[
286 ] Notes on Sources
debating points, but also the argument with which Speenhamland reinforced
their theoretical system, namely, that capitalism could not function without a free
labor market.
For her lurid descriptions of the effects of Speenhamland, Harriet Martineau
drew profusely on the classic passages of the Poor Law Report (1834). The Goulds
and Barings who financed the sumptuous little volumes in which she undertook
to enlighten the poor about the inevitability of their misery—she was deeply con-
vinced that it was inevitable and that knowledge of the laws of political economy
alone could make their fate bearable to them—could not have found a more sin-
cere and, on the whole, better-informed advocate of their creed
(Illustrations to
Political Economy, 1831, Vol. Ill; also
The Parish and
The Hamlet in Poor Laws and
Paupers, 1834). Her
Thirty Years' Peace, 1816-1846, was composed in a chastened
mood and showed more sympathy toward the Chartists than toward the memory
of her master, Bentham (Vol. Ill, p. 489, and Vol. IV, p. 453). She concluded her
chronicle with this significant passage: "We have now the best heads and hearts
occupied about this great question of the rights of labour with impressive warn-
ings presented to us from abroad that it cannot be neglected under a lighter pen-
alty than ruin to all. Is it possible that the solution should not be found? This solu-
tion may probably be the central fact of the next period of British history; and then
better than now it may seem that in preparation for it lies the chief interest of the
preceding Thirty Years' Peace." This was delayed-action prophecy. In "the next pe-
riod of British history" the labor question ceased to exist; but it came back in the
1870s, and another half-century later it became a world question. Obviously, it was
easier to discern in the 1840s than in the 1940s that the origins of that question lay
in the principles governing the Poor Law Reform Act.
Right through the Victorian Age and after, no philosopher or historian
dwelled on the petty economics of Speenhamland. Of the three historians of Ben-
thamism, Sir Leslie Stephen did not trouble to inquire into its details; Elie Halevy,
the first to recognize the pivotal role of the Poor Law in the history of philosophic
radicalism, had only the haziest notions on the subject. In the third account, Di-
cey's, the omission is even more striking. His incomparable analysis of the rela-
tions between law and public opinion treated "laissez-faire" and "collectivism" as
the woof and warp of the texture; the pattern itself, he believed, sprang from the
industrial and business trends of the time, that is, from the institutions fashion-
ing economic life. No one could have stressed more strongly than Dicey the domi-
nant role played by pauperism in public opinion nor the importance of the Poor
Law Reform in the whole system of Benthamite legislation. And yet he was puz-
zled by the central importance assigned to the Poor Law Reform by the Bentham-
ites in their legislative scheme and actually believed that the burden of the rates on
industry was the point in question. Historians of economic thought of the rank of
Schumpeter or Mitchell analysed the concepts of the classical economists without
any reference to Speenhamland conditions.
With A. Toynbee's lectures (1881) the Industrial Revolution became a subject of
economic history; Toynbee made Tory Socialism responsible for Speenhamland
Notes on Sources [ 287 ]
and its "principle of the protecting of the poor by the rich." About this time Wil-
liam Cunningham turned to the same subject and as by miracle it came to life; but
his was a voice in the wilderness. Though Mantoux (1907) had the benefit of Cun-
ningham's masterpiece (1881) he referred to Speenhamland as just "another re-
form" and curiously enough credited it with the effect of "chasing the poor into
the labour market"
(The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century, p. 438).
Beer, whose work was a monument to early English socialism, hardly mentioned
the Poor Law.
It was not until the Hammonds (1911) conceived the vision of a new civiliza-
tion ushered in by the Industrial Revolution that Speenhamland was rediscov-
ered. With them it formed a part not of economic but of social history. The Webbs
(1927) continued this work, raising the question of the political and economic
preconditions of Speenhamland, conscious of the fact that they were dealing with
the origins of the social problems of our own time.
J. H. Clapham endeavored to build up a case against what might be called the
institutionalist approach to economic history such as Engels, Marx, Toynbee,
Cunningham, Mantoux, and, more recently, the Hammonds, represented. He re-
fused to deal with the Speenhamland system as an institution and discussed it
merely as a trait in the "agrarian organization" of the country (Vol. I, Ch. 4). This
was hardly adequate since it was precisely its extension to the towns which
brought down the system. Also, he divorced the effect of Speenhamland on the
rates from the wage issue and discussed the former under "Economic Activities of
the State." This, again, was artificial and omitted the economics of Speenhamland
from the point of view of the employers' class which benefited by low wages as
much or more than it lost on the rates. But Clapham's conscientious respect for
the facts made up for his disregard of the institution. The decisive effect of "war
enclosures" on the area in which the Speenhamland system was introduced, as
well as the actual degree to which real wages were depressed by it, was shown for
the first time by him.
The utter incompatibility of Speenhamland with the wage system was perma-
nently remembered only in the tradition of the economic liberals. They alone re-
alized that, in a broad sense, every form of the protection of labor implied some-
thing of the Speenhamland principle of interventionism. Spencer hurled the
charge of "make-wages" (as the allowance system was called in his part of the
country) against any "collectivist" practices, a term which he found no difficulty
in extending to public education, housing, the provision of recreation grounds,
and so on. Dicey, in 1913, summed up his criticism of the Old Age Pensions Act
(1908) in the words: "It is in essence nothing but a new form of outdoor relief for
the poor." And he doubted whether economic liberals ever had a fair chance of
bringing their policy to a successful issue. "Some of their proposals have never
been carried into effect; outdoor relief, for example, has never been abolished." If
such was Dicey's opinion, it was only natural that Mises maintained "that as long
as unemployment benefit is paid, unemployment must exist"
(Liberalism, 1927,
p. 74); and that "assistance to the unemployed has proved to be one of the most