A.D. 1776 
—1830. 
were most 
demoral- 
38g 
766 LAISSEZ FAIRE 
incentive to immorality’. But the most patent evils arose 
from the fact that this scheme tended to render the inefficient 
pauper comfortable, at the expense of the good workman who 
really tried bard to earn his own living. The whole system 
must have had the effect of diminishing the rates of wages’, 
and forcing men to depend upon assistance in one form or an- 
other from the rates. It was essential, if the rural population 
were to be rescued from dull acceptance of a miserable de- 
pendence?, that the system should be fundamentally changed. 
In probing the existing evils, and devising possible 
remedies, several of the economic experts of the day did 
excellent service. Under any circumstances it would have 
been difficult to transform the system, but the task was 
rendered specially hard, since there were so many persons 
who had come to be directly interested in the maintenance of 
abuses and were opposed to any reform‘ Some interesting 
L Aschrott, The English Poor Law System, p. 80. 
} “The practice of paying the wages of manufacturers out of the rates is 
strongly illustrated in the case of Collurmpton, at a short distance from Tiverton, 
where the weaving of serge and cloth is carried on by two manufacturers...one of 
‘hese manufacturers however receives at present regular annual payments from 
the parishes in the neighbourhood to employ their paupers, the sums paid being 
less than the cost of their support by the parishes...the first effect of such 
s measure was to increase the number of persons unemployed at Collumpton and 
consequently to reduce wages” (Reports, ete. 1834, xxvii. 43). This was not 
» solitary case. “A manufactory worked by paupers is a rival with which one 
paying ordinary wages of course cannot compete, and in this way a Macclesfield 
manufacturer may find himself under-sold and ruined in consequence of mal- 
administration of the Poor Laws in Essex.” Ib. 43. Similar evidence comes 
from Leicestershire. * From the practice of parish officers, where trade is perhaps 
suffering under temporary depression, soliciting work for the number of men on 
heir hands from the various manufacturers (at any price), and making up the 
remainder necessary for the support of their families out of the poor rate, good 
irade becomes in a great measure annihilated. Stocks become too abundant, and 
when a demand revives the markets are not cleared before a check is again 
experienced, the same practice is renewed by the parish officers, and thus the wily 
manufacturer produces his goods, to the great emolument of himself, half at the 
cost of the agricultural interest.” Ib. 43. 
8 See above, p. 720. 
+ There was no end to the ramifications of the mischief in these pauperised 
parishes; many of the workhouses, which had once existed, had fallen into decay; 
and there was a great deal of perfectly safe business to be done in providing for 
the requirements of the paupers and obtaining payment from the parish. ‘The 
owner of cottage property,” said Mr Nassau Senior, “found in the parish a liberal 
and solvent tenant, and the petty shop-keeper and publican attended the Vestry to 
vote allowances to his customers and debtors. The rental of a pauperised parish 
was, like the revenue of the Sultan of Turkey, a prey of which every administrator 
aoped to get a share.” (Edinburgh Review, Vol. LXXIV. p. 23.)