GENERAL QUERIES, &c. The following Queries are published under the hope of inviting inquiry into the subject of them, and provoking from experienced persons better information. Two assumptions lie at the bottom of them all. One is, that there exists in the country a severe and unusual degree of distress. The other is, that the Public will not look on without making an effort to relieve it. The Queries themselves all tend to draw forth an answer to this one question, What is the best method of making that effort available to the relief intended? I. WHETHER the very best relief to a labouring man be not to find him work; and the greatest charity that which is dispensed to him in wages? II. Whether in this country there can ever be a want of useful work, if there be funds to pay for it? Useful work being such as will replace in whole or in part the value of what it costs; profitable work being such as will do more than replace the whole of it. III. Whether all subscriptions, and charitable funds, &c. raised for the relief of the labouring poor, may not therefore be made a stimulus to industry, and a source in some degree of public wealth and public improvement? IV. Whether the kinds of work to be selected at this moment should not be such as either lead to an increase of the whole stock of subsistence; that is, such chiefly as are connected with the agriculture of the kingdom; or, where local circumstances render that mode ineligible, such work as would produce something of permanent use; combining with either of those objects the plan of keeping the labourers as far as possible in their usual course of employment? V. Whether a liberal bargain might not be made with small Landowners and Farmers, to bear a certain proportion of the expense of additional labour to be applied in the tillage or improvement of their farms, under the patronage of such funds: viz. to pay oneThird, or any other proportion of the charge of extra labourers; the labourers being to be appointed and engaged by the Managers of the funds? VI. Whether the aid so granted in the shape of labour, to the tillage of the country where it is embarrassed for want of capital, be not both employment to the labourer, and also, as far as it goes, an addition to the whole productive stock? VII. Whether there be not in this country an almost unlimited supply of fossil and marine manure, the prime cost of which in the material is trifling, the main charge of it being for the labour of digging or gathering it, and for transport? VIII. Whether therefore lime, chalk, marle, the mud of ponds, &c. might not be dug in great quantities, in some parts; and kept gathered and prepared in others, to be sold at such price as would invite the farmer to increase his consumption of them? IX. Whether lands might not be drained, trenched, fenced, or walled; river-courses cleansed; embankments made; public roads made, repaired, or improved; or materials for roads dug and prepared ; commodious footpaths raised: and other improvements executed, by the enterprise or partial aid of such funds; the whole or greatest cost of such works being in labour? X. Whether, if in the arrangements made with the farmer, landowner, or commissioner, for the purposes of these or similar works, he should be a party materially benefited, as well as the labourers employed in them, his collateral advantage would create any harm or objection: the object of the arrangements being to give employ to those who want it, and not to drive a profitable trade? |