The Labour Question. ^o'] 



long before this Lord Hale had advocated a scheme whereby the 

 justices of the peace should be directed to amalgamate several 

 parishes into one district, in which a common workhouse should 

 meet the wants of their united poverty. He also proposed that 

 the churchwardens and overseers of each parish should be 

 compelled to bring their several rating lists to the sessions so 

 as to enable the justices to assess for a term of years two sepa- 

 rate sums, the one for permanent, the other for temporary 

 measures of poor relief, 



Hale's workhouse principle covered, however, not only what 

 we understand by this term, but also the establishment, under 

 the same roof, of a hospital, industrial school, and house of cor- 

 rection, by means of which the old and sick could obtain the 

 benefits of nursing and medicine, and the young and strong 

 be taught a useful trade. 



Sir Josiah Child would have gone further in the direction of 

 centralisation than Hale. He suggested the entire abolition of 

 the existing poor laws, and that in their place should be formed 

 throughout the whole of England large districts controlled by 

 societies. Members of these State-incorporated bodies would 

 become the '• fathers of the poor " in their individual district, 

 and their powers would be so plenary as to include the erection 

 of workhouses, hospitals, and houses of correction, the disposal 

 of superfluous poverty by a method of enforced emigration, 

 and the absolute control of all funds, whether paid compul- 

 sorily or voluntarily. Under them were to be the existent 

 churchwardens and overseers, upon whose details of informa- 

 tion they would base their proposals of relief. Finally, they 

 were to be endowed with judicial powers little short of those 

 possessed by the justices of the peace. 



Numerous other suggestions were put forward about the 

 beginning of the eighteenth century, all more or less advocating 

 a centralised method of pauper relief. Gary, for example, in 

 1700, proposed that each county should be laid out into one 

 or more districts, and administered by all the justices of the 

 peace. Hay's suggestion was somewhat similar.^ He wanted 

 large districts administered by twelve guardians, whose quali- 

 ' Burn on the Poor Laws. pp. 135-175. 



