But the complaints of these persons against you are the more
unreasonable, because they say not a word against the sums paid to
sinecure placemen and pensioners. Of the five hundred and more
Correspondents of the Board of Agriculture, there are scarcely ten who
do not complain of the weight of the Poor-rates, of the immense sums
taken away from them by the poor, and many of them complain of the
idleness of the poor. But not one single man complains of the immense
sums taken away to support sinecure placemen, who do nothing for their
money, and to support pensioners, many of whom are women and children,
the wives and daughters of the nobility and other persons in high
life, and who can do nothing, and never can have done anything for
what they receive. There are of these places and pensions all sizes,
from twenty pounds to thirty thousand and nearly forty thousand pounds
a year! And surely these ought to be done away before any proposition
be made to take the parish allowance from any of you who are unable to
work, or to find work to do. There are several individual placemen,
the profits of each of which would maintain a thousand families. The
names of the ladies upon the pension list would, if printed, one under
another, fill a sheet of paper like this. And is it not, then, base
and cruel at the same time in these Agricultural correspondents to cry
out so loudly against the charge of supporting the unfortunate poor,
while they utter not a word of complaint against the sinecure places
and pensions?
The unfortunate journeymen and labourers and their families have a
right, they have a just claim, to relief from the purses of the rich.
For there can exist no riches and no resources which they by their
labour have not assisted to create. But I should be glad to know how
the sinecure placemen and lady pensioners have assisted to create
food and raiment, or the means of producing them. The labourer who is
out of work or ill, to-day, may be able to work, and set to work
to-morrow. While those placemen and pensioners never can work; or, at
least, it is clear that they never intend to do it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account