VOL. 52. No. 3.] LONDON, SATURDAY, Oст. 16, 1824. [Price 6d. Published every Saturday Morning, at Seven o'Clock. TO that a thing is any truer for being printed in a folio form, and having a blue cover upon it. If I am told that these Returns are printed by order of the House of Commons, I recollect that it is that same ON THE DOCTRINE OF SURPLUS House of Commons who, in 1809, LORD JOHN RUSSELL. MY LORD, POPULATION. : voted, as may be to-day, that it was above all things essential that the House should watch over and Kensington, 13th Oct. 1824. preserve its purity; and who, hayI HAVE before observed upon ing, as may be to-morrow, proof your Lordship's adopting this doc- at the bar tendered to it, of a seat trine of a Surplus Population; having been sold, voted (so help but the error is of such great im- me God!) that they WOULD portance, that it is necessary to NOT HEAR SUCH PROOF! eradicate it wholly, if possible. If I am told that I am to believe You do not, indeed, elaborately in the truth of these Returns belay down this doctrine of Surplus cause they are made to, and come Population; but you adopt it as forth from, the House of Commons, matter of course. The Public, if I cannot forget that this is that they gather any thing from what same House of Commons, a Reyou and your Committee say upon port of a Committee of which the subject, cannot fail to gather stated, in 1797, that the Bank of this: that the people of this king- England had not stopped paydom have greatly increased in ment for the want of means to pay numbers, and that this increase with; when, as it afterwards apis an evil. Here are two distinct peared, and came out even in a propositions, each of them of great Report to the House itself, that importance: each, therefore, shail the Bank Directors had heen receive from me some attention. "alarmed for the safety of their house;" and that the stoppage took place in consequence of the Bank Directors having applied to the Minister to protect them against their creditors! All which is fully stated and proved in Paper against First, as to the positive increase of the numbers of the people, I have over and over again proved, that the Returns on which such assertions were founded, are, unquestionably, a LIE; I have proved that they MUST be a lie. Gold. If I am bidden to believe in However, this great national lie these Population Returns because ought to be regularly exposed they come from the Lord WILonce in every year, at any rate. LIAMS and the Lord CHARLESES, I am not to be made to believe my answer is, that those Lord E Printed and Published by C. CLEMENT, No. 183, Fleet-street. CHARLESES and Lord WILLIAMS | Persons chiefly employed in voted with VANSITTART, in 1811, Agriculture... ....... ... 1,524,227 1,789,531 All other Persons, not com prised in the two preceding that a Bank of England note and a shilling were of equal value to a golden guinea of full weight; and that this same House of Lord WILLIAMS and Lord HENRYs voted, in 1819, along with VANSITTART again, that a pound note and a shilling were not equal to a golden This was what they said they guinea in 1811. The history of had got in England and Wales in this House of Commons; the his- 1801. We next come to 1811, tory of its Acts, its Votes, and all when we shall find an increase in its conduct, during the time only the Return of one million two that I have been intimately ac- hundred thousand and some odd. quainted with them, would be a But the Return-makers, and, of most invaluable work. Fools are course, the Parliament, in setting those who write lies about this House. The wise way is to write the truth about it. them to work, now made a change in the form of the Return. They stated their distribution of the persons by FAMILIES, instead of stating them by numbers of persons, as before. The former Return told us that there were so factures, &c.... .... 697,353 923,588 Families in Trade and Manu- To return to my subject; if I am told to receive these Population Returns with implicit belief, because they come forth from the House of Commons, I could give many persons belonging to each many reasons in answer in ad- class. This new Return told us dition to the above; but looking what number of families there upon those reasons as a great deal were belonging to each class. The more than sufficient to do away new Return stood thus: any weight that might be ascribed Families in Agriculture to the source of the Returns, I rely upon the internal evidence afforded by the Returns themselves, to prove that they must be false. e. I have stated the proofs of this falsehood twice before; but I will do it again now. There have been, in the whole, three Returns; the first in 1801; the second in 1811; the third in 1821. There have been Returns for Scotland as well as for England and Wales; but I shall confine myself to England and Wales. Total of Persons..9,538,827 Now, my Lord JOHN, here is a curious change in the course of ten years. In 1801, the idlers were five millions out of eight. In 1811, the families of the idlers were only three out of eighteen, or thereabouts; or, at most, four out of twenty. In 1801, the third class had nearly twice as many persons as the other two classes; but in the new Return, we find more than Your Lordship will be so good as to attend to me here; for my matter is very interesting. I am five times as many persons in about to prove, from the internal those two classes, as we find in evidence, that one of the first two the third class. Ten years before Returns must be a lie. The first there was but a million and a half Return stated the population to be of agricultural people, while there as follows: I were five millions of idlers; but now, there are almost twice as was the statement relative to the many families of the agricultural people as there are of those of the idlers! Ten years before there were only a million and two thirds of persons in trade, handicraft, and manufacture; but now, behold, there are nine hundred and twenty-three thousand famlies of trade and handicraft people, and only three hundred and ninety-one thousand families of idlers. first two classes : Trade, &c. ........... : 1,524,227 1,789,531 3,313,758 Add a scventh..473,394 Total number of the two first Now, my Lord JOHN, which was the lie? Of these two Returns, Thus, then, there were, in these which was the lie? That one is a two classes, at the time when the lie, nobody can attempt to call in last Return was made out, the question. The most brutal people last stated number of persons; that ever yet lived, the newly-im- that is to say, 3,787,152. Now, ported negroes, who do not know then, for the proof of the lie if when they are cut with a knife, the first Return were true, and the why it is that they should feel last Return also, there must, in pain; brutes like these could 1811, have been amongst the la never be made to believe that both these Returns were true, though they were both printed, under votes of the Lord JOHNS and Lord CHARLESES, and both came forth on foolscap paper, with a cover the colour of he Windsor Uniform. bouring and trading classes, only TWO PERSONS and the third part of another person TO EACH FAMILY; that is to say, my Lerd, not quite seven persons, including lodgers, to three families. No children amongst farmers, tradesmen, artisans, labourers! Oh! the scandalous lie! and even the stupid lie! Let us, however, put down the figures; for this lie must be expo A saucy scoundrel, with his pocket full of the public money, and his skull full of Scotch conceit, said that he would undertake to make any Roman Catholic believe that black was white. Very sed and exploded. The people well, Scotchman; but Protestants of the present day will, by-andmust believe a great deal more by, be called the most stupid than this, before they can believe wretches that ever lived on the both these Returns to be true. face of the earth; but let it, at The two labouring classes must, any rate, be seen, that there were some of us who were not thus beneath the brutes that perish. These two first classes had in persons, only 3,313,758. They had as to number of persons, have been, when the last Return was made, 3,787,029. This must have been the number of the persons in those two classes, if the number only this number of persons in of persons were correctly stated 1801; and, good God! in 1811 in the first Return. Upon the the Lord Jouns and the Lord whole, there is an increase in the WILLIAMS found them to have, population of 1,207,635; that is 1,620,941 FAMILIES! Whater to say, a SEVENTH upon the half as many families in 1811 as whole. Now, then, the following there were persons in 1801! E2 Why the man that can believe God! Why had not they put down thirty millions at once? Why did they not make the population of England alone, equal to the population of France? There is something so monstrous in this statement, that one is astonished that it could be seriously put forth to the this is worse than an idiot; and the man that affects to believe it, is a knave that deserves the whipping-post. Your Lordship, the year before last, were pleased to talk a great deal about the improvement of the people, in point of understanding, and about the world. If the eight millions have great blessing of the increase of swelled up to eleven millions, in newspapers. Yet, I think I may the last twenty years, what reason venture to say that a considerable, upon earth is there that the popuindeed, a very large majority of lation should not go on swelling the people, have swallowed down at the same rate? Answer this all these population lies as so many question, some of you, that propatruths. At last they come to this gate this lie. According to this conclusion: they MUST believe, increase, the population of Eng that in 1811 there were only two land and Wales: Scotland is persons and one third, including much too learned a country for lodgers, to each family, amongstall me to have any thing to do with; the farmers, tradesmen, labourers, and nothing will I have to do with artisans, and manufacturers of this it, in this case, at any rate. The whole kingdom: they MUST be- Return-makers of that country, lieve this; or they must believe would, somehow or other, slip one of the Returns to be a lie. through my fingers. They have, This conclusion is inevitable. I on the other side of the Tweed, have frequently thrown down the consciences so surprisingly elastie, challenge. Nobody has ever taken and faces covered with so many it up. Nobody has ever attempted coats of brass, that I do not care to defend these Returns. If they to have any thing to do with them. can be defended, why are they If I were to estimate the numbers not defended? Again I repeat, of the Scotch, by the numbers of that we MUST believe that, in offices, places and pensions which 1811, there were but two per- the people of that country hold, I sons and one third of another should take their barren and miserperson to each family of the agri- able country to be more populous cultural, trading, mechanical, and than England, Wales and Ireland, manufacturing classes: this we all put together. However, I must believe; or, we must believe will have nothing to do with them one of the two Returns to be a lie. at present. England and Wales We cannot believe the first we must be brutes to believe the first: therefore we must believe one of these two Returns to be a lie. Having come to this conclusion, which I will defy any one to drive us from, what ground have we for believing that the third Return has any truth in it?... as I This third Return was made in 1821, and then the population had swelled up to 11,261,437. Good 9 have regular governments, and parishes. I understand them, but I never can understand any thing about the division of Scotland. England and Wales, then, have, according to these Returns, had an increase of three millions of people in twenty years. I speak in round numbers; but to avoid a charge of misrepresentation, I will again state, that the numbers in 1801 were, according to the Return, 8,331,192; and, in 1821, did it take, then, a hundred years 11,261,437. It amounts not to to add three millions, when we are quite three millions, but it wants now adding three millions in twenty only sixty-nine thousand seventeen years, and when we shall, by the hundred and fifty-five of the three end of the century, have got an millions. This is a mere trifle, increase this hundred years of when you come to talk of eight or twenty-eight millions, Surely we eleven millions. There is no rea- cannot be more blessed than they son why the population should not were during the last century. go on increasing, and at the same They had the House of Brunswick rate. I defy any of the Lord WIL- to govern them almost the whole LIAMS, Lord CHARLESES, or be of the time; and during almost they who they may, to produce me any reason why this increase should not continue on, if it be true that it has been what your Return. says it has been. Very well, then; let us see what a jovial company we shall have, or, rather, that the country will have, byand-by. In the year 1841 the Fopulation of England & the half of the century, they were blessed by the sway of the "Good Old King," and that of the "heaven-born" Minister, PITT. Surely our children and grandchildren cannot be more lucky in this respect than we have been. If, therefore, the last century added but three millions to the population, I believe that it added not a single soul; but if it did add three millions, how much worse than a beast; how much more despicable than the most stupid of quadru27,000,000 peds must that man be, who believes in the truth of the last Return, and of the first also. One of of them may be true; but both of them cannot. Wales will amount to.. 15,000,000 ... 20,000,000 In the year 1861 it will amount to....... In the year 1881 it will. amount to. In the year 1901 it will amount to..... In the year 2000 it will, amount to ... 36,000,000 162,000,000 Thus, a most jovial crew will -Old England have, at last! And why should it not be thus, my Lord JOHN, if the Returns be true? In my calculations. I have left out fractional parts; but I am quite near enough. ugh. And I again call upon the whole assembly of Lord CHARLESES; defy the Returnmakers to give me one single reason; to suggest any one argument, tending to show that this in crease must not thus proceed, if the Return be true.. No romance ever presented a more incredible tale to the world. To believe in this tale, we must believe that, only about four or five hundred years ago, long after the country was studded with Churches and Cathedrals, there were no people at all in England, worth speaking about. In short, as I once before observed, the monstrous falseness; the prodigious impudence, in this case, puts an end, at once, to all argument about the thing. Before I go to the other part of my subject, let me stop to make a remark or two to you, my Lord Then, again, looking back, what must have been the population of the country a few centuries ago?. It is pretended by the population-mongers, that there were JOHN, relative to your alleged only five millions of people in great improvement in the underEngland and Wales a hundred standings of the people of this years ago; well! the devil! But, country. Your Lordship seemed, |