When we have seen the wide powers of the commission, we hardly need feel surprise that its business was multifarious. It at once set to work to collect evidence of the state of trade in the colonies, of our commercial relations with foreign ports, of the condition of the linen and paper manufactures at home, of the number of paupers in the kingdom, and the mode of their relief, as well as to devise means for increasing the woollen trade and preventing the exportation of wool. Locke was specially commissioned "to draw up a scheme of some method of determining differences between merchants by referees that might be decisive without appeal." In the winter of 1696-97, finding that his work followed him to Oates, and being then apparently in a feebler state of health than usual, he made an ineffectual attempt to escape from his new employment, but Somers refused to hand in his resignation to the king. From a Letter to Molyneux we find that it was not simply his ill-health, but the "corruption of the age," which made him averse to continuing in office. And we can well understand how troublesome, and apparently hopeless, it must have been to deal with the various threatened interests of that time, when monopolies, patents, and pensions were regarded by the governing classes almost as a matter of course.
In the summer of 1697 the principal subject which engaged the attention of the commission was the best means of discouraging the Irish woollen manufacture, and of, at the same time, encouraging the Irish linen manufacture. Each commissioner was invited to bring up a separate report. Three did so. Locke's was the one selected, and, with slight alterations, was signed by the other commissioners on the 31st of August, and forwarded almost immediately afterwards to the Lords Justices. This interesting state-document proceeds entirely upon the notions of protection to native industries which were then almost universally current among statesmen and merchants. The problems were to secure to England the monopoly of what was then regarded as its peculiar and appropriate manufacture, the woollen trade, and to assign to Ireland, in return for the restrictions imposed upon her, some compensating branch of industry. According to the ideas then commonly prevalent, the scheme was perfectly equitable to both countries. But, naturally, the interests of England are put in the foreground. The interests of the Irish people, however, were not to be neglected, and what Locke doubtless conceived as full compensation was to be given them for the loss of their woollen trade. "And since it generally proves ineffectual, and we conceive it hard to endeavour to drive men from the trade they are employed in by bare prohibition, without offering them at the same time some other trade which, if they please, may turn to account, we humbly propose that the linen manufacture be set on foot, and so encouraged in Ireland as may make it the general trade of that country as effectually as the woollen manufacture is, and must be, of England." Linen cloth and all other manufactures made of flax or hemp, without any mixture of wool, were to be exported to all places duty free, as indeed had already been provided by Act of Parliament with regard to England. One method by which Locke proposed to encourage the linen manufacture in Ireland runs so counter to modern notions with regard both to the education of the poor and to freedom of employment, that it may be interesting to the reader to see the suggestion at length:
"And, because the poorest earning in the several parts of the linen manufacture is at present in the work of the spinners, who therefore need the greatest encouragement, and ought to be increased as much as possible, that therefore spinning schools be set up in such places and at such distances as the directors shall appoint, where whoever will come to learn to spin shall be taught gratis, and to which all persons that have not forty shillings a year estate shall be obliged to send all their children, both male and female, that they have at home with them, from six to fourteen years of age, and may have liberty to send those also between four and six if they please, to be employed there in spinning ten hours in the day when the days are so long, or as long as it is light when they are shorter: provided always that no child shall be obliged to go above two miles to any such school."
Then there follow many other minute and paternal regulations of the same kind, the object of which was to turn the whole Irish nation into spinners, and to supply with linen not only "the whole kingdom of England," but foreign markets as well. The Irish authorities, however, were meanwhile preparing a scheme of their own, and, after controversies between the English and Irish officials, extending over more than two years, Locke's plan was finally laid aside in favour of that of Louis Crommelin. Besides the attempt to monopolize the woollen trade for England and the linen trade for Ireland, much of the time of the Council was devoted to schemes for the protection of native industries, by forbidding or throwing obstacles in the way of importation and exportation. But Locke and his colleagues were here only following the track marked out for them by the ordinary opinion of the time.
The main subject which occupied the attention of the Council in the autumn of 1697 was the employment of the idle or necessitous poor. From the beginning of its sessions, it had been collecting evidence on this subject, and, in September of this year, it was decided that each commissioner should draw up a scheme of reform, to be submitted to the Council. As had been the case with his report on the Irish linen manufacture, Locke's was the one selected. From a variety of causes, however, his suggestions were never carried into effect, and the various efforts of William's Government to deal with the gigantic problem of pauperism proved abortive.
Locke's paper of suggestions assumes as a datum what was always regarded at this time as an axiom of poor-law legislation, namely, that it is the duty of each individual parish to maintain and employ its own poor, having, as a set-off, the right of coercing the able-bodied to work. Pernicious and partial as this principle was, we should have more occasion for surprise if we found Locke contravening it than conforming to it. The merit of his paper is that it offers excellent suggestions for minimizing the evils necessarily attaching to the system then in vogue. The recent growth of pauperism he refers to "relaxation of discipline and corruption of manners, virtue and industry being as constant companions on the one side as vice and idleness are on the other. The first step, therefore," he continues, "towards the setting of the poor on work ought to be a restraint of their debauchery by a strict execution of the laws provided against it, more particularly by the suppression of superfluous brandy-shops and unnecessary ale-houses, especially in country parishes not lying upon great roads." He then proposes a series of provisions, sufficiently stringent, for the purpose of compelling the idle and able-bodied poor to work, stating that, upon a very moderate computation, above one-half of those who receive relief from the parishes are able to earn their own livelihoods. In maritime counties, all those not physically or mentally incapacitated, who were found begging out of their own parish without a pass, were to be compelled to serve on board one of his Majesty's ships, under strict discipline, for three years. In the inland counties, all those so found begging were to be sent to the nearest house of correction for a like period. But, besides the able-bodied paupers, there were a great number not absolutely unable or unwilling to do something for their livelihood, and yet prevented by age or circumstances from wholly earning their own living. For these he proposes to find employment in the woollen or other manufactures, so as, at all events, to diminish the cost of their maintenance to the public, and at the same time increase the industrial resources of the country. One of the most distinctive features of Locke's scheme was the proposal to set up working-schools for spinning or knitting, or some other industrial occupation, in each parish, "to which the children of all such as demand relief of the parish, above three and under fourteen years of age, whilst they live at home with their parents, and are not otherwise employed for their livelihood by the allowance of the overseers of the poor, shall be obliged to come." The children were to be fed at school, and this mode of relief was to take the place of the existing allowance in money paid to a father who had a large number of children, which, we are not surprised to learn, was frequently spent in the alehouse, whilst those for whose benefit it was given were left to perish for want of necessaries. The food of the children of the poor at that time, we are told, was seldom more than bread and water, and often there was a very scanty supply of that. Another advantage which Locke proposed to effect by the institution of these schools was the moral and religious instruction of the children. They would be obliged to come constantly to church every Sunday, along with their schoolmasters or dames, "whereby they would be brought into some sense of religion, whereas ordinarily now, in their idle and loose way of bringing up, they are as utter strangers both to religion and morality as they are to industry." One further provision of this scheme may be noticed, as offering some mitigation of the parochial system of relief which then obtained, namely, "that in all cities and towns corporate the poor's tax be not levied by distinct parishes, but by one equal tax throughout the whole corporation."
The anxiety of the king to retain Locke on the Commission has already been mentioned. It would appear that they were in not infrequent conference, and we know that the king entertained a very high opinion both of his integrity and of his political capacity. A good deal of mystery attaches to one of their interviews, but the explanation of it proffered by Mr. Fox Bourne possesses, at any rate, considerable plausibility. One bitter January morning, in the winter of 1697-98, while Locke was at Oates, he received a pressing summons from the king to repair to Kensington. He was at the time suffering more than ordinarily from the bronchial affection to which he was constantly subject, and Lady Masham attempted to dissuade him from running the risk of the journey, but in vain. When he returned, the only account that he would give of the interview was that "the king had a desire to talk with him about his own health, as believing that there was much similitude in their cases." It appears, however, from a letter addressed by Locke to Somers a few days after his return to Oates, that the king had offered him some important employment, and that he had excused himself on the ground of his weak health, and his inexperience in that kind of business, the business being such as required "skill in dealing with men in their various humours, and drawing out their secrets." Mr. Fox Bourne forms the reasonable conjecture that Locke had been asked to go as right-hand man to William Bentinck, Earl of Portland, who had just been nominated as special ambassador to the Court of France. The peace of Ryswick had been ratified in the previous November, and the mission to Louis XIV. was, of course, one requiring great tact and sagacity. William had strongly urged Locke, some years before, to represent him on another very important mission, the one to the Elector of Brandenburg, and it may be that, on the present occasion, no fitter person occurred to him. Any way, the employment was one which would have advanced Locke in riches and honour; but as such, glad as he might have been to serve his country disinterestedly to the best of his power, it had no attractions for him. "He must have a heart strongly touched with wealth or honours who, at my age, and laboring for breath, can find any great relish for either of them."
On one occasion Locke accompanied the king, the latter going incognito to a meeting of the Society of Friends, where they listened to the famous Quaker preacheress, Rebecca Collier. Locke afterwards sent her a parcel of sweetmeats, with a very complimentary letter, and is said to have found the meeting so agreeable that it removed his objections to a female ministry.
With his resignation of the Commissionership of the Board of Trade, in the summer of 1700, Locke's public life comes to an end. His friend Somers had been sacrificed to the incessant and malignant attacks of the Tories, and dismissed from the Chancellorship, in the previous spring; and to those statesmen who were inspired by a sincere and simple desire for the well-being of their country the political outlook had become anything but cheerful. The condition of Locke's health was quite a sufficient reason for his desiring to be relieved of the anxieties of office; but we can hardly doubt that, on other grounds as well, he was glad to escape from so intricate a maze as the field of politics bade fair soon to become.