III. Effects on Labourers, 1. Effects on Those Not Actually Relieved.

BUT the severest sufferers are those for whose benefit the system is supposed to have been introduced, and to be perpetuated, the labourers and their families. In treating this branch of the subject, we will consider separately the case of those who are, and of those who are not, actually recipients of relief.

First, with respect to those who are not actually relieved. We have seen that one of the objects attempted by the present administration of the Poor Laws is, to repeal pro tanto that law of nature by which the effects of each man's improvidence or misconduct are borne by himself and his family. The effect of that attempt has been to repeal pro tanto the law by which each man and his family enjoy the benefit of his own prudence and virtue. In abolishing punishment, we equally abolish reward. Under the operation of the scale system—the system which directs the overseers to regulate the incomes of the labourers according to their families—idleness, improvidence, or extravagance occasion no loss, and consequently diligence and economy can afford no gain. But to say merely that these virtues afford no gain, is an inadequate expression: they are often the causes of absolute loss. We have seen that in many places the income derived from the parish for easy or nominal work, or, as it is most significantly termed, "in lieu of labour," actually exceeds that of the independent labourer; and even in those cases in which the relief-money only equals, or nearly approaches, the average rate of wages, it is often better worth having, as the pauper requires less expensive diet and clothing than the hard-working man. In such places a man who does not possess either some property, or an amount of skill which will ensure to him more than the average rate of wages, is of course a loser by preserving his independence. Even if he have some property, he is a loser, unless the aggregate of the income which it affords and of his wages equals what he would receive as a pauper. It appears accordingly, that when a parish has become pauperized, the labourers are not only prodigal of their earnings, not only avoid accumulation, but even dispose of, and waste in debauchery, as soon as their families entitle them to allowance, any small properties which may have devolved on them, or which they may have saved in happier times. Self-respect, however, is not yet so utterly destroyed among the English pea santry as to make this universal. Men are still to be found who would rather derive a smaller income from their own funds and their own exertions, than beg a larger one from the parish. And in those cases in which the labourer's property is so considerable as to produce, when joined to his wages, an income exceeding parish pay, or the aggregate of wages and allowance, it is obviously his interest to remain independent.

Will it be believed that such is not merely the cruelty, but the folly of the rate-payers in many places, that they prohibit this conduct—that they conspire to deny the man who, in defiance of the examples of all around him, has dared to save, and attempts to keep his savings, the permission to work for his bread? Such a statement appears so monstrous, that we will substantiate it by some extracts from our evidence.

Sir Harry Verney, in a communication which will be found in App. (C.) says,—

"In the hundred of Buckingham, in which I act as a magistrate, many instances occur in which labourers are unable to obtain employment, because they have property of their own. For instance, in the parish of Steeple Claydon, John Lines, formerly a soldier, a very good workman, is refused employment, because he receives a pension. The farmers say that they cannot afford to employ those for whom they are not bound by law to provide. In order to prevent John Lines from being out of work, I am frequently obliged myself to give him employment."

Mr. Courthope, of Ticehurst, Sussex, in his excellent answers to our Queries, replies to the question, "Could a poor family lay by anything?"—

"If the single man could procure regular work, and could be induced to lay by as he ought to do, I think an industrious man might in a few years secure an independence, at the present wages of the country; but if an industrious man was known to have laid by any part of his wages, and thus to have accumulated any considerable sum, there are some parishes in which he would be refused work till his savings were gone; and the knowledge that this would be the case, acts as a preventive against saving."

Mr. Wetherell, the rector of Byfield, Northamptonshire, replies to the same question:—

"With a family, it is scarcely possible he should lay by anything out of his earnings, and if he could, he dare not let it be known, lest he should be refused employment under the present system of the poor laws, though he is industrious and honest."

Mr. Chadwick thus reports the evidence of Mr. Hickson, a manufacturer at Northampton and landholder in Kent:—

"The case of a man who has worked for me will show the effect of the parish system in preventing frugal habits. This is a hard-working, industrious man, named William Williams. He is married, and had saved some money, to the amount of about 70l., and had two cows; he had also a sow and ten pigs. He had got a cottage well furnished; he was a member of a benefit club at Meopham, from which he received 8s. a week when he was ill. He was beginning to learn to read and write, and sent his children to the Sunday-school. He had a legacy of about 46l., but he got his other money together by saving from his fair wages as a waggoner. Some circumstances occurred which obliged me to part with him. The consequence of this labouring man having been frugal and saved money, and got the cows, was, that no one would employ him, although his superior character as a workman was well known in the parish. He told me at the time I was obliged to part with him—'Whilst I have these things I shall get no work; I must part with them all; I must be reduced to a state of beggary before any one will employ me.' I was compelled to part with him at Michaelmas; he has not yet got work, and he has no chance of getting any until he has become a pauper; for until then, the paupers will be preferred to him. He cannot get work in his own parish, and he will not be allowed to get any in other parishes. Another instance of the same kind occurred amongst my workmen. Thomas Hardy, the brother-in-law of the same man, was an excellent workman, discharged under similar circumstances; he has a very industrious wife. They have got two cows, a well-furnished cottage, and a pig and fowls. Now he cannot get work, because he has property. The pauper will be preferred to him, and he can qualify himself for it only by becoming a pauper. If he attempts to get work elsewhere, he is told that they do not want to fix him on the parish. Both these are fine young men, and as excellent labourers as I could wish to have. The latter labouring man mentioned another instance, of a labouring man in another parish (Henstead), who had once had more property than he, but was obliged to consume it all, and is now working on the roads."

We have already quoted from Mr. Cowell's Report a letter from Mr. Nash, of Royston, in which he states that he had been forced by the overseer of Reed to dismiss two excellent labourers, for the purpose of introducing two paupers into their place. Mr. Nash adds, that of the men dismissed, one

"Was John Walford, a parishioner of Barley, a steady, industrious, trustworthy, single man, who, by long and rigid economy, had saved about 100l. On being dismissed, Walford applied in vain to the farmers of Barley for employment. 'It was well known that he had saved money, and could not come on the parish, although any of them would willingly have taken him had it been otherwise.' After living a few months without been able to get any work, he bought a cart and two horses, and has ever since obtained a precarious subsistence, by carrying corn to London for one of the Cambridge merchants; but just now the current of corn is northward, and he has nothing to do; and at any time he would gladly have exchanged his employment for that of day labour, if he could have obtained work. No reflection is intended on the overseers of Barley; they only do what all others are expected to do; though the young men point at Walford, and call him a fool, for not spending his money at the public-house, as they do; adding, that then he would get work."

The same Report contains the following statement from Mr. Wedd, an eminent solicitor of Royston, who was himself personally acquainted with the details of the case:—

"An individual who had risen from poverty, and accumulated considerable personal property, bequeathed legacies to a number of labourers, his relations. Circumstances delayed for several months the collecting in the testator's estate. The overseer's deputy of one parish, in which some of the legatees were labourers, urged to the agent of the executors the payment, on the ground that it would benefit the parishioners, as, when the legacies were paid, they would not find employment for the legatees, because they would have property of their own. The legatees afterwards applied for money on account of their legacies. It was then stated that some of them, who lived in a different parish, had been refused employment, because they were entitled to property."

Mr. Richardson states, that in Northamptonshire, in those parishes in which labour-rates, or agreements in the nature of labour-rates, exist,—

"Objections are constantly made to the allowing persons possessing any property to be counted on the rate," (that is, to be admitted on the number of those, the employment of whom exempts pro tanto a rate-payer from the burden of the labour-rate). "At Culworth, a man of the name of James Nuld, who had never applied for parish relief, was objected to partly on that ground, and partly because he kept a pig. At Eydon the same thing had taken place. One of the delinquents had qualified himself immediately as a pauper, by selling his house. At Middleton Cheney, a man with any property was neither employed on the rate nor relieved."

Those who are guilty of a still more important act of prudence and self-denial—that of deferring the period of marriage—are punished sometimes by being refused permission to work, sometimes by being allowed to work only a given number of days in each week, and sometimes by being paid for a full week's labour only a portion, often not half or a third, of what they see their married fellow-workmen receive. The principal evidence to this effect is to be found in the returns to onr printed Queries, and there is much in the Reports of the Assistant Commissioners.

Mr. Power states, that in Gamlingay (Cambridgeshire), the wages paid to men employed by individuals are about 6s. a week to single men; to married men, with children, from 9s. to 10s., with further allowance from the rates, according to the number of the family; and mentions, as a general remark, that when the farmer employs the young single man, it is seldom or never by the grate, but at daily wages, little above those of parish employment.

"At Nuneaton," says Mr. Villiers, "the overseer mentioned a case which had only occurred a few days before to himself, in an application made to him by a lad, to procure him relief from the parish. His answer to him was, 'Go away and work, you foolish boy;' the boy's answer was, 'Ah, but, Sir, I married yesterday, and I expect the parish to find me a place to live in.' On examining a labourer at Holsworthy, he said that he was only receiving 4s. a week from the parish for his work upon the roads; but that he did not complain of the smallness of the allowance, since he knew what numbers there were then depending on the parish. Upon asking him to what he attributed this increase of number, he replied, that the reason was evident, 'since,' to use his expression, 'the young folks married up so terrible early in these days.' On asking him if he could account for this, he said, 'that many of them thought they should be better off if they were married than if they were single, and get more regular employment from the farmers.' He said that he was sixty-eight years of age, and that he remembered a very different state of things; that 'when he was a young man, the farmers preferred a man who was single to a married man, and that he was used to live in the house with them; that men did'nt use to marry till they had got a character as good workmen, and had put by some of their earnings;' and that 'if any man applied to the parish, he was pointed at by all who knew him, as a parish bird; but that it was very different now."

Mr. Stuart states, that in Suffolk,—

"The policy of most parishes is to employ the married men in preference to the single, and that when the single are employed, their wages are generally less. The farmers frequently said that they considered it bad management not to make this distinction, yet none complained more of early marriages."

Messrs. Wrottesley and Cameron state, that in West Wycombe (Bucks)—

"The notion of wages, as a contract beneficial to both parties, seems to be nearly obliterated. The rate of weekly wages paid by the parish is, to a single man under twenty, 3s.; above twenty, 4s.; married men, without children, 5s.; and so on. We asked what wages the farmers gave; the answer was, the same as the parish. We asked if piece-work was common—There is very little of it; it does not answer. Why not?—We have have got too many people, and want to employ them. You mean that men would do too much work if employed by the piece?—That is just what I mean."

Mr. Richardson states, that in Northamptonshire,—

"As the farmers have, under the scale system, a direct inducement to employ married men rather than single, in many villages, particularly in the southern district, they will not employ the single men at all; in others they pay them a much lower rate of wages for the same work, in the hope of driving them to seek work out of the parish. Instead of this, they marry directly, knowing that if they cannot maintain themselves, the parish must do it for them, and that the farmers will be more ready to give work to men likely to become burthensome, than to those who are not. The usual remark they make is, 'Well, I'll go and get a wife, and then you must do something for me.'"

He adds, that

"Sometimes single men are not counted on the labour-rate. A clergyman of Culworth gave me an instance of a labourer who told him that he had married only because, under the labour-rate, he could not get work without. If they are admitted, it is at a lower rate than married men? 'Of course, Sir,' as I have often heard from the overseers, who seemed a little surprised at my putting the question."

We will close our instances of this conduct by the following law enacted by a vestry:—

"At a Vestry Meeting, holden in the Parish Church of Edgefield, on Monday, April 8, 1833,

"Resolved,—That the rate of wages for able-bodied men be reduced to 4s. per week; that 1s. per week be given to each wife, and 1s. for each child per week. If there is not any children, allow the wife 1s. 6d. per week.

"Agreed for three months from this date, to commence Monday 15th."

[Here follow 15 signatures.]

All the previous testimony has been given by persons belonging to the higher orders of society. Some, however, has been furnished by the labourers themselves; and we quote the following passages from the Reports of Mr. Villiers and Mr. Chadwick, to show what effects are attributed to the existing system by the very class to whom it professes to extend its bounty and protection.

"After observing," says Mr. Villiers, "so many instances of an almost necessary connexion between the condition of the people and the mode of administering relief by the parish, I examined persons of different classes with regard to the interests which might be supposed to be involved in the continuance of the present system in the agricultural districts; and on this point the following evidence of some labourers themselves, who were wholly unprepared, and unacquainted with the object of my inquiry, is not unimportant. They were examined in the presence of two gentlemen, one a proprietor, and the other an occupier of land in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.

"Thomas Bayce, labourer, stated, That he was not settled in the parish in which he worked; that he was upwards of fifty years of age, and that neither he nor his father had ever received relief from any parish; that he knew many labourers were getting pay from the parish, and that many were relieved who were not so badly off as others who would not demand it; but that people did not care to go to the parish now as they used when he was a young man. Upon being asked his opinion of the roundsmen system, he answered in the following manner:—'That is the very worst thing that has ever happened for the labourers of this country; that is the way our wages are kept down. A farmer wants to get some work done; he proposes starving wages to the labourer. If the labourer refuses to take them, the farmer says, 'Very well, I do not want you,' and sends to the overseer and gets a man, whom he pays what he likes, and then the parson and the shopkeeper are made to pay the rest. And if a man is not in his own parish, he will often take less than he can live upon, sooner than be sent back to his own parish where he is not wanted.' Upon being asked how he came to have been always employed, and (as he had previously said) earning sometimes 14s a week, he said, 'That all farmers were not alike, and that some farmers knew the value of a labourer who was honest and hard-working, and that his character might be learnt of any farmer with whom he had ever worked;' but he added, 'This is not always the case, for I have seen many a man employed, not because he has a good character, but because he has a large family; and there are many who know that to be the case.'

"J. Stanton, aged fifty, was a married man; had no children at present; he was a tenant of half an acre of land; he stated that it never took him from his other work, (as if he had much to do); he got some single man to work for him, as there were always some unemployed; the farmers always preferring to employ the men with large families, to keep them off the parish. One of the gentlemen present asked this man whether he would not prefer to see a man get employment who had children to support, than a single man who had only himself to provide for; his answer was in these words:—'To speak openly, Sir, I consider that a man ought to be paid for his work, and not for his family; and that if I had done a good day's work, I should sooner have the value of it myself than see another man paid because he has got children.' He was then asked if he had heard of men marrying with the view to obtain regular employment from the farmers, or more relief from the parish: he said, 'There are many, Sir, who do think that they shall be better off if they have a family, and I have heard them often say so.' He was asked if the labourers thought that the more industrious they were, the more encouragement they would receive: 'No, they do not do that, because we see many a man get parish pay whether he is industrious or not.' He continued, 'But, Sir, what is the use of a man working hard if he has got no master to oblige, paid half by the parish and half by the farmer? How would a man be better off if he were to work ever so hard? It would be better for us to be slaves at once than to work under such a system.' I asked him if some of the labourers did not prefer the system as a means of being idle, or of only doing half a day's work; he said he believed that might be the case sometimes, and added, 'Where is the wonder; when a man has his spirit broken, what is he good for?'

"Gibson, labourer, stated that he was seventy years of age; he had brought up a family of six children, and had never applied to the parish, but on one occasion, to assist him to pay his rent in time; he know many a man who was receiving parish relief, not so badly off as he had been himself, but that there were so many now with large families, that he hardly thought they could keep off the parish; 'but,' he added, 'what is a man to do, Sir; for if he has not a family, he has a bad chance of getting steady work in his own parish.'"

"Charles James, labourer. He had four children; he had never received parish relief; on being asked what he thought of the roundsmen system, he said, "it completely ruined the labourer,' and added, 'and people may say, Sir, what they like, but there are one set of farmers who always will keep it up as long as they are allowed to do so; and it is no use their saying they do not approve of it, when last week farmer———turned off all his men, and in the same week took the same men all back from the parish, and now he pays them half the wages that he did.'

"Cockerell, labourer, said that he lived with his father-in-law, who was a very old man, that he often heard him remark 'what a sad change there was now in men going on the parish, and that he remembered the time when a man would rather starve than apply; but that now-a-days, a man was more employed because he went on the parish than because he was industrious and strived to keep off.'

"On another occasion, the gentleman at whose house I was stopping, being doubtful of the encouragement offered to early marriage from the mode of administering the Poor Laws, proposed to obtain, if possible, the opinion of the first labourers to be met with in the fields; an opportunity soon occurred; four men were working together near a farm-house; upon questioning them as to the wages they were earning, one among them, who informed us that he was 30 years of age and unmarried, complained much of the lowness of his wages, and added, without a question on the subject being put to him, 'That if he was a married man, and had a parcel of children, he should be better off, as he should either have work given him by the piece, or receive allowances for his children.' He was immediately joined by two of the other men, who said 'Yes, Sir, that is how it is; a man has no chance now unless he is a family man.' The other, an old man, who was nearly 80 years of age, said, 'That he was yet able and willing to work, but that he was obliged to go upon the parish because the farmers gave all the work they could to men who had families. When he was young, there was no such thing as that.' The men proceeded to reckon what was allowed to families according to their numbers; and they spoke of the system with great irritation. That it tends in no degree to make the class happy and contented may be inferred from this part of the country having been the scene of considerable riot and outrage in 1831."

"Thomas Pearce, Labourer in husbandry, of the parish of Govington, Sussex; Examined.

"WITNESS has worked all his life for Mr. Noakes, of Wannoch.

"At first the witness, who appeared to be a stout, hard-working young man, was examined as to the diet and usual mode of living of the labourers of that district. His evidence was confirmatory of that which is elsewhere stated, as to the modes of living of the labouring classes, and as to the superiority of the condition of paupers.

"In your parish are there many able-bodied men upon the parish?—There are a great many men in our parish who like it better than being at work.

"Why do they like it better?—They get the same money, and don't do half so much work. They don't work like me; they be'ant at it so many hours, and they don't do so much work when they be at it; they're doing no good, and are only waiting for dinner time and night; they be'ant working, it's only waiting.

"How have you managed to live without parish relief?—By working hard.

"What do the paupers say to you?—They blame me for what I do. They say to me. 'What are you working for?' I say, 'For myself.' They say, 'You are only doing it to save the parish, and if you didn't do it, you would get the same as another man has, and would get the money for smoking your pipe and doing nothing.' 'Tis a hard thing for a man like me.

"If you want anything from the parish, should you get it sooner than a man who has not worked so hard?—No, not a bit; nor so likely as one of those men.

"What would they say to you?—They would say that I didn't want it, and that I had a piece of ground, and was well off. They're always giving to men who don't deserve it, whilst they are refusing to those who do.

"Is it worse in your parish than in others?—No, it is the same in them all. There is partiality everywhere. If I was to offend my master, and he was to turn me away, none of the others would give me work; and if I go to the parish, they would put me on the roads. There's not one in our place that looks on me the better for my work, but all the worse for it.

"What would be thought of a plan, of making all go either wholly on or wholly off the parish, so that the men should not be paid half in wages and half as a pauper?—I do not know; but my master (Mr. Noakes) says, that he would take his full part of men; and if all the others did the same, there would be no men on the road, except an old man or two just to let the water off. But some of the farmers like to poke the men on the roads, so as to made the blacksmith and the wheeler and the shopkeepers come in, which helps the rates.

"But do not the workmen see that the farmers do this to serve their own turn, and pay less in wages?—Yes, that is how it is. A farmer, when he wants his stock in, will say, 'I want to keep my cattle going; I won't take away my cattle men, but I'll get some extra men from the roads.' And so he does; and when he has got his stock in, he says, 'Now you may go, and the parish may keep you. He will get these men to do an extra day or two's work, but he won't give them more than the parish gives; for which reason they do not like to go, as they do not work half so hard for the parish.

"Would it, do you think, be a good thing to prevent the farmers using the parish to keep a stock of hands ready for these extra jobs?—I do not know how that would be, as I never seed it tried; but I think he would make the farmers keep more men for constant, which would be a good thing, as they would find more work for them. The land is not near done here as it should be, for want of hands."

Piece-work is thus refused to the single man, or to the married man if he have any property, because they can exist on day wages; it is refused to the active and intelligent labourer, because he would earn too much. The enterprising man, who has fled from the tyranny and pauperism of his parish to some place where there is a demand and a reward for his services, is driven from a situation which suits him, and an employer to whom he is attached, by a labour-rate or some other device against non-parishioners, and forced back to his settlement to receive as alms a portion only of what he was obtaining by his own exertions. He is driven from a place where he was earning, as a free labourer, 12s. or 14s. a week, and is offered road-work, as a pauper, at sixpence a day, or perhaps to be put up by the parish authorities to auction, and sold to the farmer who will take him at the lowest allowance.

Can we wonder if the labourer abandons virtues of which this is the reward? If he gives up the economy in return for which he has been proscribed, the diligence for which he has been condemned to involuntary idleness, and the prudence, if it can be called such, which diminishes his means just as much as it diminishes his wants? Can we wonder if, smarting under these oppressions, he considers the law, and all who administer the law, as his enemies, the fair objects of his fraud or his violence? Can we wonder if, to increase his income, and to revenge himself on the parish, he marries, and thus helps to increase that local over-population which is gradually eating away the fund out of which he and all the other labourers of the parish are to be maintained?