CHAPTER XXVIII. 



ON THE PURCHASING POWER OF WAGES. 



THE condition of the poor, the decay of towns, and the 

 substitution of sheep-farming for agriculture, led to much 

 legislation during the first half of the sixteenth century. 

 Henry made some attempt to meet the difficulties, most 

 of them due to his own rapacity and extravagance, by violent 

 and foolish legislation. His son (or rather his son's guardians), 

 and his daughters with better intentions, or at any rate with 

 more reasonable expedients, struggled with a social scandal, 

 which was in such woful contrast with a by-gone national 

 prosperity, and seemed so full of danger. During sixty years, 

 from 1541 to 1601, twelve Acts of Parliament were passed 

 with the distinct object of providing relief against destitution l t 

 the series being completed by the famous Act of 1601. This 

 Act was originally passed as a temporary law, and was made 

 perpetual at the Restoration, when the law of parochial 

 settlement was enacted. From the Restoration and through 

 the Revolution it was the object of the legislature, while 

 it secured to the labourer legal relief against destitution, not 



Et the cost of his employer but of occupiers generally, to 

 lake the condition of the peasant as servile and as hopeless 

 s greed, on which the law had conferred effectual power, 



1 These are, 32 Hen. VIII. cap. 12 ; 37 Hen. VIII. cap. 23 ; i Edw. VI. cap. 3 ; 

 5 & 6 Edw. VI. cap. 2 ; 7 Edw. VI. cap. 1 1 ; 2 & 3 Phil, and Mary, cap. 5 ; 5 Eliz. 

 cap. 3 ; 14 Eliz. cap. 5 ; 18 Eliz. cap. 3 ; 35 Eliz. cap. 7 ; 39 Eliz. cap. 3 ; 43 Eliz. 

 cap. 2. These must be examined in the large folio edition of the Statutes or in the 

 original issues. They are all omitted from ordinary editions of the Statutes at 

 Large. 



