sive, and parish authorities were empowered to give relief to any industrious poor person at his own residence. Refusal to enter a workhouse was not to be a reason for withholding relief. The justices were also authorised to order relief for a certain time to people who were "entitled to ask and receive such relief at their own houses." By this Act, therefore, an allowance was freely given to every poor person who chose to ask for it, and the labourers' wages were systematically made up out of the rates.1 To complete the history of this old code of Poor Laws, it may be added that in 1801 the Justices were made the rating as well as the relieving authority, while, to make them "more safe in the execution of their duty," the nominal penalty of 2d. only was to be imposed upon a justice who made an illegal decision, unless it was plain that he was actuated by improper motives.2 The reason for this measure is obvious: the landed gentry, from whom the justices were chiefly chosen, were hereby allowed to fix the rates, and even to amend them by altering names and amounts; in other words, to adjudicate upon a question in which they themselves were the most interested persons present. It is, of course, wrong to accuse them of consciously yielding to self-interest in their decisions; but no one can be surprised to learn that the poor-rate was often apportioned so as to fall most heavily upon others than themselves, and upon parishes other than those in which the rating justices had rateable property. Thus, for example, landowners would sometimes pull down every cottage on their estate, so as to compel surrounding parishes to pay the poor-rates allowed to the labourers who worked on their property; in other words, the labourers' wages were paid half by the employer and half by the unfortunate non-employers in the next parish. 3 § 236. The Poor Law and the Allowance System. The burden upon non-employers was, in fact, sometimes almost intolerable. The poor-rate, when levied upon house 1 Fowle, Poor Law, 71, 87. 2 Ib., p. 71. The Act was the 43 George III., c. 141. Fowle, Poor Law, p. 88. 3 Ib. property, was simply a rate in aid of wages, paid by those who did not employ labour.1 This was the case not only in agricultural districts, but even in manufacturing towns. Thus, at Nottingham, employers deliberately reduced the rate of wages for stocking making, and then gave their men a certificate to the effect that they were only earning (say) 6s. per week; the men then applied to the parish, who allowed them 4s, or 5s. more.2 Those manufacturers who employed parish apprentices sometimes even received annual payments from the parish for keeping its paupers at work. Meanwhile, the poorer ratepayers, on whom the burden of rates fell most severely, often earned less and worked harder than the paupers whom they helped to support. One wituess, before the Poor Law Commission of 1834, summed up their condition in the pregnant sentence; "Poor is the diet of the pauper, poorer is the diet of the small ratepayer, but poorest is that of the independent labourer." Indeed, the independent labourer was in very evil case. Often he could not get work, because he was superseded by paupers, who were set to work by the overseers at the cost of the parish. If an industrious man was known to have saved money, he would be left without work till his savings were all spent, and then he could be employed as a pauper. Sometimes, even, men were discharged by their employers till they were reduced to the desired state, so that the burden of maintaining them was cast upon the parish, while the employer had to pay only a nominal wage. The full working of this ingenious plan was seen in the "ticket system." Under this the parish sold "the commodity of labour" to the farmers, and made up the difference between the labourers' actual wages and the income supposed to be his due out of the rates. In one place there was a weekly sale of labour, at which an eyewitness saw ten men allotted to a farmer for five shillings. was called the "ticket system," because each pauper reIceived a ticket from the overseer as a warrant for the farmer to employ him at the cost of the parish. It is not It 3 Ib., and cf. above, p. 388. * Ib., p. 82. surprising that the farmers supported this system, iniquitous though it was, and declared that "high wages and free labour would ruin them.” 1 But in the long run it often caused even the farmer some pecuniary loss, not directly, for he saved more in his wages-bill than he spent in poorrates, but indirectly, since the work of the labourers thus employed was badly and inefficiently performed.2 Indeed, we may sum up by saying that the allowance system, introduced by the Speen hamland resolutions and made law by the Act of 1796, succeeded in demoralising both employers and employed alike, taking the responsibility of giving decent wages off the shoulders of the farmers, and putting a premium upon the incontinence 3 and thriftlessness of the labourers. This method of relief was general from about 1795 to 1834, in fact, until the enactment of the New Poor Law. Employers of labour, manufacturing as well as agricultural, put down wages in many parts of the country to what was simply a starvation point, knowing that an allowance would be made to the labourers, upon the magistrates' orders, out of the poor rates. The wages actually paid to able-bodied men were frequently only five or six shillings a week, but relief to the amount of four, five, six, or seven shillings a week, according to the size of the man's family, was given out of the rates. Such a system could not fail to have a permanently disastrous influence upon the moral and social condition of those who suffered from it, taking from them all self-reliance, all hope, all incentives to improving their position in life. This was soon noticed by Arthur Young, who wrote: "Many authors have remarked with surprise the great change which has taken place in the spirit of the lower classes of the people within the last twenty years. There was formerly found an unconquerable aversion to depend on the parish, insomuch that many would struggle through life with large families never applying for relief. That spirit is annihilated; appli1 Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, p. 103. 2 Fowle, Poor Law, p. 89, on The Deterioration of Labour. 3 For the sad facts and for the bastardy laws, cf. Fowle, Poor Law, pp. 89-92, summarising the evidence of the Commission of 1834. 4 The 4 and 5 William IV., c. 76, 5 Above, p. 413 (Nottingham). cations of late have been as numerous as the poor; and one great misfortune attending the change is that every sort of industry flags when once the parochial dependence takes place it then becomes a struggle between the pauper and the parish, the one to do as little and to receive as much as possible, and the other to pay by no rule but the summons and order of the justice. The evils resulting are beyond all calculation; for the motives to industry and frugality are cut up by the roots, whenever a poor man knows that if he do not feed himself the parish must do it for him; and that he has not the most distant hope of ever attaining independency, let him be as industrious and frugal as he may. To acquire land enough to build a cottage on is a hopeless aim in ninety-nine parishes out of a hundred."1 Unfortunately the last sentence of this remark is often true even to-day; nor have the evil traditions of the Old Poor Law entirely disappeared. Down to the reform of 1834, "the public funds were regarded as a regular part of the maintenance of the labouring people engaged in agriculture, and were administered by more than 2000 justices, 15,000 sets of overseers, and 15,000 vestries, acting always independently of each other, and very commonly in opposition, quite uncontrolled and ignorant of the very rudiments of political economy. The £7,000,000 or more 2 of public money was the price paid for converting the free labourer into a slave, without reaping even such returns as slavery can give. The able-bodied pauper was obliged to live where the Law of Settlement placed him, to receive the income which the neighbouring magistrates thought sufficient, to work for the master and in the way which the parish authorities prescribed, and very often to marry the wife they found for him." 3 § 237. Restrictions upon Labour. What made the condition of the labourers worse still, was the fact that they could neither go from one place to 1 Young, Annals of Agriculture, xxxvi. 504. 2 For exact sum, cf. Porter, Progress of the Nation, i. 82, surprising that the farmers supported this system, iniquitous though it was, and declared that "high wages and free labour would ruin them."1 But in the long run it often caused even the farmer some pecuniary loss, not directly, for he saved more in his wages-bill than he spent in poorrates, but indirectly, since the work of the labourers thus employed was badly and inefficiently performed.2 Indeed, we may sum up by saying that the allowance system, introduced by the Speenhamland resolutions and made law by the Act of 1796, succeeded in demoralising both employers and employed alike, taking the responsibility of giving decent wages off the shoulders of the farmers, and putting a premium upon the incontinence 3 and thriftlessness of the labourers. This method of relief was general from about 1795 to 1834, in fact, until the enactment of the New Poor Law. Employers of labour, manufacturing as well as agricultural,5 put down wages in many parts of the country to what was simply a starvation point, knowing that an allowance would be made to the labourers, upon the magistrates' orders, out of the poor rates. The wages actually paid to able-bodied men were frequently only five or six shillings a week, but relief to the amount of four, five, six, or seven shillings a week, according to the size of the man's family, was given out of the rates. Such a system could not fail to have a permanently disastrous influence upon the moral and social condition of those who suffered from it, taking from them all self-reliance, all hope, all incentives to improving their position in life. This was soon noticed by Arthur Young, who wrote: "Many authors have remarked with surprise the great change which has taken place in the spirit of the lower classes of the people within the last twenty years. There was formerly found an unconquerable aversion to depend on the parish, insomuch that many would struggle through life with large families never applying for relief. That spirit is annihilated; appli 1 Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, p. 103. 2 Fowle, Poor Law, p. 89, on The Deterioration of Labour. For the sad facts and for the bastardy laws, cf. Fowle, Poor Law, pp. 89-92, summarising the evidence of the Commission of 1834. The 4 and 5 William IV., c. 76, 5 Above, p. 413 (Nottingham). |