at present.

Mr Pitt's Poor Bill has the appearance of being framed with
benevolent intentions, and the clamour raised against it was in
many respects ill directed, and unreasonable. But it must be
confessed that it possesses in a high degree the great and
radical defect of all systems of the kind, that of tending to
increase population without increasing the means for its support,
and thus to depress the condition of those that are not supported
by parishes, and, consequently, to create more poor.

To remove the wants of the lower classes of society is indeed
an arduous task. The truth is that the pressure of distress on
this part of a community is an evil so deeply seated that no
human ingenuity can reach it. Were I to propose a palliative, and
palliatives are all that the nature of the case will admit, it
should be, in the first place, the total abolition of all the
present parish-laws. This would at any rate give liberty and
freedom of action to the peasantry of England, which they can
hardly be said to possess at present. They would then be able to
settle without interruption, wherever there was a prospect of a
greater plenty of work and a higher price for labour. The market
of labour would then be free, and those obstacles removed which,
as things are now, often for a considerable time prevent the
price from rising according to the demand.

Secondly, premiums might be given for turning up fresh land,
and it possible encouragements held out to agriculture above
manufactures, and to tillage above grazing. Every endeavour
should be used to weaken and destroy all those institutions