gree that makes it impossible to ascertain how much should be considered as a relief, properly speaking, and how much wages. This deviation from the provisions of the 43d Elizabeth, may perhaps have arisen not only from the neglect of providing proper places for setting to work such children, but from the necessity of abandoning the practice at that time enjoined by law, of regulating the wages of labour, by which it was attempted to bring to one standard the value of each man's labour, which must be in the nature of things unequal; and your committee would deeply lament, if the continuance of the present low price of labour, and of this practice growing out of it, should create a general wish throughout the kingdon to revive those laws, which have not only been abandoned in practice, but at length repealed by the legislature; whereas, if such children were set to work and maintained as the law directs, this practice would scarcely continue in any great degree to prevail.

On this general head, however, your committee think it their duty, in pursuance of their wish, to suggest to the House such provisions as may tend to remove the general dependence on the poor rate; to submit for their consideration, whether, when the demand for labour may have revived, it may not safely be provided, that, from and after a certain time, no relief shall be extended to any child whose father being living, is under years of age; a principle, which by altering the age from time to time, might, if it should be thought de

in

The next provision of the statute directs the overseers like nanner, to take order for setting to work all such persons, married or unmarried, as have no means to maintain them, and use no ordinary or daily trade of life to get their bread by;" and it then prescribes the manner in which this is to be done, which is directed to be "by raising a convenient stock of flax, hemp, wool, thread, iron, or other necessary stuff or ware, to set the poor on work."

These plain and simple provisions continue to this day to be the rules and authority by which the overseers and magistrates are bound to govern themselves, in setting able-bodied poor to work.

The act of 9 Geo. I. cap. 7, which enables parishes to establish workhouses, was designed to limit, rather than enlarge, the powers above recited; by providing that the work, as above prescribed, should be carried on under the superintendence of the overseers, in houses to be provided for the purpose.

What class of persons it is who are described as "using no ordinary or daily trade of life to get their living by," cannot at any time have been very easy correctly to ascertain; the words were probably, in the first instance, to apply to such persons as appear to

have been the object of all the old statutes to which your committee have before alluded. Your committee, however, think it extremely doubtful, whether persons who may from time to time be out of work, but who for the most part occupy themselves in a daily trade, ought to be comprehended within the description of the statute.

But whatever may be the class of persons to which the description of the statute applies, it is clear, that the powers of the overseer as to setting them to work, are, by the existing law, confined within narrow limits; they are to be employed in working" flax, hemp, wool, thread, iron, or any other ware or stuff."

Your committee have already explained the manner in which they think provision should be made for such children as it may be necessary to maintain and employ; it is their duty now to state to the House, their opinions on the subject of providing work for all such persons as may require it. If the object of the statute was merely to set to hard labour such idle wandering persons as might be found in a state nearly ap proaching to that of vagrancy, such an object might possibly be carried into effect, with a fair hope of beneficial consequences; but if the object of the statute was (as it is now interpreted) that the state is to find work for all, who in the present and in all succeeding time may require it, your committee are of opinion, that this is a condition which it is not in the power of any law to fulfil. What number of persons can be employed in labour, must depend absolutely upon the amount

of the funds which alone are applicable to the maintenance of labour.

In whatever way these funds may be applied or expended, the quantity of labour maintained by them in the first instance, would be very nearly the same. The immediate effect of a compulsory application of the whole or a part of these funds, is to change the application, not to alter the amount of them. Whatever portion is applied under the provisions of the law, would have been applied to some other object had the money been left to the distribution of the original owner; whoever therefore is maintained by the law as a labouring pauper, is maintained only instead of some other individual, who would otherwise have earned by his own industry the money bestowed on the pauper; as long as the amount of the funds remains the same, the effect of a compulsory distribution would not be such as materially to alter the total number of labourers employed; but there are many modes by which the compulsory application under the provisions of a statute, of the funds which provide the maintenance of labour, would tend most materially to place the labouring classes in a much worse condition than that in which they would otherwise be situated.

1st. An increased demand for labour is the only means by which the wages of labour can ever be raised; and there is nothing which can increase the demand, but the increase of the wealth by which labour is supported; if therefore the compulsory application of any part of this wealth

tends

tends (as it always must tend) to employ the portion it distributes less profitably than it would have been, if left to the interested superintendence of its owners, it cannot fail, by thus diminishing the funds which would otherwise have been applicable to the maintenance of labour, to place the whole body of labourers in a worse situation than that in which they would otherwise have been placed. 2dly. The effects of holding out to the labouring community, that all who require it shall be provided with work at adequate wages, is such as to lead them to form false views of the circumstances in which they are likely to be placed. As the demand for labour depends absolutely on the amount of the wealth which constitutes its support, so the rate of wages can only be adjusted by the proportion that demand bears to the supply. Now it is on the greater or less degree of nicety in which that supply is adjusted to the demand, that the happiness of the labour ing classes absolutely depends.

If the demand for labour increases faster than the supply, high wages are the natural result; labourers are enabled to provide better for their children; a larger proportion of those born are reared; the burthen, too, of a large family is rendered lighter; and in this manner the marriage and multiplication of labourers are encouraged, and an increasing supply is enabled to follow an increased demand. If, on the contrary, the waste or diminution of wealth should reduce the demand for labour, wages must inevitably fal!, and the comforts of the labourer will be diminished, the

reverse.

marriage and multiplication dis couraged until the supply is gradually adapted to the reduced demand. It is obvious, that the condition of a country, whilst this latter course is in progress, must be painful; but it is more or less so according to the degree in which the foresight of the industrious classes might have prepared them for such a The habits and customs of the labouring classes in different countries must in a great degree depend on the circumstances which, by affecting the demand for labour, regulate the condition in which they are content to exist. But where prudent habits are established, they avail themselves of a high rate of wages, to better their condition, rather than greatly to increase their numbers. In England a labourer would not, formerly, have thought himself justified in marrying unless he had the means of providing himself with many things which in other countries would have been deemed unnecessary luxuries. In a state similar to this, if the labouring classes are met by a fall in wages, they will always have something to spare, which will assist in mitigating any difficulties to which they may be exposed.

Though it is by contemplating the possibility of a reverse that they can alone be stimulated to prepare for it, it is, unfortunately, far less difficult to induce men to neglect all such preparation by holding out to the labouring classes, that they shall at all times be provided with adequate employment, they are led to believe they have nothing to dread while they are willing to labour. The

supply

supply of labour, therefore, which they alone have the power to regulate, is left constantly to increase, without any reference to the demand, or to the funds on which it depends. Under these circumstances, if the demand for labour suddenly decreases, the provisions of the poor law alone are looked to, to supply the place of all those circumstances which result only from vigilance and caution. The powers of law, whilst they profess to compel both labour and wages to be provided, under these circumstances, in reality effect nothing but a more wasteful application of the diminished capital than would otherwise take place they tend thereby materially to reduce the real wages of free labour, and thus essentially to injure the labouring classes. In this situation of things, not only the labourers, who have hitherto maintained themselves, are reduced, by the perversion of the funds of their employers, to seek assistance from the rate, but the smaller capitalists themselves are gradually reduced, by the burthen of the assessments, to take refuge in the same resource. The effect of these compulsory distributions is to pull down what is above, not to raise what is low; and they depress high and low together, beneath the level of what was originally lowest.

If these views of the effect of undertaking to provide employment for all who want it are founded in truth, there results from them an obvious necessity of abandoning gradually the impossible condition, that all who require it shall be provided with work, which, whether or not it

be the real object of the statute, has by many been held to be so. On this head, your committee submit, that if the provision which they have pointed out be made for children whose parents cannot maintain them, and the provision also for such as are of the class of poor and impotent be continued, the labouring classes will continue to be relieved from the heaviest part of their necessities. But if any portion of the general and indiscriminate relief which is now given must of necessity be withheld, your committee think it can be withheld from none by whom the privation could so well be borne, as by those who are in the full vigour of health and strength; it may therefore be worthy of consideration, whether, if under favourable circumstances of the country, the demand for labour should again be materially enlarged, it might not be enacted, that no person should be provided with work by the parish, other than those who are already so provided, and who might be permitted to continue until they could provide for themselves; but if the change by this provision might be thought too rapid, limitation might still be provided, the effect of which would render it more gradual, as by enacting, that none shall be provided with employment who are between the ages of 18 and 30; and then after a certain lapse of time, that none between 16 and 35, 40 and so on, until the object shall be gradually effected.

As whatever money would have been applied to the maintenance of these persons by the means of the poor rate, cannot fail to be employed in some such way as to

put

put other labour in motion, the money thus restored to its natural channel cannot fail to assist in increasing the natural demand for labour; and if the wages of agricultural labour, which are now in so great a proportion paid through the poor rate, were left to adjust themselves by the operation of the market, it could hardly fail to have the effect of gradually raising the wages of labour: for it is the obvious interest of the farmer that his work should be done with effect and celerity, which can hardly take place unless the labourer is provided according to his habits, with such necessaries of life as may keep his body in full vigour, and his mind gay and cheerful.

If, however, it should be thought wise or even practicable to persevere in endeavouring to provide work for all who want it, fresh powers must certainly be devised for that purpose; the

narrow limits and the strict specifications by which the existing authority to set to work is confined, have made your committee somewhat at a loss to ascertain on what legal provision the practices of making up the wages of labour, according to a certain scale, of sending roundsmen, &c. have been imagined to depend. But if labour is to be continued, it would be idle to attempt to prescribe to every parish the means which they should respectively adopt, in order to comply as far as it be possible with such an injunction of the law; and your committee can only recommend all possible facility of providing employment being given, not so much with a view to the profit to be derived from it, as from the necessity of withholding from idleness the wages that

should be due to industry alone; care however should be taken, with a view to the interests of industrious persons, that the local work to be supplied, should be such as will least sensibly interfere with existing occupations and trades. In country parishes, agriculture affords the most obvious and useful source of employment; for though the whole stock of subsistence be thereby increased, yet the cultivator of the land would be more than compensated for any diminution in the value of his produce, by the corresponding diminution of the expense of maintaining his family and labourers, and the more important reduction of the poor rate. committee find, that in the county .of Kent it has been thought expedient, in two instances, to carry this practice so far as to establish parochial farms in the parishes of Benenden and Cranbrooke; an account of them, which has been communicated to your committee, will be found in the appendix.

Your

If it should be found impracticable or inexpedient, as from the difficulty of providing a careful and economical superintendent over such a concern, it probably may be in the generality of agricultural parishes, to make such an experiment on so large a scale; yet great benefit might, in the opinion of your committee, be derived from some parishes being enabled to possess themselves of as much land as might produce at least an adequate supply of provisions for those whom they are bound to maintain, and would afford the means, which otherwise might be wanting, of bringing to the test the willingness to work of some of the applicants for employment;

but