The
price of men for new and untried ways of life must bear a proportion to
the profits of that mode of existence from whence they are to be bought.
So far as to the stock of the common people, as it consists in their
persons. As to the other part, which consists in their earnings, I have
to say, that the rates of wages are very greatly augmented almost
through the kingdom. In the parish where I live it has been raised from
seven to nine shillings in the week, for the same laborer, performing
the same task, and no greater. Except something in the malt taxes and
the duties upon sugars, I do not know any one tax imposed for very many
years past which affects the laborer in any degree whatsoever; while, on
the other hand, the tax upon houses not having more than seven windows
(that is, upon cottages) was repealed the very year before the
commencement of the present war. On the whole, I am satisfied that the
humblest class, and that class which touches the most nearly on the
lowest, out of which it is continually emerging, and to which it is
continually falling, receives far more from public impositions than it
pays. That class receives two million sterling annually from the
classes above it. It pays to no such amount towards any public
contribution.
I hope it is not necessary for me to take notice of that language, so
ill suited to the persons to whom it has been attributed, and so
unbecoming the place in which it is said to have been uttered,
concerning the present war as the cause of the high price of provisions
during the greater part of the year 1796.
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