Shadow of great britain

Without a strong opposition, the government cannot maintain long-term security.

——Benjamin Disraeli

The Poor Law has a long history in Britain. Even as early as the 16th century, before the central government uniformly levied the poor tax, local governments in Britain had already levied the poor tax according to their own needs to help the poor.

The cause of this incident was that the "Enclosure Movement" originated in the 16th century, which caused major changes in the social structure of Britain. A large number of adult laborers were forced to leave their homes and wander around because of the loss of land.

The enclosure movement also led to an extremely bad result. Since a large number of farmlands were converted into pastures, the price of basic food ushered in an explosive growth in the 16th century.

At the end of the 15th century, British workers could earn a family's annual rations in 15 weeks of work. By the middle of the 16th century, they needed to work for 40 weeks. By the end of the 16th century, even if he worked all year round, it would be difficult to meet the basic living needs of the whole family.

At the same time, the English Reformation in the mid-16th century caused the king to take over the land and property of Catholic monasteries, which forced nearly half of the church poorhouses and church hospitals in the country to close. The church relief model that had lasted for centuries was broken, so the government had to take on the civil charity relief affairs originally undertaken by the Catholic Church.

During the reign of Elizabeth I, the population of London was only more than 200,000, but more than 50,000 of them were refugees. In the whole of Great Britain, more than one-third of ordinary people were hungry.

At that time, in order to manage the large number of poor people, local governments were even willing to put down the face that the British government had been unwilling to put down for hundreds of years and issue a certain number of begging licenses to local poor people. At the cost of agreeing to this group of people to beg for food in public, they counted their numbers and regulated their behavior.

Under such a severe social reality, the British Parliament promulgated the Elizabethan Poor Law in 1601, formally incorporating the poor relief system into the government's work charter.

According to the Act, the parish will collect poor tax from the wealthy and middle classes, and this tax will be used specifically to help people at the bottom of the economic level in the parish.

There are two main types of poverty relief within the scope of the Poor Law.

The first is in-house relief, that is, the relief recipients must join the reformatory, poorhouse or folk art studio to work until they find a job.

The second is outdoor relief. As the name suggests, this kind of relief does not require going to the poorhouse to work, but staying at home to receive relief. However, in the earliest times, only five groups of people, the elderly, the weak, the sick, the disabled and the young, were allowed to receive outdoor relief.

It was not until the end of the 18th century, when the financial capacity of the British government was greatly enhanced, that Parliament passed the Gilbert Act to approve that healthy people could also receive outdoor relief.

The relief methods of the old Poor Law mainly started from three aspects.

The first is cash relief, as the name suggests, it is to give money to the recipients. Each parish usually pays relief to the elderly, the disabled and widows with children on a monthly or weekly basis.

As for young and middle-aged men, if they suddenly fall into poverty due to illness, unemployment and other emergencies, they can also apply to the parish for "temporary relief" until they recover from their illness or find a job.

However, this does not mean that you can always rely on relief. If the Poor Committee finds that you are healthy but refuse to work because of laziness, or if you have been receiving relief for too long, then being whipped and sent to the poorhouse for forced labor are legal operations.

Moreover, because there are too many poor people, the parish's poor tax balance is often stretched. Therefore, the Poor Committee will re-examine which people in the parish are worthy of relief every year. Therefore, there were basically no guys who could rely on the minimum living allowance for a lifetime.

In addition to cash relief, another important relief is housing relief. Since the 18th century, the parish has begun to provide housing relief for the poor who still cannot pay the rent with their labor income.

The parish generally pays rent directly to the landlords of the poor to ensure that they have a place to live. If the landlord finds that the tenant cannot pay the house, he sometimes directly asks the parish to pay the rent for their poor tenants. If the parish itself has sufficient real estate, the poor there can also apply to rent it at a lower rent.

However, for most parishes, their real estate is the poorhouse, but because the conditions are too simple, most young and middle-aged people with labor force are basically unwilling to move in. Only those street children, disabled or sick poor people will choose to live there. Because no matter how bad the conditions are, at least the poorhouse is free.

As for the elderly and orphans, they can live in the homes of the caregivers designated by the parish to receive care, and the salary of the caregivers is paid by the parish.

In addition, another more common relief is medical relief. Depending on the financial resources of each parish, the relief projects are different.

Since the mid-18th century, backward parishes will hire special doctors, ordinary parishes will sign annual contracts with hospitals, and wealthy parishes will directly establish poor hospitals to help the poor in the area with vaccinations, provide medicines and drugs, deliver babies, and pray for treatment and other medical services. Sick poor people can also choose to be treated at home, and their relatives must assume basic care responsibilities and can receive remuneration from the parish.

During festivals, or when local gentry donate money for good deeds, the parish will also distribute necessities such as food, clothing, fuel, and washing supplies to the poor. If you are lucky, you will sometimes get some money. The wealthy parishes will even distribute materials for repairing houses and wages for craftsmen.

Although there are often large differences in these poverty relief affairs due to the different economic development levels and the number of poor people in different places. But at least in the more than 200 years since the promulgation of the Elizabethan Poor Law, this law has indeed played a considerable role in alleviating poverty, alleviating social conflicts, and maintaining social stability.

During these 200 years, the Elizabethan Poor Law has also passed several amendments to improve the effect of social relief.

The reason why the Whigs intended to take action on the Elizabethan Poor Law was mainly due to the Speehamland Act passed in 1795.

At that time, according to the research of 18 judges in Berkshire, they believed that the poor should be given relief according to the price of bread and the size of the family, regardless of how much money they actually earned, so as to ensure that the poor could get a minimum income to support the whole family.

In modern terms, they decided to link relief to the food price inflation index.

According to the judges' calculations, assuming that the price of 1 gallon of bread is 1 shilling, a poor person needs 3 shillings per week to meet his needs.

In order to maintain the living needs of family members, the weekly income needs to increase by 1 shilling and 6 pence for each additional person in the family. When the price of bread rises by 1 penny above 1 shilling, he needs to spend 3 pence more per week, and each family member needs to spend 1 penny more.

If his salary level does not meet this standard, the parish should make up for him in relief.

As a wealth redistribution plan that promotes social fairness, the proposal of the Speehamland Act is undoubtedly successful. Many poor people who were originally unable to receive relief according to the standard have also received social relief and have been able to meet their basic living needs.

However, the passage of the Speyhamland Act was undoubtedly disastrous for the government's finances.

As prices rose year by year, the "wage subsidy" linked to the inflation index also soared. Between 1817 and 1832 alone, national poverty relief expenditures soared by 23%, and the government's finances were overwhelmed.

What's worse is that since the wage difference of workers will be made up by the government, many factory owners in labor-intensive industries will deliberately lower the wage price, because even if they only pay one penny a week, the parish will make up the workers' income to meet basic living needs.

In addition, since the poor can only receive wage subsidies in the parish where they are registered, this also restricts the free flow of labor to a certain extent.

All these factors together are naturally unacceptable to the Whigs who believe in liberalism.

From their point of view, although the Abolition of Slavery Act, the Factory Act, and the New Poor Law are three reform measures, they are actually a set of combos.

The Abolition Act required a fiscal expenditure of 20 million pounds, but it could liberate the labor of slaves, put these adult laborers into factories, and improve the efficiency of factories.

The Factory Act prohibited child laborers under the age of 9 from working in textile factories and limited the working hours of young workers aged 9-18. This series of regulations was not only to protect the rights and interests of children, but also because children's work efficiency was too low, and allowing children to work too early would directly damage Britain's future development potential.

As for the jobs left after the child labor was cleared, they would be filled by the slave laborers released by the Abolition Act.

In order to achieve the first two bills, especially to raise the 20 million pounds required for the Abolition Act, it was necessary to cut the Elizabethan Poor Law, whose expenditure was rising year by year.

After the parliamentary reform was completed, the Whig Party had a very strong support basis for cutting the Elizabethan Poor Law.

As we all know, the land aristocracy, clergy, bankers and the army are the basic base of the Tory Party.

The basic base of the Whig Party is industrial capital and the emerging middle class.

After the parliamentary reform in 1832, the middle class had completely overwhelmed the traditional land aristocracy because of the expansion of voting scope.

What these people disliked most was the rising poor tax.

Because the poor tax levied by the parish was for all residents in the parish, and the poor tax to be paid each year was calculated per acre of land or per pound of rent.

During the Tory Party's rule, these land aristocrats and big bankers generally believed that this tax was not painful for them, but it could stabilize the social environment, so they had no intention of reforming the Poor Law.

But for the middle class who had just obtained the right to vote, or even for those who still did not have the right to vote, the annual poor tax expenditure was too painful.

Therefore, when the Whigs proposed to reform the Elizabethan Poor Law and reduce government fiscal expenditure, most of them supported it.

As for the other basic base of the Whig Party, the industrial capitalists, although this group of people felt that the government's cancellation of wage subsidies would increase their labor costs.

But after all, the Whigs had already appeased them with the new labor force released by the Abolition Act. Moreover, these industrial capitals have also realized that the elimination of wage subsidies will cause many poor laborers who were previously tied to local parishes to flock to emerging industrial cities in search of job opportunities.

If calculated carefully, even if their labor costs will still increase in the end, the increase in labor prices should still be within an acceptable range. Not to mention, this new labor force will also create more consumer demand, so the factory owners have not expressed firm opposition to the reform of the Poor Law.

However, this good thing that everyone was happy with in the eyes of the Whigs did not mean that everyone thought it was a good thing.

Especially Disraeli, a new Tory who admired the classical spirit of England, felt that the reform of the Poor Law was simply a disaster.

This Jewish guy seems to have seen that the beautiful ancient English countryside will be completely destroyed after this reform. Everyone, whether voluntarily or forced, will bid farewell to the beautiful rural life and rush to the same desperate city. Life.

Moreover, Disraeli also insisted that the reform of the Poor Law would only further widen the gap between the rich and the poor in Britain and intensify the class contradictions in British society.

"Those Whig bastards are messing around! I know this is an era of change, but in just one year, they are planning to dig out the roots of Britain! Arthur, I don't mean to criticize you, But besides you, you have a lot of bastards in London University! Do you know Edwin Chadwick in the Chancery?

It was Bentham's original private secretary. That guy was simply a cold-blooded snake. He was responsible for leading the reform committee of the Poor Relief Act this time. That guy, like Malthus, is all a snake, without human emotions, as if everything is just a number in their eyes, and he has never regarded other people's lives as human beings. As long as the result is good, it doesn't matter what the process is.

I usually call this kind of person ungrateful and callous, but Mr. Edwin Chadwick told me that what he did was called utilitarianism! Utilitarianism be damned! "

Arthur saw Disraeli's chest rising and falling in anger, almost exposing his corset, so he could only comfort him: "Benjamin, don't worry, speak slowly."