e; and an elaborate bill of
130 clauses was prepared in 1796.[88] The rates were to be used to
supplement inadequate wages; 'schools of industry' were to be formed for
the support of superabundant children; loans might be made to the poor
for the purchase of a cow;[89] and the possession of property was not to
disqualify for the receiving relief. In short, the bill seems to have
been a model of misapplied benevolence. The details were keenly
criticised by Bentham, and the bill never came to the birth. Other
topics were pressing enough at this time to account for the failure of a
measure so vast in its scope. Meanwhile something had to be done. On 6th
May 1795 the Berkshire magistrates had passed certain resolutions called
from their place of meeting, the 'Speenhamland Act of Parliament.' They
provided that the rate of wages of a labourer should be increased in
proportion to the price of corn and to the number of his family--a rule
which, as Eden observes, tended to discourage economy of food in times
of scarcity. They also sanctioned the disastrous principle of paying
part of the wages out of rates. An act passed in 1796 repealed the old
restrictions upon out-door relief; and thus, during the hard times that
were to follow, the poor-laws were adapted to produce the state of
things in which, as Cobbett says (in 1821) 'every labourer who has
children is now regularly and constantly a pauper.'[90] The result
represents a curious compromise. The landowners, whether from
benevolence or fear of revolution, desired to meet the terrible distress
of the times. Unfortunately their spasmodic interference was guided by
no fixed principles, and acted upon a class of institutions not
organised upon any definite system. The general effect seems to have
been that the ratepayers, no longer allowed to 'depopulate,' sought to
turn the compulsory stream of charity partly into their own pockets. If
they were forced to support paupers, they could contrive to save the
payment of wages. They could use the labour of the rate-supported
pauper instead of employing independent workmen. The evils thus produced
led before long to most important discussions.[91] The ordinary view of
the poor-law was inverted. The prominent evil was the reckless increase
of a degraded population instead of the restriction of population.
Eden's own view is sufficiently indicative of the light in which the
facts showed themselves to intelligent economists. As a disciple o