He whose subsistence is secure without work, and who cannot obtain more than a mere sufficiency by the hardest work, will naturally be an idle and careless labourer.

Frequently the work done by four or five such labourers does not amount to what might easily be performed by a single labourer at task work.

A surplus population is encouraged: men who receive but a small pittance know that they have only to marry and that pittance will be increased proportionally to the number of their children.

When complaining of their allowance, they frequently say, "We will marry, and then you must maintain us." This system secures subsistence to all; to the idle as well as the industrious; to the profligate as well as the sober; and, as far as human interests are concerned, all inducements to obtain a good character are taken away.
The effects have corresponded with the cause: able-bodied men are found slovenly at their work, and dissolute in their hours of relaxation; a father is negligent of his children, the children do not think it necessary to contribute to the support of their parents; the employer and employed are engaged in personal quarrels; and the pauper, always relieved, is always discontented.

Crime advances with increasing boldness; and the parts of the country where this system prevails are, in spite of our gaols and our laws, filled with poachers and thieves.' Mr.Hodges, chairman of the West Kent quarter sessions, in his evidence before the emigration committee, said, 'Formerly, working people usually stayed in service till they were twenty-five, thirty, and thirty-five years of age, before they married; whereas they now married frequently under age.