1921.] Agricultural Labour Early IjAst Century. 591 



consequences of this momentous change or reahsed that some 

 provision must be made for it. As it happened, the event that 

 forced this problem on the public mind was the event that had 

 accelerated enclosure. The French War brought recurring 

 spells of scarcity and famine prices, and during the French War 

 the harvests were as a rule poor ; in particular they were disas- 

 trously bad in the years 1795, 1799 and 1800. 



Degradation of English Life by Doles from the Rates.— The 

 year 1795 therefore marked an important crisis. The labourer 

 had raised a good part of his own food under the old system and 

 he had never been dependent entirely on his wages. He had now 

 lost his cow, his geese, his fuel, and he had to rely on his wages, 

 buying at the shop or from a farmer who was not always anxious 

 for his custom, the food he had formerly produced himself. Thus 

 scarcity and high prices hit him much harder than they would 

 have hit him under the old system. By 1795 his wages no 

 longer supported him. Something had to be done unless he was 

 to starve. Some observers argued that the right policy was to 

 set up a minimum wage. Arthur Young was himself in favour 

 of this plan and it was supported by two clergymen who had 

 great knowledge of the state of the villages and great and wise 

 sympathy with the unfortunate labourers. One was Howlett, 

 the Vicar of Dunmow, and the other Davies, the Eector of Bark- 

 ham in Berkshire, the author of a singularly interesting and 

 illuminating book called "The Labourer in Husbandry." The 

 proposal was taken up by Whitbread in Parliament, and it had 

 the support of Fox and Grey, but it was rejected at the instance 

 of Pitt who denounced it as economically unsound. The plan 

 adopted in its stead is famous in history as one of the capital 

 causes of the degradation of English life in the first thirty years 

 of the nineteenth century. 



This method takes its name from Speenhamland, now part of 

 Newbury, v^here a meeting of Berkshire magistrates v^as held 

 at the Pelican Inn, on 6th May, 1795, to consider the problem. 

 The Chairman of the meeting, Charles Dundas, the Member for 

 Berkshire, afterwards Lord Amesbury, who was in the chair, 

 was in favour of using the power given to the magistrates by the 

 Act of Elizabeth to fix wages, but he was defeated and the 

 -meeting decided instead to adopt a scheme for supplementing 

 wages from the rates on the plan that soon spread to other 

 ^counties. The resolution that was passed may be given : — 



"Resolved, that it is not expedient for the magistrates to grant that 

 assistance by regulating the wages of day hibonrers according to the 

 directions of the Statutes of the 5th Elizabeth and 1st James : But the 



