3. The experience of the last year proved that fully one-fourth of
the money granted to support the labouring poor was expended on the
purchase of land, on horse labour, and on blasting rocks. Hence,
according to his estimate of the money required for the coming year,
there would be a million and a-quarter of it diverted from its intended
purpose--the relief of the destitute. "The Government cannot," he says,
"by act of Parliament compel drainage or fencing; but they can compel
the owner of land to employ the poor, and make those who refuse to
employ them on productive labour pay for their employment on public
works." Appeals to public spirit, social duties, and so forth, have no
effect; nothing will avail but an appeal to self-interest. Make it,
then, the interest of landowners who neglect their duties to employ the
destitute poor upon profitable labour, by taxing them to pay those poor
for public works--unprofitable labour. As the Labour-rate Act did
nothing of this kind, it inflicted a positive injustice on the good
improving landlord, by taxing him equally with the landlord who never
made an improvement; who, in many instances, was an absentee, forgetful
and culpably ignorant of the state of his property, his sole aim being
to get as much as possible out of it, without expending anything.
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