rs which a
tenant gave them by contract, while they had no corresponding liability,
and, therefore, it was their interest to refrain from giving leases, and
to make their tenantry as dependent on them as if they were mere serfs.
This law was especially unfortunate, and had a positive and very great
effect upon the condition of the farming class and upon the nation, and
people came to think that landlords could do as they liked with their
land, and that the tenants must be creeping, humble, and servile.

An effort to remedy this evil was made in 1832, when the occupiers, if
rented or rated at the small amount named, became voters. This gave the
power to the holding, not to the man, and the landlord could by simple
eviction deprive the man of his vote; hence the tenants-at-will were
driven to the hustings like sheep--they could not, and dare not, refuse
to vote as the landlord ordered.

The lords of the manor, with a landlord Parliament, asserted their
claims to the commonages, and these lands belonging to the people,
were gradually inclosed, and became the possession of individuals. The
inclosing of commonages commenced in the reign of Queen Anne, and was
continued in the reigns of all the sovereigns of the House of Hanover.
The first inclosure act was passed in 1709; in the following thirty
years the average number of inclosure bills was about three each year;
in the following fifty years there were nearly forty each year; and in
the forty years of the nineteenth century it was nearly fifty per annum.

The inclosures in each reign were as follows:

Acts. Acres.
Queen Anne, 2 1,439
George I., 16 17,660
George II., 226 318,784
George III., 3446 3,500,000
George IV., 192 250,000
William IV., 72 120,000
---- ---------
Total, 3954 4,207,883

These lands belonged to the people, and might have been applied to
relieve the poor. Had they been allotted in small farms, they might have
been made the means of support of from 500,000 to 1,000,000 families,
and they would have afforded employment and sustenance to all the
poor, and thus rendered compulsory taxation under the poor-law system
unnecessary; but the landlords seized on them and made the tenantry pay
the poor-rate.

The British Poor Law is a slur upon its boasted civilization. The
unequal distribution of land and of wealth leads to great ric