96 



I cnnnot, as a guardian, see how a temporary system of 

 Labour Rate could interfere with any of ihe provisions of 

 the Act, or could in any way be a clog to its well working ; 

 but believe it would be, as was said, a " safety-valve" to the 

 Act. 



In the Assistant Poor Law Commissioner's Report of the 

 progress and effects of the Poor Law Amendment Act, in 

 the County of Northampton, there is, in a letter brought 

 into the report, this assertion : " None but the occupiers 

 of land could understand the nuisance of roundsmen, and 

 the Labour Rate system was worse." I have to say, in 

 answer, that none but the occupiers of land in populous 

 agricultural parishes, can have a just idea of the difficulties 

 and perplexities that arose in the management of the poor 

 before the passing of the Amendment Act. I am free to 

 admit that living in a parish where it was necessary to estab- 

 lish the Labour Rate was a nuisance ; but 1 must also say 

 that it was a certain remedy for one of the greatest nuisances 

 that could exist in a parish ; that of having, as Moulton had, 

 always some, and at certain times of the year, as many as 40 

 men, paid out of the parish funds without doing any work, 

 at least without doing any for the parish. 1. in common 

 with the other rate-payers, should have considered that 

 person sent as a blessing, who could have instructed us 

 now to put in practice some better system than the Labour 

 Rate, to put these men into work, and to be paid wages by 

 their employers, instead of being paid out of the parish 

 funds. Had I conceived that so effective a measure as the 

 Poor Law Amendment Act was likely to be brought into 

 practice, I should not have put myself to such trouble and 

 expense as I did to further that object, which I then consci- 

 entiously believed would render most important services to 

 many populous agricultural parishes. Besides going to 

 London on purpose, when the Labourers' Employment 

 Bill was to be brought forward, I had printed about a 

 thousand letters, which I directed, and sent to members of 

 both Houses of Parliament. Although the Labour Rate 

 system was rejected in the House of Commons, from the 

 mistaken prevailing idea, that all plans of it mixed up relief 

 with wages, I have the gratification to find that all the time 

 and trouble I bestowed on it was not entirely thrown away ; 



