can be no doubt that at least in the south and west of England nearly the whole agricultural population was on the rates. Land was fast going out of cultivation because it no longer paid to work it. The misery of the poor became more and more intense, as anyone who reads the history of the time, such as the writings of Arthur Young, William Cobbett, or Harriet Martineau, can see for themselves. At last, in 1832, the Royal Commission was appointed whose Report was the basis of the new Poor Law. The Commissioners, at least, were quite clear in their views as to the causes of the evil. The poor rate, they say, had up to that time "been applied to purposes opposed to the letter and still more to the spirit of the Elizabethan Poor Law and destructive to the morals of the most numerous class and the welfare of all." All incentives to industry and self-reliance had been removed by the fact that the working classes could claim as a right to be supported at their homes out of the rates. "The aim of the old Poor Law had been to attempt to repeal pro tanto that law of nature by which the effects of a man's improvidence or misconduct are borne by himself and his family. The result of that attempt had been to repeal pro tanto the law by which each man and his family enjoy the benefit of his prudence and exertion. In abolishing punishment we abolish reward." The principles laid down by the Commissioners as essential to a proper administration of public relief are:—
(a) That the position of the pauper should be less eligible than that of the lowest class of independent labourer who has to bear the charges.
(b) That the functions of State relief should be limited to the relief of destitution, such destitution
