Page:Malthus 1807 A letter to Samuel Whitbread.djvu/46

 their own necessities; but they are really subscribing towards a competition against their own earnings. They are making themselves poorer, not only by the amount of what they pay in rates, but by the amount of the reduction which the application of those rates occasions in the general wages of labour. They seem therefore to have the strongest possible claim to the exemption proposed.

The other clauses of your bill appear to me, on the whole, calculated to improve our system of poor laws; but I have not leisure at present to enter into those details which the proper consideration of them would require; nor am I qualified justly to appreciate the difficulties with which the execution of them may be attended.

The principal object of the present letter is to point out to your attention one particular danger, of which you do not seem to be