RURAL WAGES AND ALLOWANCES 721
affection, and puts the labouring class in a friendly relation +0, Joe
with the rest of the community; the other causes, as certainly, ’
idleness, imprudence, vice, dissension, and places the master
and the labourer in a perpetual state of jealousy and mistrust.
Unfortunately, it is the tendency of the system of which we
speak, to supersede the former of these principles, and intro-
duce the latter. Subsistence is secured to all; to the idle as
well as the industrious; to the profligate as well as the sober;
and, as far as human interests are concerned, all inducement
to obtain a good character is taken away. The effects have
corresponded with the cause. Able-bodied men are found
slovenly at their work, and dissolute in their hours of relax-
ation; a father is negligent of his children; the children do
not think it necessary to contribute to the support of their
parents; the employers and the employed are engaged in
perpetual quarrels, and the pauper, always relieved, is always
discontented ; crime advances with increasing boldness, and
the parts of the country where this system prevails are, in spite
of our gaols and our laws, filled with poachers and thieves.”
This picture of the effects of the allowance system is sad while by-
enough ; and it must be remembered that there were other on ane
influences at work which made for the disintegration of Didar
village life. The Industrial Revolution tended to diminish
the opportunities for industrial, as distinguished from agri-
cultural employment in rural districts®. The concentration of
spinning in villages, and later in factory towns, was one of
the steps in the process by which the differentiation of town
and country became complete. In old days® a considerable
number of trades were represented in each village, but in
recent times the services of the village artisan are hardly
required. Tiles and slates have taken the place of thatch,
and the husbandman, who has skill as a thatcher, has fewer
opportunities of adding to his income. The capitalist farmer
in all probability prefers the goods, which he buys for less
money at a distance, to the local wares; as a consequence
there have come to be fewer by-occupations than before.
L Reports, etc. 1824, v1. 404.
2 On the old state of affairs compare A. Young, Annals, xxx11. 220,
See above, pp. 502, 564. J. Cowper, Essay proving that enclosing ete., p. 8.
B
