100 Rents^ Wages, and Profits in Agriculture 



Statute of Apprenticeship (1563) dominated 

 the organisation of industry up to the 

 industrial revolution at the end of the 

 eighteenth century, and the laws of settle- 

 ment were added so as to insure any 

 one parish against the danger of having 

 to support the paupers of another. Time 

 will not permit, in this broad survey, of 

 entering at any length into the eEects 

 of the Poor-Law and of the regulation of 

 wages by the justices so long as it pre- 

 vailed. It may be admitted, having regard 

 to the original words of the statutes, and 

 to the original practice, that the main 

 object in both cases was to relieve the 

 poor and to prevent the extension of 

 pauperism. The regulation of wages was 

 of the nature of an official arbitration — 

 or so at least it was intended to be. To 

 a dispassionate reader, there seems to be 

 no evidence of anything like a conspiracy 



