and one

cations of late have been as numerous as the poor; 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,

3 Fowle, Poor Law, pp. 73, 74,

another to seek work, nor could they combine in industrial partnerships for their mutual interests. The Law of Settlement effectually prevented migration of labourers from one parish to another. It began with the Statute1 of 1662, which allowed a pauper to obtain relief only from that parish where he had his settlement, "settlement" being defined as forty days' residence without interruption. The reason was that each parish, though ready to pay for its own poor, was not willing to pay for those of other parishes. There were many variations and complications of this Statute made in ensuing reigns, but it remained substantively the same 2 till it was mitigated by the Poor Law of 1834. Its main results were seen, as Adam Smith remarked, in the "obstruction of the free circulation of labour," and consequently in the great inequality in wages which was frequently found in places at no great distance one from another. Nowhere else, he says, does one "meet with those sudden and unaccountable differences in the wages of neighbouring places which we sometimes find in England, where it is often more difficult for a poor man to pass the artificial boundary of a parish than an arm of the sea or a ridge of mountains." Again he remarks 5: "there is scarce a poor man in England of forty years of age, I will venture to say, who has not in some part of his life felt himself most cruelly oppressed by this ill-contrived Law of Settlements."

§ 238. The Combination Acts.

The Law of Settlement was further strengthened by what are called the Combination Laws," which forbade workmen to meet together in order to deliberate over their various 1 The 13 and 14 Charles II., c. 12.

2 Although it was nominally repealed. Fowle, Poor Law, 70, 84. For the whole question, see Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Bk. I., ch. x. (Vol. I., p. 144, Clarendon Press edn.).

Wealth of Nations, u. s., i. 148.

Cf. also Toynbee's remarks, Industrial Revolution, p. 186. These date from the 2 and 3 Ed. VI., c. 15, prohibiting "all conspiracies and covenants not to do their work but at a certain price," under penalty of the pillory and loss of an ear. Other acts were passed, but all were summed up in the famous 40 Geo. III., c. 60.

industrial interests, or to gain a rise in wages.

"We have

no Acts of Parliament," said Adam Smith,1 with justice, "against combining to lower the price of work, but many against combining to raise it." For "when masters combine together in order to reduce the wages of their workmen, they commonly enter into a private bond or agreement, not to give more than a certain wage under a certain penalty. Were the workmen to enter into a contrary combination of the same kind, not to accept a certain wage under a certain penalty, the law would punish them very severely; and if it dealt impartially, it would treat the masters in the same manner." Elsewhere he describes the inevitable result of a strike as being "nothing but the punishment or ruin of the ringleaders." 3 The legislation of the close of the eighteenth century was all in favour of the masters, and after several acts had been passed regulating combinations in separate trades, the famous Act of 1800 was applied to all occupations, and strictly forbade all combinations, unions, or associations of workmen for the purpose of obtaining an advance in wages or lessening the hours of work. All freedom of action was taken away from the workmen "the only freedom," remarks an eminent and impartial judge "for which the law seems to me to have been specially solicitous is the freedom of employers from coercion by their men." The reason is obvious; it was because the working classes had no voice in the government of the state, and were unable to check a measure inspired only by the self-interest of the employers. As yet they had no political influence whatever, except that unsatisfactory and unconstitutional influence which emanates from the violence of a riotous mob." "The English statute-book was disfigured by laws which robbed the labourer as a wage-earner, and degraded him as a citizen,"

:

5

1 Wealth of Nations, Bk. I., ch. viii. (Vol. I., p. 70).

2 Ib., Bk. I., ch. x. (Vol. I., p. 150).

3 Ib., Bk. I., ch. viii. (Vol. I., p. 71).

4 The 40 Geo. III., c. 60; see Howell, Trades Unionism New and Old, p. 39.

5 Justice Stephen, History of the Criminal Law, iii. 208.

6 Cf. Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, p. 186.

for "the power of making laws was concentrated in the hands of the landowners, the great merchant-princes, and a small knot of capitalist-manufacturers, who wielded that power in the interests of their class rather than for the good of the people."1 No doubt the action of these lawmakers was natural, but it is only another example of the fact that no one class, and, for that matter, no single individual, is fit to possess irresponsible and absolute power over another. In spite of utopian theorists, selfishness is still the predominant factor in human nature; and the most feasible, if not the most ideal, form of government is that in which the selfishness of one class is counteracted by the selfishness of another. But in 1800 the workmen had, of course, no political influence: they could only show their discontent by riots and rick-burnings. Yet the time

of their deliverance was at hand.

I have already referred to the sympathy between the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. The former, it is true, frightened our statesmen and delayed reform, but it gave courage to the working classes, and made them hope fiercely for freedom. The latter Revolution concentrated men more and more closely together in large centres of industry, dissociated them from their employers, and roused a spirit of antagonism which is inevitable when both employers and employed alike fail to recognise the essential identity of their interests. Now, wherever there are large bodies of men crowded together, there is always a rapid spread of new ideas, new political enthusiasms, and social activities. And in spite of the lack of the franchise, the artisans of our large towns made their voices heard; fiercely and roughly, no doubt, and often at first in riot and uproar, but they had no other means. There were found some statesmen in Parliament, chiefly disciples of Adam Smith, who gave articulate utterance to the demands of labour, and owing to their endeavours the Combination Laws were annulled 3 in 1824. All previous statutes, so far as they related to combinations of workmen, were

1 Cf. Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, p. 186. 3 By the 5 Geo. IV., c. 95.

2 Ib.,

p. 195.

repealed, and those who joined such associations were to be no longer liable to be prosecuted for conspiracy. But the following year proved how insecure was the position of the labourers without definite political influence. The employers of labour were able to induce Parliament in 1825" to stultify itself,1 by declaring illegal any action which might result from those deliberations of workmen which a twelvemonth before they had legalised. But still the workers were allowed to deliberate, strange as it may now seem that permission was needed for this, and their deliberations materially aided in passing the Reform Bill of 1832. For as soon as a class can make its voice heard, even though it cannot directly act, other classes will take that utterance into account.

§ 239. Growth of Trades Unions.2

3

But the Reform Bill, though a great step forward, somewhat belied the hopes that had roused the enthusiasm of its industrial supporters. The workmen found that, after all, it merely threw additional power into the hands of the upper and middle classes. Their own position was hardly improved. Therefore they had to make their voice heard again, and, urged on by the misery and poverty in which they were still struggling, they demanded the Charter. The Chartist movement (1838 to 1848) seems to us at the present time almost ludicrously moderate in its demands. The vote by ballot, the abolition of property qualifications for electors, and the payment of parliamentary members, were the main objects of its leaders, though they asked for universal suffrage as well. Nevertheless people were frightened, especially when the Chartists wished to present a monster petition at Westminster on April 10th, 1848; and

4

1 In the Act 6 Geo. IV., c. 129. This Act rendered men liable to punishment for the use of threats, intimidation, and obstruction directed towards the attainment of the objects of Trade Unions; cf. also Toynbee, u. 8., p. 195.

2 For the history of these, cf. G. Howell, Conflicts of Capital and Labour, and Trades Unionism New and Old.

3 Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, p. 196.

* See Gammage, History of the Chartist Movement generally.