ABSTRACT
McCulloch's view of the Poor Laws up to 1826 was almost exclusively a hostile one; he was strongly imbued with a Malthusian sense of their undesirability. He believed that it would have been better if the Poor Law had never existed and that it should if possible (which he occasionally doubted) be abolished.4 He followed the standard arguments of Ricardo and Malthus that the Poor Law subverted all the motives leading to industry and frugality.5 Not only did it reduce the supply of effort from a given labour force, but it was fundamentally faulty in removing the need to exercise moral restraint.6 This made the law
1 Edinburgh Review, Vol. XLIX, No. XCVIII (June 1829), art. ii, pp. 300-17, 'Sadler on Ireland', pp. 300-3; LPE, p. 261.
