V. The Labour-rate System.

BY an agreement among the rate-payers, that each of them shall employ and pay out of his own money a certain number of the labourers who have settlements in the parish, in proportion, not to his real demand for labour, but according to his rental or to his contribution to the rates, or to the number of horses that he keeps for tillage, or to the number of acres that he occupies, or according to some other scale. Where such an agreement exists, it is generally enforced by an additional rate, imposed either under the authority of the 2d. 8 3d. Wm. IV. c. 96, or by general consent on those who do not employ their full proportion. This may be called the Labour-rate System. We shall consider it more at length in a subsequent portion of this Report.