Thoughts and Détails, vol. VII, p

25. Reproduit dans le Traité des Récompenses, livre IV, chap. xi, pp. 304- 305. — Trail écrivait à Bentham, le 26 février 1787 (Bowring, vol. X, p. 172) : « The state of the poor laws lias excited a good deal of attention. Gilbert, who has undertaken to reform them, is utterly incapable ; but the information he has been enabled by the législature to collect, may be useful to wiser heads. — Cf. Introduction, Bowring, vol I, p. 103 : By offences against population, such offences whereof the tendency is to diminish the numbers or impair the political value of the sum total of the members of the community. — - Et plus haut p. 102 : With regard to the sources or funds from whence thèse instruments, howsoever applied (the instruments which government, whether in the averting of evil or in the producting of positive good, can hâve to work with) must be derived, such of them as corne under the dénomination of persons must be taken out of the whole number of persons that are in the community, that is,

ont of the total population of the state ; so that the greater tbe population the greater may cœteris paribus be this branch of the public wealth ; and the less, the less.