AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS.
541
why may not such relief be refused to the children born of marriages to be contracted after a certain period ? An exception might perhaps be made in favour of those who are incapable of working from age, or other infirmity, though I know not that it would be better to make their claims a matter of right than an appeal to charitable assistance. But persons able to work, and the issue of marriages had after the law is changed, should certainly be excluded. This change would not operate an immediate reform of the system, but the reform would be a perfectly sure one, and it would commence almost as soon as the law passed. If any gentleman is scared at so great an innovation, I will only ask him to survey the enormous amount and odious nature of the evil complained of, and to make his choice between the expedient suggested, and the mischief so severely felt, not, indeed, as it at present exists, but in the still greater extent towards which it is daily hastening. The next point to which I shall beg the attention of the Committee, is the means of relieving the land, and indeed the country in general, from the pressure of taxation, which I have shown to have so great a share in the present distresses. That such relief is within our reach, to a very great extent, I hold to be perfectly manifest. The whole sums applicable to the Sinking Fund for the last year amount to L.15,627,000, and including the Irish debt, L.16,928,000. Of this the financial operations of 1808 and 1813, have appropriated L.4,302,000; there remains undisposed of L.12,626,000, and the sinking fund on the Austrian and Portuguese loans is L.124,000, which makes the whole unapplied fund L.12,750,000. Now, of this large revenue, L.6,479,000 arises from the one per cent. upon all loans contracted since 1793. It may be thought consistent with good faith to preserve this portion of the fund