With regard to the increase of the poor-rate, since free trade and the new monetary system were introduced, we have the best possible authority in the following statement in the last number of a leading journal. "It appears," says the Edinburgh Review, "from Mr Commissioner Symmon's report on pauperism, that the poor-rate in England has now become heavier than it was before 1835 when the New Poor law was introduced. It was, in 1834, £7,373,807; it was in 1848, £7,817,459. Every ninth person now in England is now a pauper: and the increase of paupers during the last two years has been double in proportion to the relative numbers of criminals."[30] In Ireland, above 2,000,000 persons are paupers; and the poor-rate since 1846 has risen from £260,000 a-year to £1,900,000, though it was in the first of these years only (1846) that there was any general failure of the potato crop. In Scotland the poor-rate, has nearly tripled in the last three years; it has risen from £185,000 a-year to £560,000. In Glasgow, the poor-rates, which anterior to 1846 were under £30,000 yearly for the city and suburbs, rose in the year 1848-9 to £200,000, and in the present year (1849-50) amount to £138,500. Nor is it wonderful that assessments have increased so prodigiously, when the augmentation of paupers has been so alarming. The following is the increase in the city of Glasgow parish, being about a half of the city and suburbs, during the last three years:—
| Year. | Total number of Paupers. | |
|---|---|---|
| 1845-6, | 7,454 | |
| 1846-7, | 15,911 | |
| 1847-8, | 51,852 | |
The total number of paupers relieved in the city of Glasgow and suburbs in the year 1848-9 was 122,000; being exactly a third of the population receiving parochial relief.
The enormous and unprecedented increase of emigration in the last three years is still more alarming and descriptive of the fatal disease under which the body politic is labouring. Previous to 1846 the annual emigration had stood thus:—
| 1838, | 33,222 |
| 1839, | 62,207 |
| 1840, | 90,743 |
| 1841, | 118,592 |
| 1842, | 128,344 |
| 1843, | 57,212 |
| 1844, | 70,686 |
| 1845, | 93,501 |
| 1846, | 129,851 |
But free trade and a fettered currency soon doubled these numbers. The emigration stands thus in round numbers:—
| 1847, | 258,461 |
| 1848, | 248,582 |
For 1849 the numbers have not yet been made up; but that they have much exceeded 300,000 is well known, and may be judged of by the following facts. From the official return made up at New York, and published in the New York Herald of October 10, it appears that, up to that date, there had landed, in that harbour alone, 238,487 emigrants, of whom no less than 189,800 were Irish. If to these is added the emigrants who went to Boston—where 13,000 landed in the same period, and those who have gone to Canada, where above 60,000 landed last year—it is evident that the total emigrants from the United Kingdom this year must have considerably exceeded 300,000; being probably the greatest emigration, from any country in a single year, in the whole annals of the world. It considerably exceeds the annual increment of the population of the United Kingdom, which is about 230,000: so that, under the combined action of free trade and a fettered currency, the population of Great Britain and Ireland, which for three centuries had continually been advancing, has for the first time declined. The Free-traders may boast of an exploit which all the enemies of England have never been able to effect. This has become so notorious, that it has passed into an ordinary newspaper paragraph; which, without attracting the least attention—though it is the most striking thing that has occurred in English history for five centuries—is now making the round of the public prints.
It is in vain to put this dismal fact down to the account of the Irish famine. That occurred in the winter of 1846-7, three years ago, since which period we have had good harvests; notwithstanding which the emigration has, since that, been constantly about 250,000; and this year, in the midst of a fine harvest, has turned 300,000.
The increase of crime during the last three years has been equally alarming, and illustrative of the grievous distress which, for that period, has affected the industrial interests of the empire. Having, in the last Number of this magazine, fully discussed this subject, we shall only observe that, during the last three years, the increase of crime in the two islands has been nearly 50 per cent. Sir R. Peel, in spring 1846, when the railway mania was at its height, and full employment was given to railway labourers and mechanics in every part of the country, dwelt with peculiar emphasis and complacency on the diminution of commitments which appeared in the preceding year, as the most decisive proof of the beneficial effect of his measures in 1842. We hope he will dwell with equal emphasis on the increase of crime since that time, and draw from it the appropriate conclusion as to the wisdom of his subsequent measures.