The Laboitr Question. 3 1 5 



tliere may be weekly surpluses, the yearly expenses, as com- 

 pared witli the yearly earnings, show a considerable deficiency. 

 Nor was this miserable state of affairs confined within the 

 boundaries of Berkshire. Davies, by an appendix to his book, 

 affords ample proof of its prevalence over the entire country. 



According to this writer, labouring families could have 

 maintained themselves at their own houses, paying rent and 

 every other necessary expense, for the small annual sum of 

 £5 4.S'. per head,^ But the cost of the board and lodging in 

 the poor-house had been estimated at £7 IG.-*. per head, and 

 if there be added to this the other expenses of a workhouse, 

 the whole cost per head was probably not less than nine or ten 

 pounds. As a set-off, the work performed in the poor-house 

 was infinitesimal and of insignificant value.- The better alter- 

 native would therefore seem to have been an extended system 

 of outdoor relief, for the sakes both of the ratepayers' pocket 

 and of the character and morals of those thus relieved. This 

 fact appears to have struck the authorities the very same 

 year and month in which the treatise of this Berkshire rector 

 appeared in print, and it is a noticeable coincidence that 

 the magistrates of Davies' county used their powers under 

 the recent Gilbert Act, and adopted his suggestions. But 

 if Davies' views are thus answerable for all the widespread 

 mischief which followed the "roundsman process" (about 

 which we shall have a good deal to say later on), it remains 

 only to point out that the energy and research of this true 

 friend of the poor man deserved a better fate. We can, 

 however, hardly believe that he was responsible for more 

 than the principle adopted by the Speenhamland justices. 

 Indeed, it is quite probable that they themselves only took 

 the course that they did take for want of a better. 



As we have shown earlier in this chapter, the parochial 

 authorities would not look beyond the necessities of the hour. 

 They objected to expend funds in providing for works of a 

 permanent nature, and refused even to purchase tools, wool, 

 flax, and other materials with which the pauper could have 



1 Case, of the Labourers in Husbandry, pp. 23 and 62. 

 ^ Zouch's Remarks, p. 55. 



