for which the money could have been exchanged, was not so great then as it has been in each subsequent year.

*

It is unquestionable, that the Poor Law Amendment Act only removed mere abuses in the administration of the law, and that those abuses vanished, and could not but vanish at once, as soon as the new system of a central control, and an efficient audit of accounts, was established. All the essential evils of our poor laws are still unmitigated, or, at the most, have been very slightly mitigated, by the Act of 1834; and we now find that, during the long years between 1834 and 1852, Poor Law Commissioners, and Presidents of the Poor Law Board, have been successively employed in the mere labour of Sisyphus; and that the stone which they have been condemned to turn, has become heavier and heavier, with the efforts of each successive year.

The main change in the law, effected since 1834, was introduced by the statute 9 & 10 Vict. c. 66. The year 1846, in which this statute passed, was signalised, and will be ever memorable, in the annals of Great Britain, by the triumph of the principle of Free Trade, in the total repeal of the Corn Laws. That repeal was likely to make it necessary for the legislature soon to apply some effectual remedy to the evils of the law of settlement and removal; and Sir Robert Peel, when, on 27th January, 1846, he first moved, to the consternation of the country gentlemen, that the House of Commons should go into committee on the Customs and Corn Importation Act, studiously explained, to the great party which he had once before divided, but of which he had again become the chosen defender and leader, how he had taken care to relieve them from the pressure of "the Law of Settlement, a law grievously complained of, and justly, by the agricultural interest." The great convert to Free Trade, depicted the hardship of sending back, to a rural district, in a time of manufacturing distress, those labourers whose industry had been invited, years before, to a manufacturing town, and there exercised in the interval. Such poor men were removed

* Above, p. 6.

seventh part of the whole population, and derived their subsistence from their little freehold farms."* It has been computed, that the number of persons who then occupied their own land was greater than the number of those who farmed the land of others. † This class of proprietors has long been diminishing; their most rapid progress towards extinction, probably occurred towards the latter half of the eighteenth century. The wealth of the country continued greatly to increase, while the number of those among whom it was distributed seems to have thus constantly diminished. The analogy of all this to what occurred in ancient Rome is obvious.

Sir Frederick Eden, towards the end of the eighteenth century, speaks of the "impossibility of procuring habitations," as the greatest difficulty under which the poor laboured: and, mentioning the repeal, by 15 Geo. III. c. 32., of the statute of Elizabeth, which prohibited the building of cottages unless four acres of land were laid to each cottage, he adds, truly enough, "there does not seem to be much danger, at present, of cottages becoming too numerous.'

The want of cottage accommodation for labourers, forced itself on the notice of the magistrates of Hampshire, in 1795, in consequence of an inquiry under an order made at their Epiphany sessions of that year. The justices who inquired reported §, among other things, that "it would much improve the condition of labourers, if cottages were multiplied and dispersed about the estates where they labour, with small pieces of ground annexed for their own proper cultivation and advantage; by which the loss of time, and the actual labour of going to and from work at a distance, would be saved from such fruitless waste, to be employed in the fruitful cultivation of such pieces of ground." A contemporary

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* Macaulay, History of England, vol. i. p. 334. Eden, State of the Poor, vol. i. p. 361.

† Ibid.

§ Report on the Inquiry into the General State of the Poor, instituted by order of the last Epiphany Quarter Sessions for Hampshire. Published by Young, Annals of Agriculture, vol. xxv. pp. 349-398.

Report, p. 258.

Sir Robert Peel manifestly thought that the repeal of the corn laws, would greatly change the conditions under which agricultural industry must be exercised in England; and probably he was well aware, even in 1846, that freedom of trade in corn, ought to be speedily followed by freedom for the circulation of agricultural and other labour. But the experience of the session of 1845, had taught both Sir Robert Peel and his distinguished colleague, Sir James Graham, the great difficulty of persuading the then House of Commons to make any substantial change in the law of settlement: the Cabinet measure of 1846, was therefore so prepared, as to leave all question of settlement untouched, and merely to prevent removal of the poor, under given circumstances, from their places of residence.

Much inconvenience and some injustice was foreseen as likely to result from passing such a measure on this narrow and isolated question of non-removal; and Mr. J. E. Denison moved and carried an instruction to the committee, on the committal of the bill, to adopt a union settlement. But as soon as the corn laws were repealed, Sir Robert Peel and Sir James Graham ceased to hold office; and the Whigs, by whom they were succeeded, took up the original bill of Sir Robert Peel and Sir James Graham, adjourning any change in the law of settlement, for future consideration. That adjournment has been repeated, from time to time, by both Government and Poor Law Board, down to the commencement of the session of 1852.

The promise held out, early in the session of 1846, by Sir Robert Peel, was realised under the Whigs, on the 26th August in the same year. The statute then passed, 9 & 10 Vict. c. 66., provides, that "no person shall be removed, nor shall any warrant be granted for the removal of any person, from any parish in which such person shall have resided for five years next before the application for the warrant." A subsequent section of the statute prohibits removal of persons becoming chargeable in respect of relief, made necessary by sickness or accident, except such as will produce permanent disability.

merely from want of work there, would, in any other place, where sufficient employment is to be had, maintain themselves and families without being burthensome to any parish, township, or place; and such poor persons are, for the most part, compelled to live in their own parishes, townships, or places, and are not permitted to inhabit elsewhere, under pretence that they are likely to become chargeable to the parish, township, or place, into which they go for the purpose of getting employment, although the labour of such poor persons might, in many instances, be very beneficial to such parish, township, or place."

The description given by the legislature*, nearly a century before this act passed, of the injurious consequences of the statute of Charles II., was much the same as that which is here exhibited.†

What a contrast is there between this recital of the act of 1795, and that of the statute of Charles II. Then it was declared to be a great defect in the law, that poor people were not restrained from going out of one parish into another. Now the defect is, that the poor are compelled to live in their own parishes, and are not permitted to inhabit elsewhere.

A reference to the political history, as well as to the social condition, of England in 1795, will probably give a reasonable explanation of the passing, at that moment, of the statute 35 Geo. III. c. 101., in so far as it mitigates the cruelty and

* In the preamble to the stat. 8 & 9 Will. III. c. 30., passed in 1697, and set out above, p. 238.

†The same statute, 35 Geo. III. c. 101., mitigated another practical grievance of the poor, under the statute of Charles II. A common cause of destitution being bodily sickness, it frequently happened that orders of removal were obtained, and (as the statute 35 Geo. III. c. 101. s. 2. informs us) "poor persons were often removed, or passed to the place of their settlement, during the time of their sickness, to the great danger of their lives:" the act therefore gave the power of suspending the execution of orders of removal, in the case of poor persons, whose sickness rendered it dangerous for them to be removed. The same act also defined new conditions of litigation between parishes respecting these suspended orders, and the amount of costs of relief which might be incurred under them. It is impossible to modify any abuse of this settlement and removal law, without affecting pecuniary interests of the hostile and belligerent districts, into which it divides the whole country.

now suddenly thrown for support on the ratepayers of the towns of their residence, proved so grievous a burden to the oppressed towns, that Parliament was obliged to interfere. The relief to agriculture, sanctioned by 9 & 10 Vict. c. 66., was maintained, but it was found necessary for the Legislature to transfer the burden of maintaining all classes of poor persons, who were rendered irremovable, under the provisions of the statute 9 & 10 Vict. c. 66., from the parish of residence to the whole union in which it was comprised. This was effected, in 1847, by Mr. Bodkin's Act of 10 & 11 Vict. c. 110.

Great relief was thus afforded, in some parts of the country, to the pressure created by the statute. The burden which had been taken from the shoulders of the country gentlemen, and placed at first on the town parishes, was now diffused over the wider space of the town unions; and in many large towns and cities, the weight was hard and grievous to bear. Norwich was thus fixed with an absolute increase of about 5000l. per annum, in the cost of maintaining its resident and now irremovable poor. Exeter and Canterbury, in each of which places the poor of the whole city are governed under local acts, much in the same way as in Norwich, suffered similarly.* In Leeds the increase of annual burden was about 3000l.f; and so, very generally throughout all towns, the statute found ample materials to work on, and the agricultural and country interest was everywhere benefited, at the expense of what may be called the manufacturing and town interest. A few additional examples may be adduced to show the extent of the change.

In three parishes of the Radford Union, which surrounds the town of Nottingham, and is in turn surrounded by close parishes, the expense of maintaining the poor, for the two years next after the statute of 1846 came into operation, was above three times as great as it had been during previous years. §

* Vain attempts were made by Norwich and Exeter to get rid of this new burden by a legal discussion of clauses in their local acts. Regina v. Forncett St. Mary, Queen's Bench Reports, vol. xii. p. 16.; and Regina v. Ide, New Sessions Cases, vol. iv. p. 438.

† On the increase of burden in these towns, see the evidence given before Mr. Charles Buller's Select Committee on Settlement and Poor Removal, in 1847. Reports to the Poor Law Board, 1850, p. 127.

§ Ibid. p. 126.