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Chapter 2 - Poverty -
From Poverty by James Platt

Page 31

consume in a year, it would not give a bit of bread and cheese
for one night's supper to those who labour, and who in reality
feed both the pensioners and themselves. But the throats of the rich ought not to be cut, nor their magazines plundered;
because in their persons they are trustees for those who labour
and their hoards are the banking - houses of these letter. Whether
they mean it or not, they do in effect execute their trust - some
with more, some with less fidelity and judgment. But on the
 
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Sociology

Poverty - by James Platt

whole the duty is performed, and everything returns, deducting some very trifling commission and discount, to the place from whence it arose. When the poor rise to destroy the rich, they act as wisely for their own purposes as when they burn mills and threw corn into the river to make bread cheap."

In condemning the rich, it is too often assumed that the men with £5,000 or £10,000 a.- year spends the whole amount upon himself, in the same way as a man with £100 or £200. But nature has placed a limit to the personal indulgences of each, and it is impossible for any one of us to consume more than so much. We may spend the £5,000 or £10,000 yearly, but, as Burke argues, the bulk of it must return to whence it came, in the payment of labour, or profit to the distributor. The £5,000 or £10,000 yearly income is beneficial to many, and not solely to its possessor. In thinking of the richer classes we are too opt to look only at the bright side, and to forget that very often the wealthy man is more wretched then the men in rags, who has not the wherewith to obtain his next meal. Wealth will not enable us to eat or drink more, and the wealthy man who cannot eat heartily his daily meals, must envy the poor wretch, looking eagerly in a cook shop window, and to whom a few pence will give en enjoyment the rich man rarely feels. The poor in sleep forget their misery, yesterday is forgotten, tomorrow never troubles them. Too often night is a perfect torture to the rich, but sleepless; and they are to be pitied in comparison with the outcast lest asleep by the road - side, utterly oblivious of all things. The rich look forward to the year; the poor think only of the day."

© Peter Smith 2008