labour. Yet this the bread-scale attempts to do, and this Mr. Whitbread likewise attempted to effect, by a Bill which he introduced first in 1795, and again in 1800, for regulating wages according to the price of provisions; but happily both the Bills were rejected on the second reading.

On the whole, it may be assumed, that in the latter part of the eighteenth century, the labourer's wages, or his means of procuring the necessaries of life, were increased in a somewhat corresponding ratio to the increase in the price of food. But as throughout the period this latter increase was generally continuous, and at times excessive, the labourer must have been frequently exposed to great privation, and driven to resort to the poor-rates for aid; and every instance of his so doing would naturally lead to renewed applications, until the wages of labour and relief from the rates would become so blended, that the one could not be separated from the other. This result would no doubt Amount of be greatly accelerated by the operation of a bread-scale such as is above described, and we accordingly find that the expenditure for the relief of the poor, which, on the average of the three years 1783, '84, and '85, amounted to £2,004,238,' was by returns to parliament shown to amount in the year 1802-3 to no less than £4,267,965,2 and in 1801 it therefore could hardly have been under £4,100,000, having thus more than doubled in seventeen years. To what extent such a rapid increase of poor law relief may have been occasioned by the war in the latter half of this period, and by the occurrence of scarcity and high prices, or how far it was owing to the application of the poor-rates in aid of

1 Ante, p. 94. The money levied under the poor's rate, including county rates, in the year 1802-3 amounted to £5,348,205. For the three years 1783-4-5 we have seen that the average was £2,167,750. There were no intermediate returns. See ante, p. 94, note.

2 See Statement of Local Taxation, printed by order of the House of Commons, in 1839.

poor-rates.

wages by means of a bread-scale, or the roundsman system, or payment of rents, or allowances in some other way, it is impossible to speak with certainty,probably all may have operated more or less; but we can hardly doubt that the application of rates in aid of wages, in some form or other, had the largest share in causing the increase. The evil thence arising fell heavily alike on all classes-on the rich, who paid more for worse labour, and on the poor, who were compelled to receive the equivalent for their labour in a form that must have been repulsive to their feelings of independence and self-respect.

On comparing the condition of the country in 1801, as indicated by the foregoing facts and statements, with what it was at the commencement of the present reign, and again at the end of the American War in 1783, we find that the population was continually on the increase, upwards of 2,000,000 having been added between the accession of George the Third and the end of the century. We find also that the trade, wealth, and resources of the country increased in a still greater ratio than the population. But the general condition of the people did not altogether keep pace with these improvements, since the advance which from time to time took place in the cost of subsistence, continually preceded an equivalent advance in the wages of labour; and the deficiency thence arising was for the most part made up out of the poor-rates, which went on rapidly increasing, and became a heavy burthen to the ratepayer, and a fertile source of demoralisation to the labourer.

CHAPTER XIII

A. D. 1803-1820

Reign of George III. continued-Renewal of war with France-Provision for families of militiamen-Increase of poor-rates-Contracts for farming the poor-Revision of bastardy and settlement laws-Audit of overseers' accounts-Extension of Gilbert's Act-Abolition of badgesApprenticeship indentures-Operation of settlement law-Time of electing overseers-Repeal of restrictions on exercise of trades-Amending settlement law-Punishments in workhouses-Justices may excuse payment of rate-Illegal pawning, etc., of workhouse property-Supply of goods to workhouses-Justices empowered to order out-door reliefRestriction of punishment-Parish apprenticeship-Sketch of events from the Peace of Amiens to the battle of Waterloo-Revenue, expenditure, and national debt-Imports and exports-Prices of wheat-Wages -Poor-rates-Population-Debate in the House of Commons on the appointment of a committee on the Poor Law (1817)-The committee's report and its results-Parish Vestry Act-Select Vestry Act-Amendment of settlement laws-Death of the king.

1803. 43 Geo. III.

сар. 47.

THE war with France, in which a brief pause had been effected through the Treaty of Amiens at the end of 1801, again raged with greater inveteracy than before. The country was alarmed by threats of invasion, for defence against which it had, in a great measure, to rely upon the militia, and an Act was passed "for consolidating and amending the several laws providing relief for the families of militiamen when called into actual service." The preamble declares it to be expedient that the provisions in previous Acts relating to the subject should be consolidated and amended; and it is then Families enacted, that when a militiaman shall be called out into men to be actual service, leaving a wife and family unable to out of the support themselves, the overseers of the poor of the poor-rates. parish where they reside shall (subject to an order of a justice of the peace) "pay weekly to the wife, and to

of militia

supported

each of the children of every such non-commissioned officer, drummer, balloted-man, substitute, hired man, or volunteer respectively, out of the poor-rates," an allowance equal to the ordinary price of one day's husbandry labour in the district; but the allowance is never to be less than one shilling, and if there be not money sufficient in the hands of the overseers, a new rate is to be made for the purpose. The families are moreover exempted from removal, neither are they to be sent to the workhouse, and the men are not to lose their legal settlements nor their right of voting. But in any case where a man has a wife and more than three children to be provided for, the overseers are empowered to procure another fit and proper man, having no family, to serve in his stead.

By thus securing a provision for the men's families in their absence, this Act must have offered a great encouragement to men to serve in the militia, the object for which it was no doubt chiefly intended; but whilst effecting this object, it must also have largely tended to increase the poor's rate,-first, by the direct charge cast upon it in the relief now ordered to be given to the families of militiamen; and next, by the habit which thence arose of continually resorting to it. This last was the greater evil of the two, for by accustoming the people to look to the rates, and to see numbers constantly deriving their subsistence from them, the poorrate got to be regarded as a kind of common fund, of which every one was entitled to claim a share on the occurrence of any want or any difficulty from whatever cause arising. All feeling of repugnance to apply for and receive parish relief thenceforward rapidly subsided. The applicants and receivers became so numerous as to keep each other in countenance, and the parish pay-table was approached without shame or misgiving.

It can hardly be doubted that this change in the

the Act.

the poor

habits and feelings of the people was greatly acceler- Effects of ated, if it was not mainly caused, by the operation of the present Act, under which many families in every part of the country claimed and received their means of living from the poor-rate, not only without any feeling of degradation, but as a right, and an honourable distinction due to the families of men who were meritoriously serving their country. To be backward or niggardly in the distribution of relief to such persons would have been considered unpatriotic, or perhaps illegal; and a laxity, or misnamed liberality in the administration of the Poor Law thenceforward took place, and went on increasing until the rates, originally Increase of intended for the relief of the impotent and necessitous, rates. were squandered on the idle and the dissolute, checking industry, destroying self-reliance, and leading to the pauperisation of nearly the entire labouring class. That this was aggravated by the high war-prices which then prevailed cannot be denied, for these drove the labourer to seek relief from the parish in aid of his wages, and disposed the farmer to be forward in dispensing such relief. Having regard to this circumstance, therefore, coupled with the natural, and it may be said necessary operation of the above Act, it cannot excite surprise that the poor-rate should go on rapidly increasing, as we have found, and shall still find, to be the case.

1805. 45 Geo. III.

The preamble of 45 George III. cap. 54, declares, "that great inconvenience has arisen from contracts cap. 54. for the lodging, maintenance, and employment of the poor of parishes having been entered into pursuant to 9 George I. cap. 7,1 with persons not being resident within such parishes respectively, nor of sufficient responsibility to ensure the faithful performance of such contracts." Wherefore it is enacted, that no contract for lodging, maintaining, or employing the poor 1 Ante, p. 12.

1