Although enclosure was encouraged by parliament with the view of benefiting the mass of the people by making bread cheaper, it was far more often than not injurious to the labourer. In many cases commons were enclosed without adequate compensation to the poorer commoners, who were deprived of the means of keeping a cow or geese or of the right of cutting turf for fuel. Some received no allotment because they failed to prove their claims, and others sold their allotments to wealthy farmers, either because they were too small to keep a cow or because they could not enclose them. Young, who strongly advocated enclosure, says that out of thirty-seven parishes he found only twelve in which the position of the poor had not been injured by the enclosure of commons, and laments the disastrous effect of the change on the general condition of the labouring class. The change was coincident with the decay not only of domestic spinning, but also of other industries practised in villages, for the large new-fashioned farmers had their implements, harness, and household utensils made and mended in towns rather than by rural workmen. Deprived of the profits of by-employments, and in many cases of their accustomed rights of common, labourers became solely dependent on farm wages at a time when prices were enormously high and a living-wage was not to be gained by agricultural work. They either migrated to seek work in a factory or came on the rates. In many districts villages presented a picture of desolation. Wiston and Foston in Leicestershire each before enclosure contained some thirty-five houses; in Wiston every house disappeared except that of the squire, and Foston was reduced to the parsonage and two herdsmen's cottages.[184]
COMBINATIONS OF WORKMEN.
The old system of regulating wages by statute was not wholly extinct in 1760. A few years later a statute made in the masters' interests fixed the maximum for the wages of the London journeymen tailors at 2s. 7½d. a day, except at a time of general mourning. On the other hand parliament, in 1773, under the pressure of a riot, passed an act empowering justices to fix the wages of the Spitalfields silk weavers and to enforce their ordinance. By 1776, however, Adam Smith declared that the custom of fixing wages "had gone entirely into disuse". England was adopting laissez-faire. The change of policy is illustrated by the case of the framework knitters of Nottinghamshire. The employment of children and apprentices enabled the masters to oppress them; they were unable to earn more than 8s. to 9s. a week and their wages were diminished by shameful exactions. They formed a combination, petitioned the house of commons to regulate their wages in 1778, and were heard before a committee. A bill was brought in the next year to regulate the trade and prevent abuses, but was thrown out on the third reading. Wages were to be settled between the master and the men. Some rioting followed on the rejection of the bill, and the masters promised redress, but soon broke their word. Combinations of workmen to set aside statutory arrangements of wages were of course illegal, but when formed to secure their fulfilment do not seem to have been so regarded.[185] In 1799, however, when parliament was anxious to prevent seditious assemblies, a statute, amended in 1800, rendered it unlawful for workmen to combine for the purpose of obtaining higher wages. This grossly unjust law made the workmen powerless to protect themselves against the oppression of the capitalist employer. Parliament was more than once pressed to meet the high price of bread and the distress of the agricultural poor by fixing a minimum for wages. Pitt, a disciple of Adam Smith, would not consent to such a measure, and his opposition was fatal to it. He was deeply sensible of the distress of the poor, and, in 1795, brought in a bill for the amendment of the poor law. It contained some startling provisions of a socialistic character, was adversely criticised by Bentham and others, and was quietly dropped.
In 1760 the law of 1723, empowering overseers of the poor to refuse relief to those who would not enter the workhouse, was still in force. It seems to have been administered strictly, and it kept down the rates. As society became more humane, it revolted against so harsh a method of dealing with distress. A permissive act of 1783, called after its promoter, Gilbert's act, contained along with some wholesome provisions others that were foolish and harmful; it enabled parishes to form unions and adopt a system under which able-bodied men were not allowed to enter the workhouse; they were to work in the district and have their wages supplemented from the rates. The administration of the act was committed to the magistrates and guardians in place of the overseers. A considerable relaxation of the law of settlement in 1795 was just and beneficial. In the same year the pernicious principle of supplementing wages from the rates was carried to its full extent. By that time the decay of domestic spinning and the rise in the price of food were causing much distress in Berkshire. At a meeting of justices at Speenhamland in that county it was resolved to grant allowances to all poor men and their families—so much a head according to the price of the gallon loaf. This system was generally adopted, and was strengthened by an act of 1795 abolishing the workhouse test. As a means of tiding over a merely temporary crisis, as indeed it was intended by its authors to be, it would have done no harm. Unfortunately, it lasted for many years and had disastrous consequences; it rapidly raised the rates, and helped to crush the small farmers who, though they employed no labour, were forced to pay towards the maintenance of the labourers employed by their richer neighbours; it kept wages from rising, encouraged thriftless marriages and dissolute living, discouraged industry and efficient work, destroyed self-respect, and pauperised the poor.
FACTORY CHILDREN.
While then the last sixteen years of the century, of which the political history still lies before us, were, except at certain crises to be noted hereafter, marked by a rapid expansion of commerce and trade, and an increase in the wealth of the richer landowners, manufacturers, and merchants, they were, as we have seen, a period of change in the conditions of labour and, as such, brought much distress on the working class, which was aggravated by the high prices consequent on bad seasons and the risks of war. Of all the sufferings of the poor during this period none are so painful to remember as those of the children employed in factories, the helpless victims of laissez-faire for whose relief the state did nothing until a later date. The greater number of them were pauper apprentices bound by parochial authorities to mill-owners, others the children of very poor or callous parents. From little more than infancy, sometimes under seven years old, children were condemned to labour for long hours, thirteen or more in a day, at tasks which required unremitting attention, and in rooms badly ventilated and otherwise injurious to health; they were half-starved and cruelly punished when their wearied little arms failed to keep up with the demands of the machinery. The smaller mills were the worst in this respect, and as the supply of water-power was not constant, the children in mills worked by water were often forced to labour far beyond their strength to make up for lost time. Such of them as survived the prolonged misery and torture of their early years often grew up more or less stunted and deformed men and women, physically unfit for parentage, morally debased, ignorant, and brutalised by ill-treatment.
FOOTNOTES:
[178] Walpole to Mann, April 29, 1784, Letters, viii., 473; Parl. Hist., xxv., 1434.
[179] Parl. Hist., xxi., 592; xxix., 1034.
[180] Colquhoun, Treatise on the Police, pp. 108, 110, 228, 364, 2nd edit., 1796.