TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 755 



4. The Pool' Laio and the Economic Order. By T. Mackay. 



Early legislation concerning the poor was for their regulation, not for their 

 relief. It was based on an assumed adscription of the population to the soil. The 

 obligation of the community to relieve was of later origin. On this territorial 

 basis was founded our system of poor relief as established by Elizabeth. 



The legislature regarded the population as stationary, but it was not till some 

 fifty years afterwards that the mobility characteristic of an industrial popidation 

 came into conflict with this assumption. 



For remedy the 14 Charles II., c. 12 (1662), attempted to define settlement 

 and facilitated the forcible removal of migrant labourers to their place of settle- 

 ment. The tyranny of this has often been condemned, and from the first many 

 methods of evasion were adopted. The complete immobility of the population, 

 however, was due, not to this enactment, but to the guarantee of maintenance held 

 out to everyone who clung resolutely to his parish and to his decaying industry. 

 It was this system of imprisonment in some 16,000 parishes that gave rise to the 

 appearance of over-population. Labour was rendered immobile, not only in place, 

 but in character and habit. 



The business of the new poor law in 1834 was to relax these bonds and allow 

 the absorption of the population into the economic order. It was in large 

 measure successful, and subsequent experiments in the way of restriction have 

 sought to carry the reform further. The justification of a restrictive policy is 

 that pauperism is a retention of a part of our population in a condition of primitive 

 poverty much longer than the economic necessity of the situation warrants. 

 This archaic survival is to be contrasted with the economic order, which offers the 

 true policy of emancipation. 



The hand-to-mouth life is now more amply endowed than it has ever been ; a 

 consideration which answers tlie argument that, in view of the improved 

 conditions of working-class life, a relaxation of poor-law tests is desirable. 

 Improved opportunities for independence too often merely go to make the pro- 

 letariate life, for the time being, more profuse and irresponsible. The difficulty is 

 to induce a certain type to submit, in even the slightest degree, to the discipline of 

 the economic order and to renounce its much more natural, primitive, hand-to- 

 mouth instincts. 



Maine's generalisation that progress is from status to contract is based on 

 historical fact ; but as regards the future it may not be the last word. It is sub- 

 mitted, however, that, even if we welcome a tendency to revert in certain directions 

 to civic and municipal status, the status of parochial pauperism is a condition from 

 which we should endeavour to emancipate our poorer population. 



5. British Colonial Policy in^ its Econoinic As2)ect. 

 By Archibald B. Clark, M.A. 



The timely and substantial assistance rendered to Great Britain by the 

 Colonies in the South African War has awakened a fresh interest in the question 

 whether a more formal recognition and exact definition should not be given to 

 the rights and responsibilities of the Colonies in connection with the government 

 and defence of the Empire. The problem, like nearly every practical problem, is 

 not exhausted by consideration of its purely economic aspects. But the policy of 

 * tightening the ties ' is, at present, advocated mainly on economic grounds ; and it 

 is sought to attain the end in view by the manipulation of economic factors. 



As regards defence, under modern conditions a huge and growing expenditure 

 on the Army and Navy is inevitable ; and it is argued that the Colonies, who 

 equally with Great Britain gain from the resulting security, may fairly be asked 

 to contribute towards the expense. But («) by way of compensation our weight 

 in the councils of the nations is vastly greater by reason of the possession of our 

 Colonial Empire. (6) Recent experience suggests that the interests of Imperial 

 Defence may be better served by the spontaneous action of the Colonies than by a 

 formal and binding contract. 



