THE UNEMPLOYED TWO CENTURIES AGO.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1701, 21 February 1888, Page 4

THE UNEMPLOYED TWO CENTURIES AGO.

In the year 1628 the Rev. Robert Harris, preaching before the Judges of Assize at Oxford, predicted—what, indeed became true twelve years afterwards—that the judgment of the civil war, then desolating Germany—might visit England. England merited such a scourge, said the preacher, not on account of the sins of the King or of his opponents, not on account of the sins of the bishops or of the Nonconformists, but on account of the sin common to all parties in Church and State. This national sin, Mr Harris contended, was the cruel neglect and ill-usage of the poor, “Each complains of others,” said he, “as they did in David’s time.” He “ spotted ” four sorts of gross sinners—“ corn masters, who hold in corn, that there is such scarcity; “ inclosers,” who take the commons’ lands to be their own; “ hard landlords ” and “merchants,” whose sins he specified. What is the cure ?he asks. “ Provide,” he replies, “as David did. Provide work. The main defect in England is from want of work. It is in vain to speak of bringing down markets unless there be employment. Were barley at 2s, if men have not work ’tis all one. Therefore, you poor, be willing to work for bread. You rich, study to find work. You that have money, do not hoard it; produce, employ it. You that have land, love tillage. Men may discourse, but without tillage such a land as this of England cannot stand.” He represents some as saying : “ There is not enough money to pay so many men lor their work.” “Suppose there were less money ?” he replies. “ Pay mem in corn, bread, cloth, etc.” “ But,” say others, “ there is no work. No P Look to your fields. Were ditches scoured, marshes drained, lands ploughed, it would quite cost (pay). Look to your highways. All the poor in the country be scarce enough to lay stones in them for some weeks. “ But we have not to pay them,” say you. I answer, once for all, “ Kept they must be: better keep them working than begging or wandering.”