Friendly Societies, State Action, and the Poor-law. 175 
" The Poor-law is the best benefit club, because everj'thing is 
taken out and nothing paid in." 
To give a rough outline of the origin of the Poor-law must 
be a matter of theory rather than of fact. But at a time when 
proposals are made to extend the area of rates from real to 
personal property, it may be of use to make the attempt. 
Suppose then a community, to the members of which the 
occupation of country is assigned by the original owner, suffi- 
cient to secure the sustenance of each man by cultivating the 
soil. What will he do with his property ? Among the new 
owners of the land a great variety exists in point of physical 
and mental abilities and of capacity. Some take almost 
naturally to the tillage of land, and succeed without much 
difficulty. Some were never meant to be farmers, and turn 
their . abilities to other pursuits, by which it is quickly found 
that the general good of the community is promoted. Every- 
body agrees that the advantage of all will be consulted by 
providing that all should have a maintenance by labouring at 
the occupation for which they are best qualified ; and on the 
understanding that their original claim to support from the 
soil should be reserved to them in case of their failure in 
their respective occupations other than agriculture, many 
resign their allotments of the land for various pursuits. In 
this agreement we have the germ of the Poor-law. If we 
examine the community further, and see how the agricultural 
part of it is working, a difference is soon perceptible between 
the cultivators of the soil. They speedily come to a re-arrange- 
ment of their property and a subdivision of labour. Some agree 
to take a third of the produce of the soil, and meet all claims 
on it under the original agreement, giving two-thirds to those 
who occupy their land. We may thus trace the institution of 
landlord and tenant. The latter in turn finds employment for 
labourers drawn from the increase of a community not as yet 
distressed by intestine struggles or foreign invasion, which will 
by-and-by compel the inhabitants to provide a costly and a 
strong Government for their own safety. New adjustments are 
required as time passes on. The ancient landmarks are oblite- 
rated, and estates of different extent cover the country. The 
ancient system of people being dispersed over the face of the 
earth is greatly interrupted by their finding the advantage of 
centres of population. The original claim of maintenance 
from the soil becomes well-nigh lost in the complicated com- 
munity, and expenses begin to be thrown upon it which arise 
from causes foreign to the old agreement. There was not a 
very strongly-marked line between the merely incapable and the 
dishonest, and a short and summary method of disposing of 
