Synopsis of Chapters. xix 



PAGE 



attempts of the legislature to suppress him — His power over the 

 labouring element, and his attitude in the Luddite Riots — 

 Mill's method of attacking seignorial rights — His views on 

 landed property, and the unearned increment — His objections 

 to the system of family settlements — Cobbett's intimacy with 

 rural life shown to be the secret of his success when dealing 

 with political questions — His attitude on the enclosure question 

 and commutation of tithes — As an illusti-ation of the diversity 

 of views between these two economists, their respective argu- 

 ments on the labour question given in full — Mill's remedies for 

 improving the condition of the poor, viz. education and emigra- 

 tion — Cobbett's hostility to education, but advocacy of emigra- 

 tion as affording the poor man a loophole of escape from the 

 excessive taxation at home — His belief in the existent poor- 

 law system, if only it could be properly administered, and 

 his objections to any alteration of the original Elizabethan 

 statute 473-493 



CHAPTER XXII. 



THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOUR. 



The survival of the villeinage system still apparent in the control 

 allowed by the State to Justices of the Peace over the poorer 

 classes — The inequalities of the incidence of the poor rates 

 demonstrated, and the efforts of the landlords and farmers to 

 supplement them out of the wages fund in part justified — The 

 desperate condition of the rural labourer, and the errors of the 

 policy and machinery employed to relieve him — The disastrous 

 law of settlement, the responsibilities it involved on the landed 

 gentry, and their deep sense of this responsibility — The admir- 

 able manner in which they assisted the poor funds by private 

 charity — Their control over the rates of wages unfortunately 

 far more efficient than that over the assize of bread — The pos- 

 sibilities of evading this latter statute shown to have exagger- 

 ated the untoward situation — The evils of the " middleman " 

 sj'stem — The only resource for the local authorities proved to 

 be a manipulation of the wages tariff— The central authority, 

 however, attempts, b}' adjusting the corn law^s to the fluctua- 

 tions of the markets, to keep down the price of bread — Pressure 

 brought to bear in Parliament to legalize a minimum rate of 

 wages — Pitt's unfortunate Act sanctions the Speenhamland 

 policy of aiding wages out of the poor rate — The evils of the 

 " Roundsman system," and consequent pauperization of labour, 

 militate against several successful attempts now made to 

 emancipate the working man — His wages are freed from seig- 

 norial control, but he himself is beggared by Pitt's Act — The 

 consequent rapid increase in the poor rates scarcely checked 

 by such legislation as East's and Sturgess Bourne's Acts — 

 The beneficial Poor Law Amendment Act, and its happy though 

 drastic results on cottage life — Its disastrous effects on the 

 hitherto amicable relationship between emplo3'er and employee 

 — The Chartist agitation brings into force a communistic ten- 

 dency in the English labourer which only the repeal of the 

 corn laws could lull to sleep again — The payment of wages in 



