of 1820 and 1821; the former 66s. 9d. the latter 65s. 11d. per quarter. I therefore take the average of the years 1802-3 and 1814-15, as coming the nearest, in respect of the price of provisions, to the present time, and to what may be considered as the average of ordinary years. The number of persons who received relief from the rate (average of 1802-3 and 1814-15,) was thus:- Permanently relieved in workhouses, 85,010; permanently relieved out of workhouses, 345,350; occasionally relieved, 341,517. Now it is evident those persons did not receive relief equal to their entire subsistence during the period relief was afforded them, much less throughout the year. The greater number of those described as 66 permanently relieved in workhouses," were perhaps entirely subsisted throughout the year from the rate; some, but not many, of those " permanently relieved out of workhouse," were also subsisted entirely from the rate, but certainly the far greater part received only partial subsistence from that fund, and none of those "occasionally" relieved were wholly subsisted even during the period they received relief; for the great majority of persons" relieved out of workhouse," and "occasionally relieved," received such relief in aid of wages or other means of subsistence. I therefore assume That those "permanently relieved Persons. 85,010 172,675 83,379 Total, equal to entire subsistence throughout the year for 343,064 adults. The amount of rate applied to the relief of the poor, average of the years 1802-3 and 1814-15, was 4,748,3681. sterling. The actual amount of rate expended in relief of the poor in 1814-15, was 5,418,8451., and it regularly increased to 7,890,1487. in the year 1817-18, and again gradually declined to 6,358,703% in the year 182122. The average price of wheat in the former period, 1802-3 and 1814-15 was, as before obVOL. II. R served, very little above the average prices of 1820 and 1821; and making every allowance for the small difference in the price of provisions, I think I may conclude that the number of persons relieved from the rate is relatively as great now as it was in the years 1803 and 1815. If the expence of subsistence be nearly the same as in 1803 and 1815, the number of adults, with their families, which the amount of rate paid in relief in 1822 would have wholly subsisted throughout the year, would have been 459,408; but if the average of the three most favourable years of the last twenty-five, 1803, 1815 and 1822, be deemed as coming nearer to the truth, it will give the number of adults as 401,236. And as it appears from the Population Returns of 1821, made to parliament,* that the relative proportion of persons in every one hundred of the population is forty-nine under twenty years of age, and fifty-one upwards of twenty years of age, there will be 385,501 children and persons under twenty years of age, making the number which the poor's rate will wholly subsist throughout the year, adults and children, 786,737 souls. And if one-eighth be allowed for aged and impotent poor, there will * See Enumeration and Population Abstracts, July 2, 1822. remain 688,355 persons, or 140,481 families (at 41% persons each family, that being the average of the families of England and Wales,) subsisted by poor's rates, who ought to be subsisted by the wages of labour. Two principal causes concur in compelling the labouring population to come on the rate for subsistence, the inadequacy of the fund from which the wages of labour is derived; and the reduction of wages of labour by reason of an excessive supply. The former cause is certainly the principal one, the latter is but a consequence of the former. If we could discover the precise degree in which each operates, we could then ascertain the exact excess of the labouring population; for in the same proportion as the fund, from which the wages of labour is derived, is inadequate to the subsistence of the labouring population, is that population excessive? (By excessive labouring population, I would be always understood to mean such a population as the wages of labour will not maintain.) There are, however, no data by which we can arrive at this discovery, and we can only form a conjecture, perhaps not very wide of the truth, that the former of these two causes operates to double the extent of the latter; that is, that the fund from which the wages of labour is derived is inadequate to the subsistence of the labouring population by 93,654 families, containing 458,903 souls, and an expence, to other funds, in the shape of poor's rate, of 3,277,8907.; and that the excessive supply of labourers produces an over-competition and consequent reduction in the wages of labour below its fair rate, so as to bring on the rate an expence equal to the subsistence of 46,287 families, containing 229,452 souls, and amounting to 1,638,9457. sterling. Although it may not be practicable for the entire, or any very considerable part of the estimated redundant families to emigrate at once, or in a very short period of time, yet it is necessary that such a number shall emigrate as will gradually carry off all the redundant population; and in order to do so, the number should annually be, at least, so much greater than the annual increase of that redundance, as not only to keep it down, but to reduce and finally carry it off. Now the average of annual births in England and Wales is as "one in every thirty-five," and of deaths, as one in every forty-eight" of the population; there will be in the estimated redundant population of 458,903 souls 13,111 births and 7,912 deaths annually, and the difference, 5,199, will be the annual increase. Supposing, therefore, five thousand families, consisting of 25,000 souls, to emigrate |