case, and in certain cases holds out conditions of relief injurious to the comfort and domestic situation and happiness of such poor persons." It is therefore enacted, that in every parish the overseers may, with the approbation of the vestry, or the sanction in writing of a justice of peace acting in the district, give relief to any industrious poor person at his or her own residence, in case of temporary illness or distress, and in respect of his or her family, although such poor person shall refuse to be lodged and maintained in any poorhouse which may have been provided for “lodging, keeping, maintaining, and employing all poor persons desiring to receive relief." Justices are also empowered, at their discretion, to order relief to any persons in industrious poor person, who is thereupon "entitled to their own ask and receive such relief at his or her own house," and the overseers are bound to obey such order; but the cause for its being made is to be assigned thereon in writing, and it is not to remain in force longer than a month. Two justices may, however, continue the order for another month, "and so on from time to time, as the occasion shall require."1

Justices may order relief to

poor

dwellings.

This Act opened wide the door which was intended to be closed by 9 George I. cap. 7; and henceforward out-door relief, in some form or other, became the rule, and a source of great and universal abuse. The practice had prevailed to some extent before; and so far Sir William back as 1788, we find Sir William Young, in a bill which he introduced for amending the Poor Laws, proposing, in order to relieve the agricultural labourers who were out of work in winter, that the vestry should be empowered to settle a rate of wages for the winter months, and send the unemployed labourers round to the parishioners in rotation, proportionally as they are

Young's proposal

to send unem

ployed labourers

on the round."

1 For remarks upon this extension of the justices' powers, and a comparison of English and Scotch Poor Law policy in this respect, and as to able-bodied relief generally, see History of Scotch Poor Law, pp. 88, 112, etc.

rated, two-thirds of the wages to be paid by the employer and one-third out of the rates.' We likewise find, in Sir F. Eden's account of the parish of Winslow in 1795, that most of the labourers were "on the rounds"—that is, going to work from one farmhouse to another round the parish, sometimes as many as forty, and unless the householders employ them they are wholly paid by the parish. Children ten years old are, it is said, thus put "on the rounds." So likewise in the account of Kibworth Beauchamp, it is stated, that when a man is out of work he applies to the overseer, who sends him from house to house to get employed. The employer is obliged to give him victuals and 6d. a day, and the parish adds 4d.; total, 10d. a day for the support of his family. Persons working in this manner are called " Roundsmen," from their going successively round the parish for employment.2

If such practices prevailed before the passing of the present Act (36 George III. cap. 23), we may be sure they would become more prevalent after the unlimited sanction given by it to what is called "occasional" relief to the industrious poor; for the authority of the vestry or the justices, if appealed to at all, would be practically of little avail in guiding or controlling the administration of such relief, or in checking the evils to which it would be certain to give rise. In rural parishes, the vestry would indeed be likely to favour the application of the poor-rates to the payment of wages, as in the cases of Winslow and Kibworth Beauchamp, for the majority would be employers of labour, and might expect to get their work done in this way at less direct cost to themselves than in any other. If there were an apparent saving to the farmer, from thus defraying out of rates levied upon others in

1 Sir F. Eden's State of the Poor, vol. i. p. 397; vol. ii. pp. 30 and 384. 2 Ibid.

1796.

Mr. Pitt's

common with himself, a portion of his labourers' wages, he would be apt to disregard or think lightly of remote or social consequences, seeing that the parson, the shopkeeper, the artisan, and the tradesman, were compelled to contribute for his benefit; and thus payments in aid of wages got to be organised into a system, and with few exceptions became general throughout England. The demoralising effects of such a practice upon the labouring population, especially in the rural districts, will call for comment as we proceed; but certain of these effects were immediately noticeable, as in the case of Winslow, where it is said the labourers

had already, in 1795, become " very lazy and imperious."

As incidental to this period, and in proof of the solicitude which continued to prevail with respect to the poor, we may cite a speech delivered by Mr. Pitt in February 1796, on the occasion of a Bill introduced by Mr. Whitbread for regulating wages. Mr. Pitt argued conclusively against such a measure; and with reference to certain of the older statutes which had been quoted as giving countenance to it, he declared that they were enacted to guard the industry of the country against combinations of the labourers, not to remedy any disproportion which existed between the price of labour and the price of living. "Trade, industry, and barter would," he said, "always find their own level, and be impeded by regulations which violated their natural operation, and deranged their proper effect"; and to give "justices the power to regulate the price of labour, would be endeavouring to establish by authority what would be much better accomplished by the unassisted operation of principle."

Mr. Pitt then adverted to the kindred question of speech on the Poor Laws, which, however wise in their origin, had, he considered, "contributed to fetter the circulation of labour, and to substitute a system of abuses in

the Poor Laws.

room of the evils they were meant to redress." The law of settlement, he said, "prevented the workman from going to the market where he could dispose of his industry to the greatest advantage, and the capitalist from employing the person qualified to procure him the best return for his advances." The settlement law, he declared, "had at once increased the burthens of the poor, and taken from the collective resources of the State to supply wants which its operation had occasioned, and to alleviate a poverty which it tended to perpetuate. He thought the country had not yet experienced the full benefit of what had been done to correct these errors, and he was also disposed to think that we had not yet gone far enough, and that advantage might be derived and much evil removed by an extension of those reformations in the Poor Laws which had been begun. The parish officers, he remarked, could not now remove the workman, unless he should be actually chargeable;1 but an industrious mechanic might still," from the pressure of a temporary distress, be transported from the place where his exertions would be useful, to a quarter where he would become a burthen." To remedy so great a grievance, the law of settlement ought, he said, to undergo a radical amendment. He conceived that to promote the free circulation of labour, and remove the obstacles by which industry is prohibited from availing itself of its own resources, would go far to diminish the necessity of relief from the poor-rates; and he wished that an opportunity were given of restoring the law to its original purity, and removing the corruptions by which it had been obscured.

After suggesting that relief should, as far as possible, be given in the way of employment, that friendly societies should be encouraged, that schools of industry should be established, and after making some

1 See 35 George III. cap. 101, ante, p. 112.

other suggestions of minor importance, he recommended that an annual report should be made to parliament, which should take upon itself the duty of tracing the effects of its own system from year to year, till it should be fully matured-that, in short, there should be an annual poor-law budget, by which the legislature would show that they had a watchful eye upon the interest of the poorest and most neglected part of the community. He concluded by declaring the subject to be of the utmost importance, and expressing his readiness to do everything in his power towards improving the present system.1

The speech is a favourable specimen of the eloquence and reasoning powers of the great minister, and exhibits the kindly qualities of his mind. His views on the law of settlement are identical with those expressed by almost every man entitled to speak authoritatively on the subject, either before or since, from the passing of the law to the present day; but these views were in advance of the general opinion, and so the law still remains (1853), mitigated it is true in its powers of evil, but still inflicting evils of very considerable magnitude upon the community, and especially upon the labouring classes. Mr. Pitt's recommendation that a report, or what he calls "a poor-law budget," should be annually laid before parliament, is one of the measures established by the Poor Law Amendment Act, and it has doubtless been of much benefit in the opportunity it affords for advocating sound principles and disseminating useful information; and it is creditable to the judgment and sagacity of this eminent statesman, that he should have been the first to advocate the adoption of such a proceeding.

An elaborate Bill of 130 clauses was afterwards

1 See Hansard for 1796, p. 714. The speech is also given, and the Bill founded upon it, in Appendix No. II. of Sir F. Eden's State of the Poor, which was published in the following year.