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There are, in every fully-peopled country, large numbers of persons whose lives are passed in hardship and misery, and whose greatest exertions can do no more for them than procure the barest means of subsistence. These are greatly to be pitied, and it should be the study of the government, and of all who possess the means, to remove, as far as possible, the causes of their misfortune. It cannot, however, be said that any competition, save only that which they themselves naturally and necessarily exhibit among their class, for obtaining the inadequate amount of employment for which they are fitted, is chargeable with the hardships they endure. It is a melancholy truth, as concerns the individuals, that we cannot extend to them any indirect relief without tending to increase the evil by raising an addition to their number. How, then, is their condition to be mended? The only way, it appears to me, is to fit them for entering into competition with others above them in the social scale by means of instruction, which shall enable them to give a greater value to the services which they render, and thus entitle them to command a greater value of services in return. We need entertain no fear lest, by this letting in competition upon the class above them, we shall lower these latter in the scale of society. So long as the capital in the country shall continue to increase in a greater proportion than its population, there must always be found additional employment and better remuneration for those whose labour is capable of adding to the national wealth. It may with more truth be stated, that the consequence to the community of the existence of any large number of destitute persons, is to keep down the general rate of wages, positively, through the absorption of capital required for their relief, and, negatively, through the absence of those additions to capital which the surplus services of instructed artisans always occasion.—G. R. Porter's Lecture at Wandsworth, entitled 'Services for Services.' London: Clowes. 1851.