Newly ascendant liberal members of the first British Parliament
elected after the Parliamentary Reform Bill of 1832 soon passed a new
law governing the treatment of the poor. The law massively overhauled
the existing law that had been passed in 1598 under Elizabeth I.
Under the 1598 law, each English parish was required to maintain its
own poor, either through accommodation in poorhouses or through a
system of doles, coupled with local public employment programs.
Although the system had not eliminated poverty, it did largely prevent
actual starvation.
However, population growth and economic depressions had, by 1830,
produced by far the largest number of unemployed men and women England
had ever had. The tremendous strain placed upon the funds each parish
used to provide relief led to a need for increased taxes. Also,
industrialization required that families move from one part of the
country to another to obtain employment, but the old poor law only
provided assistance to those who applied for it in the parish of their
birth.
Because of its perceived inefficiency, inconsistency with middle-class
liberal beliefs, and a desire to avoid tax increases, Parliament
enacted the new poor law in 1832. Doles were stopped, and those who
were unable to support themselves were confined in workhouses. The
conditions in the workhouses were so atrocious that inmates were
compelled to depart and accept either whatever work they could find
outside, no matter how poorly paid, or seek whatever charity they
could obtain from friends and relatives. The terrible conditions of
the workhouses were documented by Charles Dickens in his famous novels
of the period. The new law grouped parishes together into larger
bodies called unions and was administered by a London-based central
board of commissioners. The steps were taken to improve the perceived
efficiency of antipoverty programs.
The new legislation was inspired by the liberal belief that poverty
was a person's own fault and that capitalism, though unregulated, was
capable of providing enough jobs for all who genuinely wanted them.
However, economic depressions in the early 1840s proved that
unregulated capitalism could not always provide enough jobs for
everyone who wanted one, and implementation of the law failed. Taxes
were increased and doles were instituted again.
Although the law's failure did not change the liberal conviction that
poverty was fundamentally an individual rather than an institutional
problem of capitalism, there can be no doubt that the law failed
utterly to achieve its goals of achieving the greatest happiness of
the greatest number. Furthermore, Britain's middle-class continue to
grow its political power throughout the period despite the failure of
many of its ideas once they were enacted as legislation.
Sincerely,
Wonko
Reference: World Civilizations, seventh edition, Burns, Ralph, Lerner,
and Meacham, WW Norton & Co., 1986, pages 1010-1011 |
