70 The Revolution in Agriculture 



made it legal to supplement the wages of able-bodied men from 

 the rates. In 1795 the Berkshire magistrates made a regulation 

 which provided that only part of the wages might be paid 

 directly out of what the labourers produced, and that the other 

 part should be paid from the poor-rates. ' When the gallon loaf ', 

 they said, ' weighing 8 Ib. n oz. shall cost u., then every poor 

 and industrious man shall have for his own support 3-f. weekly, 

 either produced by his own or his family's labour or an allowance 

 from the poor-rates, and for the support of his wife and every 

 other of his family is. 6^.' That is, a man's wages were fixed at 

 a sum which would buy for himself 26 Ib. of bread in the week, 

 and for his wife and children 13 Ib. each. 



The labourers were not paid more when they produced more. 

 They were paid more when their children increased in number. 

 They were not encouraged to work hard but to have big families. 

 The resolution of the Berkshire magistrates was called the Speen- 

 hamland Act, because the meeting at which it was passed was 

 held at Speenhamland near Newbury, and nearly all the counties 

 in England adopted this scheme as if it ' had been an Act of 

 Parliament. The northern counties refused to have it. The 

 policy was too absurd to continue long. In 1814 the power of 

 fixing wages was taken from the Justices, although the right to 

 pay wages out of the poor-rates remained until 1834. 



The people who had controlled the legislation and administra- 

 tion of the country had too much power. Enclosures deprived 

 thousands of families of their foothold on the land, and the Poor 

 Law was an utterly inadequate method of giving them an oppor- 

 tunity to be good and useful members of the community. The 

 influence of the Poor Law was always bad, but during the forty 

 years from 1795 to 1834 wnen the wages which they earned w r ere 

 withheld from them, and charitable doles substituted, the labourers 

 were demoralized to such an extent that they have not yet 

 ^recovered. This policy has done much to retard progress in 



