Note 168 — Chapter XI

The law, having thus forbidden the labourer to move from his parish to seek work for himself, was compelled to provide for him. If the overseers could not find him full employment, they were required to make up any deficiency in wages out of rates. In consequence of this system, farmers purposely underpaid their labourers, knowing the parish could not refuse relief, while the labourers themselves were deprived of any motive for self-exertion. As the overseers were not appointed by the ratepayers, there was no check upon the expenditure, and the poor-rates rose with extraordinary rapidity. In 1760, the population was 7,000,000; the rates were £1,250,000. In 1834, the population had rather more than doubled, being 14,372,000, the poor-rates had increased by more than five times, £6,317,235. In 1834, the Reformed Parliament passed the Poor Law Amendment Act. A central authority was created—a board of three commissioners, with power to regulate the administration of relief throughout England and Wales. Parishes were united into unions, directed by boards of guardians, of whom the majority were elected by the ratepayers. The commissioners put an end to the allowance system, only granting outdoor relief to the able-bodied poor in exceptional cases. This Act made no alteration in the Law of Settlement. The 35th George III. had already prohibited the removal from a parish of any newcomer, until he should have become actually chargeable (1795). The 9th and 10th Victoria prohibits the removal of any person who shall have resided five years in a parish without being chargeable. The 11th and 12th Vict. relieves the parish of the cost of maintaining persons who have so become chargeable, and lays it on the common fund of the union. The continuance of the Laws of Settlement to the present time is consequent upon the principle, that every parish, however poor itself, is bound to relieve its own poor. The entire abolition of these is still required, as well as the universal substitution of union instead of parochial chargeability; and, where necessary, an equalization of the poor-rates over wider areas than a single union presents.—Nicholls on the Poor Laws. Chitty’s Statutes.