The Industrial Revolution

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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ENCLOSURE AND THE LABOURERS 713 In accordance with these views a General Enclosure Act! AD Lm was passed in 1801; the work of breaking up the common fields and utilising the common waste for tillage went on rapidly in all parts of the country, but the anticipations of the but this expert as to the boon which would be conferred were not hope realised. The social effects of the change, in practically ex- mistuiath, ringuishing the class of small farmers and introducing a body of tenants who worked large holdings, have been already considered?; it is necessary, however, to look at the results of the movement as it affected the cottagers and labourers. As one consequence of the change the labourer became re more entirely dependent on the wages he earned from his a tho old employer than had formerly been the case. In some cases, opporiun, cottagers, who had no legal rights, had encroached upon the Lanting waste, and the owners had connived at the practice, and allowed them to keep a cow? and to take a little fuel. But when the common waste and common fields were alike enclosed, there was no longer any opportunity for the labourer to exercise such privileges and add to the family resources. Even those labourers who had legal rights of this kind, of which the commissioners could take account, were seriously injured by enclosure®. The capitalised value of pasture rights was exceedingly small, and the scrap of land, allotted to and was 2 4 3 ‘ not often a cottager, might be of little use to him, either as garden promded ground or for keeping a cow®. When judiciously assigned’, a allotments were most beneficial, as was shown by the evidence tment sollected in 18438; but those who urged that distress in rural districts should be systematically dealt with on this plan? failed to get a hearing®, i 41 Geo. III. ¢. 109. 2 See above, p. 558. 8 (General Report on Enclosures drawn up by order of the Board of Agri- sulture (1808), p. 12. Brit. Mus. 988. g. 14. 4 Ib. p. 160. 5 A summary of the facts will be found in the General Report of Enclosures drawn up by order of the Board of Agriculture (1808), App. 1v. p. 150. 8 A commissioner of enclosures, in looking back on the effects of twenty enclosures in which he had taken part, ‘lamented that he had been accessory ‘0 injuring two thousand poor people at the rate of twenty families per parish.” Annals, xxxv1. 516. I For some unsuccessful experiments see p. 667, n. 2, above. 8 For the experience of the Labourers Friend Society compare 3 Hansard LX VII. 191, also Reports 1848, vir. 9? The practical difficulties, both administrative and technical, were considerable. See pp. 714 n. and 744 n. below. 0 38 Hansard, LXVIIL, 857.

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