M2RB: The Beach Boys
I've been laying on my back
Like a freight train off a track
Trying to find a job to fit my trade
With the morning sun come 'round
Well I'll be covering plenty of ground
And I don't need nobody to pay my aid
Mmmm pay my aid
Like a freight train off a track
Trying to find a job to fit my trade
With the morning sun come 'round
Well I'll be covering plenty of ground
And I don't need nobody to pay my aid
Mmmm pay my aid
To Messieurs the PUBLIC and Co.
I am one of that class of people that feeds you all, and at present is abus’d by you all; in short I am a Farmer.
By
your News-papers we are told, that God had sent a very short harvest to
some other countries of Europe. I thought this might be in favour to
Old England; and that now we should get a good price for our grain,
which would bring in millions among us, and make us flow in money, that
to be sure is scarce enough.
But the wisdom of Government forbad the exportation.
Well, says I, then we must be content with the market price at home.
No,
says my Lords the mob, you sha’n’t have that. Bring your corn to market
if you dare; we’ll sell it for you, for less money, or take it for
nothing.
Being thus attack’d by both ends of the Constitution, the head and the tail of Government, what am I to do?
Must
I keep my corn in barn to feed and increase the breed of rats? be it
so; they cannot be less thankful than those I have been used to feed.
Are
we Farmers the only people to be grudged the profits of honest labour?
And why? One of the late scribblers against us gives a bill of fare of
the provisions at my daughter’s wedding, and proclaims to all the world
that we had the insolence to eat beef and pudding! Has he never read
that precept in the good book, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn; or does he think us less worthy of good living than our oxen?
O, but the Manufacturers! the Manufacturers! they are to be favour’d, and they must have bread at a cheap rate!
Hark-ye,
Mr. Oaf; The Farmers live splendidly, you say. And pray, would you have
them hoard the money they get? Their fine cloaths and furniture, do
they make them themselves, or for one another, and so keep the money
among them? Or do they employ these your darling Manufacturers, and so
scatter it again all over the nation?
My wool would produce me a
better price if it were suffer’d to go to foreign markets. But that,
Messieurs the Public, your laws will not permit. It must be kept all at
home, that our dear Manufacturers may have it the cheaper. And
then, having yourselves thus lessened our encouragement for raising
sheep, you curse us for the scarcity of mutton!
I have heard my
grandfather say, that the Farmers submitted to the prohibition on the
exportation of wool, being made to expect and believe, that when the
Manufacturer bought his wool cheaper, they should have their cloth
cheaper. But the deuce a bit. It has been growing dearer and dearer from
that day to this. How so? why truly the cloth is exported; and that
keeps up the price.
Now if it be a good principle, that the
exportation of a commodity is to be restrain’d, that so our own people
at home may have it the cheaper, stick to that principle, and go
thorough stitch with it. Prohibit the exportation of your cloth, your
leather and shoes, your iron ware, and your manufactures of all sorts,
to make them all cheaper at home. And cheap enough they will be, I’ll
warrant you—till people leave off making them.
Some folks seem to think they ought never to be easy, till England becomes another Lubberland
where ’tis fancied the streets are paved with penny rolls, the houses
tiled with pancakes, and chickens ready roasted cry, come eat me.
I
say, when you are sure you have got a good principle, stick to it, and
carry it thorough. I hear ’tis said, that though it was necessary and right for the M—y to advise a prohibition of the exportation of corn, yet it was contrary to law; and also, that though it was contrary to law for the mob to obstruct the waggons, yet it was necessary and right.
Just the same thing, to a tittle. Now they tell me, an act of indemnity
ought to pass in favour of the M—y, to secure them from the
consequences of having acted illegally. If so, pass another in favour of
the mob. Others say, some of the mob ought to be hanged, by way of
example. If so, —— but I say no more than I have said before, when you are sure that you have got a good principle, go thorough with it.
You
say, poor labourers cannot afford to buy bread at a high price, unless
they had higher wages. Possibly. But how shall we Farmers be able to
afford our labourers higher wages, if you will not allow us to get, when
we might have it, a higher price for our corn?
By all I can
learn, we should at least have had a guinea a quarter more if the
exportation had been allowed. And this money England would have got from
foreigners.
But, it seems, we Farmers must take so much less, that the poor may have it so much cheaper.
This
operates then as a tax for the maintenance of the poor. A very good
thing, you will say. But I ask, Why a partial tax? Why laid on us
Farmers only? If it be a good thing, pray, Messrs. the Public, take your
share of it, by indemnifying us a little out of your public treasury.
In doing a good thing there is both honour and pleasure; you are welcome
to your part of both.
For my own part, I am not so well satisfied
of the goodness of this thing. I am for doing good to the poor, but I
differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to
the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of
it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different
countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the
less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on
the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for
themselves, and became richer. There is no country in the world where so
many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive
them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary
charities; so many alms-houses for the aged of both sexes, together with
a solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a
heavy tax for the support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are
our poor modest, humble, and thankful; and do they use their best
endeavors to maintain themselves, and lighten our shoulders of this
burthen?
On the contrary, I affirm that there is no country in the world
in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent. The
day you passed that act, you took away from before their eyes the
greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by
giving them a dependence on somewhat else than a careful accumulation
during youth and health, for support in age or sickness. In short, you
offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not
now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty. Repeal
that law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. St. Monday,
and St. Tuesday, will cease to be holidays. SIX days shalt thou labour,
though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will
again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase,
and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will
mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to
provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates
among them.
Excuse me, Messrs. the Public, if upon this interesting subject, I put you to the trouble of reading a little of my nonsense. I am sure I have lately read a great deal of yours; and therefore from you (at least from those of you who are writers) I deserve a little indulgence. I am, your’s, &c.
Looking At Tomorrow (A Welfare Song) - The Beach Boys
I've been laying on my back
Like a freight train off a track
Trying to find a job to fit my trade
With the morning sun come 'round
Well I'll be covering plenty of ground
And I don't need nobody to pay my aid
Mmmm pay my aid
Now Bess and me were feeling bad
And all the good jobs they were had
I had to take to sweeping up some floors
Well I don't mind that so much
Or the changing of my luck
But you know I could be doing so much more
Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba
Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba
Bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip
Well I'll be coming home tonight
Everything will be all right
And we'll be looking at tomorrow
Like a freight train off a track
Trying to find a job to fit my trade
With the morning sun come 'round
Well I'll be covering plenty of ground
And I don't need nobody to pay my aid
Mmmm pay my aid
Now Bess and me were feeling bad
And all the good jobs they were had
I had to take to sweeping up some floors
Well I don't mind that so much
Or the changing of my luck
But you know I could be doing so much more
Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba
Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba
Bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip
Well I'll be coming home tonight
Everything will be all right
And we'll be looking at tomorrow
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