564 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM
4D 5 and that the administration of the poor should have become
I intensely parochial. It was inevitable that this should be
Al conducted with a primary regard to local convenience’, so that
of foul LA there was danger of insufficient care for the needs of the
of nasional poor, and of scant attention to the national interest.
interest. So far as I am able to judge, however, the breakdown of the
system of State supervision over the terms of employment had
no injurious effect on labourers’ standard of comfort, during
the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth.
There was a rapid growth of trade and an increased demand
for labour of many sorts; the progress of enclosure, though
it told against the small farmers, increased the demand for
the services of hired labourers; while the general diffusion
of the art of spinning would give a considerable increase to
the family income. The rural labourer could eke out his
wages, not merely by the exercise of privileges on the
commons, but from the connection of his family with the
manufacturing interest. On the other hand, a very con-
siderable part of the artificers had direct connections
with the soil. The Survey of 1615 shows that Sheffield
cutlers, who had a considerable struggle to pay their way,
combined the management of some land with the pro-
duction of whittlest. At Pudsey, in the neighbourhood of
Leeds, the woollen weavers practised agriculture as a by-
employment at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
They were able to add considerably to their personal comfort
Labourers
had a
double
source of
come,
1 The introduction of a central authority to give unity to the whole system was
he most important change effected by the Poor Law Reform of 1834 (see below,
p. 772). The inconvenience of allowing each parish to be an independent adminis-
trative unit had long been felt. See a proposal in 1652, State Papers addressed to
Oliver Cromwell, edited by Nickolls, p. 89. Also compare the proposal of Nickolls,
Advantages, etc. (1754), p. 207, and the argument, in 1758, by Massie, who held that
the poor law of Elizabeth was one of the chief causes for the growth of pauperism.
« Ag Multitudes of working People,” he continues, “are obliged to travel from
Parish to Parish, and from County to County, in order to find Employment, proper
Maintenance or other Relief ought to be provided for them, when and where they
want it; because there cannot be a better Motive for their travelling, than a Desire
to get an honest Livelihood ; and therefore they should have all possible Encourage-
ment to persevere in doing what is Best for the Nation, and for Them. Giving
every poor Person a Right to Relief, when and where he or she shall want it,
would put an End to all Law Suits, about the Settlement of the Poor” (4 Plan
for the Establishment, ete., 112).
2 Hunter, Hallamshire, 148. The pressure of pauperis at this place was
very severe. See above, p. 347, n. 3.
