330 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION AND POOR LAW 



going. Riots were not always protests against the existing system ; 

 they were sometimes means of enforcing its continuance, and 

 parochial allowances were maintained by the establishment of a 

 reign of terror, by threats, violence, and incendiarism. 1 



Rural conditions were fast becoming intolerable. Fortunately, 

 there still remained a leaven of agricultural labourers who resented 

 pauper dependence as a curse and a disgrace. Fortunately, many 

 farmers were learning by experience that cheap labour was bad 

 labour, and that quantity was no efficient substitute for quality. 

 Fortunately, also, there were districts which a wiser administration 

 of the Poor Law had rescued from the general demoralisation. In 

 four parishes, Southwell, Bingham, Uley, and Llangattock, the 

 principle had been adopted, with marked success, of refusing relief 

 to the able-bodied, except in well-regulated workhouses. Some 

 sixty others had been practically depauperised (e.g. Welwyn, Leck- 

 hampstead, and Carlisle) by stopping allowances, and exacting 

 hard work, at low pay, under strict supervision, as a condition of 

 parish relief. On the other hand, the parish of Cholesbury in 

 Buckinghamshire afforded the typical illustration of the extreme 

 consequences to which the existing system was necessarily leading. 

 Out of 98 persons, who had a settlement in the parish, 64 were in 

 receipt of poor relief, and the rates exceeded 24s. in the pound. 

 Only 16 acres remained in cultivation. When able-bodied paupers 

 were offered land, they refused it on the ground that they preferred 

 their present position. The parish was only able to exist by means 

 of rates-in-aid levied on other parishes in the hundred. Similar 

 conditions prevailed elsewhere. It was evident that the fund 

 from which the rates were provided must become exhausted. 

 Rents were already disappearing. The Poor Law had destroyed 

 the confidence of tenants, deteriorated the moral character of the 

 labourer, forced large areas out of cultivation, driven capital to 

 seek investment everywhere but in land. A drastic remedy was 

 needed. In 1832 a Commission of Inquiry was appointed to examine 

 into existing conditions, and suggest the lines of legislative reform. 



On the recommendations of this Commission was based the Act 

 of 1834 " for the Amendment and better Administration of the 

 Laws relative to the Poor in England and Wales." A central 

 authority was constituted to regulate local administration. The 



1 Extracts from the Information received by H.M. Commissioners as to .. .the 

 Poor Laws (1833), p. 3. 



