relating to corporations, apprenticeships, etc., which cause the
labours of agriculture to be worse paid than the labours of trade
and manufactures. For a country can never produce its proper
quantity of food while these distinctions remain in favour of
artisans. Such encouragements to agriculture would tend to
furnish the market with an increasing quantity of healthy work,
and at the same time, by augmenting the produce of the country,
would raise the comparative price of labour and ameliorate the
condition of the labourer. Being now in better circumstances, and
seeing no prospect of parish assistance, he would be more able,
as well as more inclined, to enter into associations for
providing against the sickness of himself or family.

Lastly, for cases of extreme distress, county workhouses
might be established, supported by rates upon the whole kingdom,
and free for persons of all counties, and indeed of all nations.
The fare should be hard, and those that were able obliged to
work. It would be desirable that they should not be considered as
comfortable asylums in all difficulties, but merely as places
where severe distress might find some alleviation. A part of
these houses might be separated, or others built for a most
beneficial purpose, which has not been infrequently taken notice
of, that of providing a place where any person, whether native or
foreigner, might do a day's work at all times and receive the
market price for it. Many cases would undoubtedly be left for the
exertion of individual benevolence.

A plan of this kind, the preliminary of which should be an
abolition of all the present parish laws, seems to be the best
calculated to increase the mass of happiness among the common