to occasion "a great and sudden pressure on the poor rates," which then became the only means of preserving the lives of a large portion of an invaluable population; yet, the inhuman men, who perceived this good effect of legal provision for the poor, called out louder than ever for its abolition; and, with the most barefaced impudence, asserted, that neither taxation nor corn-bills had any thing whatever to do in the case, and that the distress was all owing to the poor themselves! More just and enlightened views of the subject are (however) daily gaining ground, so that, ere long, the defenders and promulgators of such opinions will come to be considered in their true characters of "traitors to the real interests of the State."

Mr. Owen's plan or new view of society is here taken a second time into Mr. Malthus's consideration; but he is fully determined to

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allow no plan but his own; and, therefore, sets Ahriman or the evil Principle of Population," to work on the new view; and, consequently, soon brings himself to believe, and becomes determined to make all others believe, that it is full of absurdities and optical delusions; that, in it," the orders of nature and the lessons of Providence are, in the most marked manner, reversed;" that "the idle and profligate are placed in situations which might justly be the envy of the industrious and virtuous," &c. &c. Now, if it should so happen, that Mr. Owen's plan, instead of being all this, is, by possibility, calculated to realize that state of society, which Mr. Malthus only supposed possible, in order that he might expatiate on it, like a tale of Fairy Land, or of Sinbad the Sailor, for the purpose of removing any imputation on the goodness of the Deity,* we think, that the bare possibility of its producing such a happy state of society, is enough to render it deserving of a trial. This is more than we can say for Mr. M.'s own plan of telling the labourers, that the capitalists are making undue gains by

* We have already drawn the reader's attention to Mr. Malthus's fondness for the rule of false. To clear the goodness of the Deity from any imputation cast on it by his doctrines, he makes a professedly false assumption; and then proceeds to reason, and draw conclusions from it, as though it were an undeniable truth!