546 PROSPECTS OF INDUSTRY - 



government of Elizabeth proceeded upon a correct estimate of social 

 polity ; namely, that as many individuals as possible in a state shall 

 have an interest in its soil, and thus a tangible hold to attach them 

 to their country, and to its institutions. In this wise and just spirit 

 an enactment was passed, very nearly at the same time as the Poor 

 Laws were codified, providing that no cottage should be built 

 without having a certain extent of land attached to it. The govern- 

 ment of Elizabeth, in making statutes for the sustenance of the aged 

 and the helpless, thus opened a never-failing resource for adult 

 labour a resource of an independent and respectable character, and 

 not one of utter degradation and demoralization, like the Poor-Law 

 system of the present day. 



At no remote period, therefore, the agricultural labourer was 

 triply fenced against the fluctuations and depressions in the labour- 

 market ; first, by living amongst small freeholders and land tenants, 

 who in a great measure belonged to his own class, and who had 

 sympathies and feelings in common with him ; secondly, by domestic 

 manufacture, which added the earnings of his wife and daughters to 

 his own; and thirdly, by plots of ground, which, with privileges of 

 commoning and wastes, enabled him to find profitable employment 

 at those times, when not engaged in hired labour, and during his 

 leisure hours, aided here also by his family. All of these fences are 

 gone ; and what is the result ? The labourer has no resource : he is 

 reduced to the condition of a mere hireling ; and the moment he is 

 deprived of work, he comes as a matter of absolute necessity to the 

 parish. We are thus in possession of facts to account for the rapid 

 declension in the social and industrial character of the labourers. 

 They have lost all stimulus for exertion, inasmuch as they have nei- 

 ther scope nor encouragement given to them for profitable labour ; 

 and hence we may explain the destructive progress of the poor-rates, 

 which have been and which are pressing like an incubus upon landed 

 property. 



Such then was the condition of the agricultural labourer, and the 

 domestic weaver and spinner, prior to the epoch of mechanism. The 

 account given of the hand-loom weavers, and our brief exposition 

 of the factory system, in our last number, will enable our readers to 

 form a correct estimate of the agencies and their results, which have 

 metamorphosed our labouring community, from a healthy, an indus- 



