THE PROBLEMS OF POVERTY 571

most woods for them to burn and destroy?, and when they
have consumed it, then to another parish, and at last ’
become rogues and vagabonds, t6 the great discouragement
of parishes to provide stocks, where it is liable to be
devoured by strangers.” According to the preamble the
statute was aimed at this vagrant class, and gave powers
to remove a new-comer within forty days, if there was a
danger of his becoming chargeable to a parish, to the place
where he had last been legally settled. But like so many which
pieces of social regulation it had most unforeseen effects, and imposed
a measure, which had been intended to fix local responsibility i
and check vagrancy, came in the succeeding century to have labouring
’ . . . poor.
a most disastrous effect on the English artisan®. It interfered
 with the employment of the industrious, and it chained
the unemployed to districts where no work could be obtained.
In the course of the eighteenth century, when industry was
migrating to new centres, it must have tended to the creation
of a class of pauperised artisans® in addition to the halfvagrant
 cottagers on the commons.
Though there seems to have been a considerable development
 of commerce, with a healthful reaction on industry,
during the years which intervened between the Restoration
and the Revolution, it is perfectly clear that the unemployed
class was not absorbed by the increased opportunities of
i The importance of woods as the chief source of fuel comes out in these
discussions. One of the severest attacks of a socialistic kind, on the privileges of
manorial lords, was a claim on the part of commoners to have their share in all
wood grown on the commons. Declaration from the poor oppressed people of
England (1649) (Brit. Mus. 1027. i. 16 (3)]. There were also complaints that rich
men who put large flocks on the commons for a time, and ate them bare, gained
at the expense of other commoners, Hartlib's Legacie, 54. The destruction of
commons and need of enclosing in the interest of commoners comes out in regard
to Herefordshire. 4 James IL. ¢. 11.
2 Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, pp. 57-59, 191.
8 Massie noticed a general course of migration, “from Rural Parishes to
Market Towns, and from both of them to the Capital City; so that great Multitudes
 of People, who were born in Rural Parishes are continually acquiring
Settlements in Cities or Towns, more especially in those towns where considerable
manufacturies are carried on; and as Trade is not only of a fluctuating Nature,
but many Towns in England carry on Manufacturies of the same Kind, and are
always gaining or losing with respect to each other, although there be an encrease
of Manufacturies upon the Whole ; it must necessarily follow, that there will be
frequent Ebbings in the Manufacturies of one or other of our Trading Towns.”
Massie, 4 Plan for the Establishment of Charity Houses. p. 99.