46 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH RURAL HISTORY 



minimum wage in relation to the price of food, the grant- 

 ing of allotments, and the reconstruction of the Poor Law. 

 Mr. and Mrs. Hammond thus sum up the result of 

 these efforts : "A minimum wage was not fixed, allot- 

 ments were only sprinkled with a sparing hand on an estate 

 here and there, there was no revolution in diet, the problems 

 of local supply and distribution were left untouched, the 

 reconstruction of the Poor Law was abandoned." 



" Laissez-faire." 



The State, therefore, took no share in regulating the 

 conditions of labour at this period. As early as 1776, 

 Adam Smith, a Glasgow professor, had published his 

 " Wealth of Nations," in which he pleaded for the removal 

 of all trade restrictions. Complete freedom for the indi- 

 vidual was demanded, it being thought that if men were 

 left to make their own bargains, each would do the best 

 possible for himself, and that the result would be beneficial 

 to all. State interference, it was thought, would only 

 result in muddle. There arose, therefore, the laissez-faire 

 or " go-as-you-please " policy. 



But under such a system, it was impossible for the hungr}' 

 worker to make the best terms for himself; and children 

 had no part whatever in the bargaining. The system, 

 however, was extremely profitable to most English manu- 

 facturers who, by the emploj^ment of keen business methods, 

 soon amassed fortunes. The friendly relationship which 

 had in many cases existed between employers and employed 

 now yielded to an entirely new set of conditions ; for it 

 was no longer possible for the employer, or company of 

 employers, to take a personal interest in individual labourers, 

 who became known as " hands." These toilers, instead 

 of enjoying the pure country air, the green fields, and 

 brown ploughlands, as workers had formerly done, were 

 now resident in the neighbourhood of the mills and factories 

 where was their daily labour. In narrow streets there 

 sprang up rows and rows of little cottages, made grimy 

 by the volumes of thick black smoke belched forth from 

 the chimneys and furnaces. Manufacturers, on the contrary, 

 journeyed to their trim suburban villas where, having 

 secured financial and industrial power, they commenced 

 that agitation for political power which was largely in- 

 strumental in bringing about the Great Reform Act of 

 1832. 



