PLOT (ROBERT).

A Natural History of Oxfordshire.

RUSDEN (MOSES).

1677.

A Further Discovery of Bees. Treating of the Nature, Government, Generation and Preservation of the Bee, etc.

1677.

[Rusden was Beemaster to Charles II., to whom the work is dedicated.]

UNKNOWN.

A Treatise of Wool and Cattel. In a letter Written to a Friend occasion'd upon a Discourse concerning the great Abatements of Rents, and the low Value of Lands, etc. 1677.

HOUGHTON (JOHN), F.R.S.

A Collection of Letters for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade. 1681-83 and 1691-1703.

[The materials collected by Houghton were rearranged and republished in 4 vols. in 1727 by Richard Bradley, F.R.S.]

MOORE (SIR JONAS), F.R.S.

1. History or Narrative of the Great Level of the Fens, etc.

1685.

2. England's Interest: or the Gentleman and Farmer's Friend.

1703.

Proposal for Raising a College of Industry of all useful Trades and Husbandry

etc.

1696.

MATHER (WILLIAM).

Of repairing and mending of Highways.

1696.

DONALDSON (JAMES).

Husbandry Anatomized, or, an Enquiry into the present manner of Tilling and Manuring the Ground in Scotland for most Part, etc.

1697.

UNKNOWN.

The Husbandman, Farmer and Grasier's Compleat Instructor. By A. S. Gent. 1697.

[Sometimes attributed to Adolphus Speed on account of the initials A. S. As Speed died nearly forty years before the publication, it might be, on this argument only, equally easy to assign the authorship to Adam Smith.]

NOURSE (TIMOTHY).

Campania Foelix; or, a Discourse of the Benefits and Improvements of Husbandry, etc.

TRYON (THOMAS), pseud. "Philotheos Physiologus."

1700.

The Country-man's Companion; or, A new Method of ordering Horses & Sheep so as to preserve them both from Diseases and Casualties.

1700.

MEDIAEVAL RATES

431

APPENDIX II.

THE POOR LAW FROM 1601 TO 1834.

THE Poor Law suggests two distinct lines of enquiry-(1) the collection of the funds for Poor Relief; (2) the expenditure of the money when collected. In other words, there are two questions-how was the money raised ? and how was it spent? Only a slight outline of the complicated subject can be here attempted.

1. THE COLLECTION OF THE FUNDS FOR POOR RELIEF.

A variety of rates, statutory or otherwise, were collected in mediaeval times. Fixed sums were required for various purposes, and their payment was locally apportioned to individuals in each district or parish according to their ability to pay. Some of the rates were assessed on particular persons in proportion to the benefits they individually received: some were raised for purposes of more general utility on all the inhabitants of the wider areas which were benefited by the expenditure. Some originated in feudal tenures. A part of the national taxes even was raised as a local rate. Thus the subsidies granted to the Crown under the name of "tenths and fifteenths" were apportioned in fixed sums to the inhabitants of each district. A tenth of the capital value of the movables in cities, boroughs, and ancient demesnes, and a fifteenth of movables in the rest of the country, were thus raised. In 1334, a searching inquisition was made, in order to levy the tax with the utmost accuracy and precision. The assessment of this year remained for nearly two centuries the basis of future demands. Till the reign of Henry VII., when another elaborate assessment was made, the grant of tenths and fifteenths meant a grant of the sums produced and apportioned in 1334. On this basis was also levied money needed for many purposes of local government, not covered by other rates. The required sums, represented by some fraction of the valuation of 1334, were apportioned direct upon the contributors, according to their estimated ability to pay. As guides to relative means, records were kept in which were entered the size of the houses in which contributors lived, or the acreage of the land that they farmed. In effect these records resembled valuation lists. Their existence possibly facilitated the eventual transfer of liability from inhabitants in respect of the income which they enjoyed from all sources to persons in respect of the annual value of the immovable property that they occupied.

The history of the origin of Poor Rates is, however, entirely different from that of other rates, although, when once the contribution to the funds for poor relief became a legal liability, they naturally were influenced by the characteristics of the rates already in existence.

The indigent, in early times, were relieved by personal charity, which religion enforced as a Christian duty. The contribution of money for the poor was an exercise of the will, measured in amount by the means of the

giver. It was a moral income-tax from which no person escaped, according to his ability and substance. Whether the payment was urged as a Christian obligation, or enforced as a duty which no one had the right to refuse, or demanded by the civil power as a legal liability, it preserved this universal character, universal both as to persons and as to sources of income.

Gradually the optional charity passed into compulsory alms-giving, and finally into local taxation. Because this last stage was reached in the latter years of the reign of Elizabeth, it is usual to say that the Poor Law dates from 1601. In principle there was undoubtedly an important change. But in practice it had come to matter little whether the universal obligation to contribute, which attached to all persons according to their ability, was enforced by religious, or by legal, penalties. For agriculturists, the really serious change came later, when the universal income-tax raised from all inhabitants became a rate levied upon occupiers in proportion to the annual value of the immovable property which they occupy. It grew still more important, when practically all other rates were levied according to the annual value of property rateable to the Poor Rate.

The charitable relief of the poor was never a national, but always a local burden. Hence some law of settlement was necessary. When in 1388 (12 Ric. II. c. 7) "beggars impotent to serve were confined to the places where they happened to be at the passing of the Act, local provision was obviously needed for their support. For a time, the alms of the faithful provided adequate funds. When, however, not only "beggars impotent to serve," but "valiant vagabonds," and able-bodied vagrants were saddled on their birthplace or last permanent abode,1 their maintenance imposed a heavy burden on parochial charity. Voluntary effort begins to flag and compulsion to be applied. The machinery is still the alms-box; the donors are still all inhabitants according to their general ability. But if any parish fails to provide sufficient funds to succour the impotent poor, or to keep "sturdy vagabonds and valiant beggars to continual labour, the defaulting parish was to forfeit 20s. a month."

Charity did not, however, provide the whole funds. In the legislation of Edward VI. a distinction begins to be drawn between the actual support of the poor and the expenses incidental to their maintenance. Thus the money administered in direct relief was still to be raised by charitable donations. But the costs of removing the poor to their birthplace or last permanent abode, or the initial sums expended in providing "convenient houses for the impotent, or the expenses of building Houses of Correction,' are to be compulsorily raised by means of existing methods of taxation.

The growing burden of poor relief, the inadequacy of the voluntary principle, perhaps, also, the relaxation of any sense of the moral obligation of charity, are shown in Elizabethan legislation. Alms-giving is abandoned for compulsory provision. In the Act of 1572 (14 Eliz. c. 5) the voluntary principle of charity survives only in name. The justices are to number the poor, calculate the weekly sums required for their support “by their good discretions," tax and assess "all and every inhabitant," register the names of the taxpayers, and the amount of their taxation, appoint collectors, as well as overseers of the poor. If any person, thus taxed and assessed, "obstinately refuses to give towards the help and relief of the poor,' or wilfully discourages others from so charitable a deed," he is to be brought before two justices, and committed to gaol until he is contented" with their order. Finally, in 1597 (39 Eliz. c. 3) the appeal to charity is practically thrown

1 E.g. 19 Hen. VII. c. 12 (1503-4); 22 Hen. VIII. c. 12 (1530-1).

227 Hen. VIII. c. 25 (1535-6).

31 Ed. VI. c. 3 (1547), and 3 and 4 Ed. VI. c. 16 (1549).

418 Eliz. c. 3 (1575-6).

THE ACT OF 1601

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433

aside altogether. The churchwardens, and four substantial householders, to be called overseers of the poor," are empowered to raise the necessary funds by taxation of " every inhabitant and every occupier of lands" in the parish," according to the ability of the same parish.' If anyone refuses to contribute as he is assessed, distress is to be levied, and in default of distress imprisonment is to be inflicted. The better known Act of 1601 (43 Eliz. c. 2) is a repetition of its predecessor, except that it gives a more precise definition of the sources from which the money is to be raised. The overseers are to raise the funds "by taxation of every inhabitant, parson, vicar, and other, and of every occupier of lands, houses, tithes impropriate, or propriations of tithes, coal mines, and saleable underwood."

Under the Act of Elizabeth, not only every occupier, but every inhabitant was required to contribute, and the measure of his liability was, not the annual rental value of the immovable property which he occupied, but his ability to pay. In modern practice, inhabitants, as such, except parsons and vicars, escape payment, and the accepted criterion of ability to pay is rental value. It was nearly two centuries and a half before these two changes were completed.

In the seventeenth century, the annual rent, which traders, manufacturers, or farmers paid for their shops, factories, or farms, was probably the best guide to an estimate of their business profits. It was at least more satisfactory than the estimate which their neighbours might form of those profits. Very few years had, therefore, passed before rental value was generally accepted as practical evidence of an occupier's ability to pay. The other change was slower and more gradual. Inhabitants continued liable till a much later date. The earnings of labour, whether fees, salaries, or wages, went first. The rent of landlords escaped next.1 Personal property and the profits of stock-in-trade were not fully relieved till 1840 (3 and 4 Victoria, c. 89). That Act provides that it shall not be lawful for the overseers of any parish, "township, or village to tax any inhabitant thereof, as such inhabitant, in respect of his ability derived from the profits of stock-in-trade or any other property, for or towards the relief of the poor." Since 1840, this measure has been renewed from year to year.

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2. THE EXPENDITURE OF THE FUNDS RAISED FOR POOR RELIEF. From mediaeval times two distinct classes of the poor had to be dealt with -the impotent, and the able-bodied. Each class fell into two subdivisions; the impotent-into children, or the aged, sick, and infirm; the able-bodied— into sturdy rogues and vagabonds, or the honest poor, willing to worcke " but unable to find employment. Early legislators seem to have recognised that poverty is a relative condition implying the want of comforts habitual to any particular class, and that destitution is the absolute state of wanting the necessaries of life. They accepted as a moral duty the direct relief of the destitute; they did not encourage public aid to the unconditional relief of poverty. They also discriminated between voluntary and involuntary indigence. They distinguished those who are indigent owing to their own conduct from those who are reduced to want by causes for which they themselves are not responsible. Thus the impotent poor were to be succoured and relieved. The able-bodied were treated on different lines, and each of the two divisions into which the class falls was differently handled. Untold misery might have been saved, if the original principles of poor relief had been more strictly maintained; their gradual relaxation, culminating in the years 1795-1834, sums up the history of the Poor Law from Elizabeth to William IV. The relief of the impotent poor affects agricultural labour only indirectly. For this reason it will not be specially discussed here. It will be enough to 1 Sir Anthony Earby's case, 1633.

say that the Act of Elizabeth in 1601 (43 Eliz. c. 2) followed previous legislation by directing money to be raised for the relief of the impotent poor-" of lame, impotent, blind, and such other among them being poor and not able to work," for the provision for them of "convenient houses of dwelling," and for "the putting out of . . . children to be apprentices."

From the first, the problem of dealing with the able-bodied presented the greatest difficulty to legislators. The necessity of discriminating between the two classes of the able-bodied was early felt. It was forced into prominence, partly by the increase of mendicancy fostered by indiscriminate almsgiving, partly by the industrial changes, which, during the Tudor period, affected both agriculture and manufacture. Sturdy rogues and vagabonds were punished, under penal laws of such ferocious severity that they defeated themselves-with whipping, branding, imprisonment, and transportation. For less hardened offenders labour was used both as a test and a penalty; for them Houses of Correction were created; rewards were offered for their apprehension; they were harried by laws of settlement from parish to parish until they reached their place of birth. Towards the able-bodied poor, who were willing to work, a different policy was adopted. It was at first scarcely more lenient. For them a living at least, but not wages, was to be provided, on condition that they earned their food as slaves. Labour was the test of their necessities. In 1547 (1 Ed. VI. c. 3) every city, town, parish, or village was required to provide work for its able-bodied poor, or " to appoint them to such as will find them work" for meat and drink. Elizabethan legislation proceeded on more humane lines. In 1575, and again in 1597 and 1601,1 a convenient stock of flax, hemp, wool, thread, iron," and other stuff was to be provided in every parish" to set the poor on work." The material was to be wrought up at the home of the needy able-bodied person, finished at a given time, and paid for according to skill. Those who either refused to work, or spoilt or embezzled the material, fell into the class of vagabonds, and were consigned to a House of Correction. The stock was to be replenished by the sale of the manufactured goods, so that the system might become self-supporting.

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The Elizabethan Poor Law was imperfectly administered. Political disorders increased the disorganisation of the system. Overseers failed to collect the rates; the stock was not uniformly provided; the vagrant population had greatly increased. Stanley, the ex-highwayman, writing probably in 1605, imagined that there were then "not so few as 80,000 idle vagrants that prey upon the common-wealth." It is improbable that their number had decreased during the Civil Wars or under the Commonwealth. It was against this class, and especially against squatters, that the Act of 1662 “for the better Relief of the Poor" (14 Car. II. c. 12), commonly known as the "Act of Settlement was directed. The principle on which it proceeded was as old as the Anglo-Saxons. As the first step towards progress and order, every man was required within 40 days to have a settled domicile, and to be enrolled in some fixed community. Stranger and outlaw were synonymous terms. Throughout the Poor Law legislation from Richard II. to Elizabeth, the same principle had been enforced for the removal of the poor to their birthplace or last permanent abode. If relief was to be treated as a parochial, and not as a national, burden, a settlement was necessary. But the Act of Charles II. indisputably made the law more rigid, and imposed new fetters on the mobility of labour. It recites that people wandered from parish to parish, endeavouring to settle themselves where there is the

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118 Eliz. c. 3; 39 Eliz. c. 3; 43 Eliz. c. 2.

2 Stanleye's Remedy: or the Way how to Reform Wandring Beggars, Theeves, Highway Robbers, and Pickpockets. London, 1646.

3 Report to the Poor Law Board, by G. Coode, 1851.