IV. Parish Employment.

BY the parish employing and paying the applicants for relief.

The 43rd of Elizabeth does not authorize relief to be afforded to any but the impotent, except in return for work. And much as this part of the statute has been neglected, its validity is recognized by the Judges. In the King v. Collett; 2 Barnewell and Cresswell, 324, Lord Tenterden decided it to be the duty of overseers to provide work, if possible, before they afforded relief. And whatever may be the difficulty of finding profitable work, it is difficult to suppose the existence of a parish in which it would not be possible to provide some work, were it merely to dig holes and fill them again. But though such is the law, it appears, from the Parliamentary Returns, that payment for work is the most unusual form in which relief is administered. The Poor Rate Returns for the year ending the 25th March, 1832, state, that out of 7,036,968l, expended in that year for the relief of the poor, less than 354,000l., or scarcely more than one-twentieth part, was paid for work, including work on the roads and in the workhouses. This may easily be accounted for.

In the first place, to afford relief gratuitously is less troublesome to the parochial authorities than to require work in return for it. Wherever work is to be paid for, there must be superintendence; but where paupers are the work-people, much more than the average degree of superintendence is necessary. In ordinary cases, all that the superintendent inquires is, whether the workmen has performed an average day's work; and where the work is piece-work, he need not make even that inquiry. The practice of his trade fixes the market price of the work, and he pays it without asking whether the workman has been one hour or one day in performing it, or whether it exceeds or falls below his wants. But the superintendent of pauper labourers has to ascertain, not what is an average day's work, or what is the market price of a given service, but what is a fair day's work for a given individual, his strength and habits considered; at what rate of pay for that work, the number of his family considered, he would be able to earn the sum necessary for his and their subsistence; and lastly, whether he has in fact performed the amount which, after taking all these elements into calculation, it appears that he ought to have performed. It will easily be anticipated that this superintendence is very rarely given; and that in far the greater number of the cases in which work is professedly required from paupers, in fact no work is done. In the second place, collecting the paupers in gangs for the performance of parish work is found to be more immediately injurious to their conduct than even allowance or relief without requiring work. Whatever be the general character of the parish labourers, all the worst of the inhabitants are sure to be among the number; and it is well known that the effect of such an association is always to degrade the good, not to elevate the bad. It was among these gangs, who had scarcely any other employment or amusement than to collect in groups, and talk over their grievances, that the riots of 1830 appear to have originated. And, thirdly, parish employment does not afford direct profit to any individual. Under most of the other systems of relief, the immediate employers of labour can throw on the parish a part of the wages of their labourers. They prefer, therefore, those modes of relief which they can turn to their own account, out of which they can extract profit under the mask of charity.

In those parishes in which labour is the condition on which relief is granted, we have found great differences with respect to the kind and the duration of the labour required, and the amount of its remuneration. In Cookham, in Putney, and in many of the metropolitan parishes, the work is irksome, the hours of labour are equal to those which a private employer would exact, and the pay less than he would give. In others the amount of labour required is far less than that which an independent labourer must afford; but the pay is dimished so far as is consistent with the supposed wants of the applicant. Thus, at Kimpton, Hants, "the single young men are employed by piecework, but are restricted to earn only 2s. 6d. a week, and are then at liberty to go where they like. In the same place children are employed in picking stones by task, and are allowed to earn the price of a gallon of bread, and 6d. over, per week, which they can do in about four days." At Gamlingay, Cambridge, "the paupers are employed in collecting stones, at the price of 2d. a bushel, until they have earned the sum allotted to them by the bread scale; they then do as they please for that week." At Uckfield, Sussex, instead of a part of each week, "they are required to work a part of each day, so as to earn the sum which is considered necessary for their subsistence;" a sum which, according to the magisterial scale of the Uckfield bench, appears to be, for a single man, 4s.; man and wife, 7s.; man, wife, and one child, 8s. 6d.; with two children, 10s.; and for each child above two, the value of a gallon of flour. In a parish in Suffolk, "twenty acres were hired by the parish and dug by the paupers at piece-work, the price being proportioned to their families. Either the work was completed by two or three o'clock, and the rest of the day spent in idleness,or the men consumed the whole day in the lazy performance of the work of a portion of the day." In Pollington, Yorkshire, they send many of them upon the highways, but they only work four hours per day: this is because there is not employment sufficient in that way; they sleep more than they work, and if any but the surveyor found them sleeping, they would laugh at them. In Rancliffe they employed a man in the winter of 1830-1831 to look over them; but they threatened to drownhim, and he was obliged to withdraw. If a man did not like his work, he would say, 'I can have 12s. a week by going on the roads, and doing as little as I like.' In Carlton, from 30l. to 40l. was paid to men last year (1831) for doing nothing." "In the parish of Mancetter, in the county of Warwick, the overseer stated that young able men received 2s. 6d. a week, and the magistrates would not allow the parish to employ them more than three days in the week, in order that they might get work for themselves. Upon inquiry, it appeared that their characters soon became so infamous, that no person would employ them, having devoted their spare time to thieving and poaching. In the township of Atherstone, Mr. Wellday, a manufacturer, impatient of contributing his property to the encouragement of vice and idleness by paying men without exacting labour, purchased some water-carts himself, for the purpose of giving employment to paupers. The magistrates refused to allow them to be used after twelve o'clock in the day, in order that these men might procure work for themselves: they were also described as becoming the most worthless characters in the town."

In some of the agricultural district, the prevalent mismanagement in this respect has created in the minds of the paupers a notion that it is their right to be exempted from the same degree of labour as independent labourers. In the parish of Swallowfield (Berks), the paupers summoned the overseers before the magistrates. They had been—

"Offered task-work at the gravel-pit at 8d. a yard, or 1s. a load for digging and sifting without loading. This had been considered a fair price with loading. The complainants contended before the magistrates, that by what they considered 'a right,' they ought not to be employed on the part of the parish more than from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon, although when working for farmers they were usually kept at work from six in the morning until six at night in summer, or from daylight until dark in the winter. This, which they claimed as 'their right,' had, in fact, been the previous practice in the parish, and was and is in a greater or less degree the existing practice in adjacent parishes."

In the course of the examination of Mr. Price from Great Farringdon (Berks), he was asked—

"How did you enforce work on the in-door paupers?—Chiefly by admonition. Their labour was, as might be expected, very slack comparatively. I, however, insisted that they should work during the same time as the independent labourers. This they resisted, and appealed to the magistrates against this usage. The ground of their appeal was, that it was a thing unknown before in this parish, or any other, that parish labourers should work as long or as hard as the other classes of labourers."

But in many places, while the labour required by the parish is trifling, the pay equals or exceeds that of the independent labourer. Eastbourne, in Sussex, is a striking example. In this place, in which the average wages earned from individuals by hard work are 12s. a week, the parish pays for nominal labour as much as 16s. a week. Two families alone received from it, in the year ending Lady-day, 1832, 92l. 4s.; and the wives of the few independent labourers regret that their husbands are not paupers. At the parish farm; occupied by the incorporated parishes of the Isle of Wight, 240 men were employed at one time in the year 1830, at the same wages as those usually given by the farmers; they scarcely did any work, and twice left the farm in a body to threaten the directors. Their wages were consequently raised.

In the parish of Hartland, says Mr. Villiers—

"Mr.——,———, who had occupied land there for seventeen years, informed me that the magistrates were in the habit of ordering the same wages for the men working on the roads not superintended. as were paid to the labourers in the employ of the farmers; and that on this account, as well as that the poor liked to watch for the wrecks in the winter, they did not seek for work out of the parish."

Mr. Richardson states, that, in Northamptonshire,

"The plan generally in use in the agricultural villages is, upon the man's applying to the overseer for work, to send him upon some part of the parish roads, where he is expected to work—not the farmer's hours, or anything like them, but to begin at eight, to leave at twelve for dinner, an hour, and to leave the roads finally at four. It is the business of the overseer or the surveyor of the roads, a farmer or a tradesmen, who, paid or not, has his own business to attend to, to see that the men are actually working. While he is present, and the farmers take credit to themselves for riding up once or twice a day to the roads, the men bestir themselves a little; but the moment his back is turned, a man who gives himself any trouble is laughed at by his companions. As the overseer at Kettering told me, their remark is,—'You must have your 12s. a week, or your 10s. a week, whether you work or not; I would not be such a fool as to work—blast work—damn me if I work,' 8c.; and, of course, under these circumstances, they do anything but work; if there is a wood near, as at Glapthorne and some other places round Oundle, they run into the wood to steal firing, which they hide and carry off at a convenient time; and universally they are in the habit of stealing turnips, or posts, or any little thing of that sort that comes to hand.

"In short, where there were many able-bodied men employed on the roads, there everybody complained of petty thefts, pilfering, poaching, 8c., as the natural consequences.

"Whatever the previous character of a man may have been, he is seldom able to withstand the corruption of the roads: two years occasional employment there ruins the best labourer. Moreover, in very many instances, the difference between parish pay for pretending to break stones on the road, and the real wages given by the farmer, does not amount to more than 1s. a week; and, if the man has a family entitling him to receive a given sum by the scale as head-money, he receives as much from the parish as he would from any other employer. Accordingly, the labourers who are only occasionally employed are nearly indifferent to pleasing or displeasing their employer; they quit with the remark which I heard at least a dozen times from different overseers,—'I can get as much on the roads as if I worked for you.'"

The following extracts from Mr. Okeden's and Mr. Majendie's Reports afford examples of all these systems, sometimes separate and sometimes in combination.

"At Urchfont, a parish in the district of Devizes, the population of which is 1,340, and the annual poor-rates about 1,450l., there are above 50 men out of employ for 45 weeks every year. To these the parish pays 3s. a week each during that time, and inquires no further about their time or labour; thus creating an annual item of expense of nearly 400l."

"At the parish of Bodicott, in the district of Bloxham, a printed form is delivered to those who apply for work. The labourer takes this to the farmers in succession, who, if they do not want his labour, sign their names. The man, on his return, receives from the overseer the day's pay of an industrious labourer, with the deduction of 2d. The same system takes place in other parishes.

"In the parish of Sidford Gore, in the same district, where the poor-rates are under 650l. per annum, 114l. was paid last year in six months, to men who did not strike one stroke of work for it.

"At Deddington, during the severe winter months, about 60 men apply every morning to the overseer for work or pay. He ranges them under a shed in a yard. If a farmer or any one else wants a man, he sends to the yard for one, and pays half the day's wages; the rest is paid by the parish. At the close of the day the unemployed are paid the wages of a day, minus 2d. I could multiply instances of this application of the scale to the superfluous labourers; but to do so would only waste your time."

"At Rotherfield, in East Sussex, 120 men were out of employ in the winter 1831-32, and various modes were attempted to dispose of them. First they were set to work on the parish account; single men at 5s.; men with families at 10s. per week; the pay being the same as farmers' pay, the men left the farmers in order to get the same pay with less work. Then they were billeted among the farmers at 1s. per day from the farmers, and 8d. from the parish. This was changed to 1s. from the parish, and 8d. from the farmer. The men so billeted did not keep the proper hours of work; then the farmers' men, finding that they who worked the regular hours were paid no more than those who were irregular, gave up their employment to become billeted men, and the farmers were induced to throw their men out of employ to get their labour done by the parish purse. The billeting system having failed, a 6d. labour-rate was made: it soon failed. Magistrates now recommend 6d. in the pound to be deducted from the full rate, and that the occupier should be allowed to pay that proportion of his rate by employment of the surplus hands.

"The labourers are much deteriorated. They do not care whether they have regular work or not; they prefer idle work on the roads. The magistrates at the Uckfield bench told the overseer, the year before last, that if the men made complaint they should be allowed at the rate of 2s. 4d. per head for each member of the family."

"At Burnash, in East Sussex, in the year 1822, the surplus labourers were put up to auction, and hired as low as 2d. and 3d. per day; the rest of their maintenance being made up by the parish. The consequence was, that the farmers turned off their regular hands, in order to hire them by auction when they wanted them. The evil of this system was so apparent, that some occupiers applied to the magistrates, who recommended it should be given up. During the last year, the following plan has been adopted:—The names of the occupiers are written on pieces of paper, which are put into a bag; the labourer draws out a ticket, which represents 10s. worth of labour, at fair wages; next week the labourer draws another master, and this is repeated till the occupier has exhausted the shilling rate. This has continued two winters; much fraud is mixed up with the practice. Some farmers turn off their labourers in order to have ticketed men; other occupiers refuse to pay the rate, and against them it is not enforced."