The Labour Question. 309 



independent labourer, and half ruined the ratepayer. He came 

 under public notice in 1765, by successfully piloting through 

 the Lower House a centralisation scheme of poor relief, which 

 was to form into one union a great number of parishes. It 

 was, however, rejected by a small majority in the House of 

 Lords ; but in 1782 he introduced a similar measure, which 

 became law. He was equally successful with a proposal for 

 the better relief and employment of the poor ; but failed to 

 carry through a third Bill dealing with the criminal element 

 of the pauper class. To understand this important legislation, 

 now known as the Gilbert Act,^ we must remember the effects 

 of the legislation of 1723. By 9 Geo. I. c. 7 it was optional for 

 parishes to refuse out-door relief. By this new statute of 22 

 Geo. III. c. 83 able-bodied paupers were not obliged to enter 

 the workhouses, but were entitled to be provided with work 

 at their own homes. Forthwith there sprang into being a 

 system of fictitious pauperism, which largely augmented the 

 rates ; and the workhouses henceforth fell into a state of disuse, 

 being only utilised for the sick and infirm. The full force of 

 this disaster (we can use no milder term) to both ratepayers 

 and poor was not, however, experienced until after the Speen- 

 hamland episode, a period of this history not yet reached. 



We shall therefore conclude this section of our narrative 

 by placing before the reader a few details ilkistrative of the 

 condition of and restraints on the rural labourers during these 

 times of high prices and low wages. 



No one had as yet gone so deeply into this particular branch 

 of our subject as a certain Mr. Davies, rector of Barkham, in 

 Berkshire, who in 1795 published some most interesting sta- 

 tistics relative to the internal economy of the cottage and 

 dietetics of its occupants, which probably did much to influ- 

 ence the policy of Pitt's administration. 



Davies had no objection to the poor laws in theory. To pro- 

 vide for the employment of the able and industrious, the 

 correction of the idle and vicious, and the maintenance of 



^ For a defence of the Gilbert Act I mast refer the reader to Mr. Gil- 

 bert's own treatise, Considerations of the Bills for the Better Belief and 

 Employment of the Poor^ etc., etc. London, 1787. 



