I read this section in Friedrich Engels' The Condition of the Working Class in England, which reminded me of some things in Emma, as well as some other C19th books.
Since, however, the rich hold all the power, the proletarians must submit, if they will not good-temperedly perceive it for themselves, to have the law actually declare them superfluous. This has been done by the New Poor Law. The Old Poor Law which rested upon the Act of 1601 (the 43rd of Elizabeth), naively started from the notion that it is the duty of the parish to provide for the maintenance of the poor. Whoever had no work received relief, and the poor man regarded the parish as pledged to protect him from starvation. He demanded his weekly relief as his right, not as a favour, and this became, at last, too much for the bourgeoisie. In 1833, when the bourgeoisie had just come into power through the Reform Bill, and pauperism in the country districts had just reached its full development, the bourgeosie began the reform of the Poor Law according to its own point of view. A commission was appointed, which investigated the administration of the Poor Laws, and revealed a multitude of abuses. It was discovered that the whole working class in the country was pauperized and more or less dependent upon the rates, from which they received relief when wages were low; it was found that this system by which the unemployed were maintained, the ill-paid and the parents of large families relieved, fathers of illegitimate children required to pay alimony, and poverty, in general, recognized as needing protection, it was found that this system was ruining the nation...
- The old Poor Law required fathers of illegitimate children to pay alimony. Harriet Smith was illegitimate. I thought Harriet's father paid for her upkeep out of a sense of duty, but it may be that he was required to by law.
- There was a detail in one of the later chapters that the ostler was not actually poor, but that he had applied for parish relief for his father, who was getting old.
- It seems Mr Elton, the vicar, was responsible for administering parish relief. This clears something up. In C19th and earlier British literature, the clergy was considered one of the great professions, which required an education and which was quite well paid. Previously I considered it a bit of a racket, a sort of well-remunerated non-job for younger sons of the gentry. They had to write a sermon every week, visit the sick, perform funerals, marriages and christenings. However, I gather they also had this administration of welfare role.
- I actually thought there was no system of social welfare before the C20th. In the C19th taxes were low, the majority of which was spent either on the military or paying off the debts accrued from past wars. However, there was a system of social welfare, only it was administered locally and paid by rates.
- I have often wondered how the well off in books like Austen's felt at ease with themselves, considering the poverty that surrounded them, especially when they went to church every Sunday to listen to Jesus's parables about the rich burning in hell if they don't help the poor. I suppose in part it was because they were paying a lot on rates.
- George Elliot's book Middlemarch was set at the time of the Great Reform Act, shortly before the change to the Poor Law. I thought the Great Reform Act was a positive law, which removed some of the abuses in the British system of government, such as rotten boroughs. Friedrich Engels did not seem to think so.
- If Dickens wrote about workhouses, this was because he was writing after the change to the Poor Law.
- In Austen's time, society was still mostly rural. As the century progressed, England became more and more urban and the cities, over-crowded. The traditional parish system may have broken down under the strain. I don't know, but I imagine in one of Austen's market towns, everyone knew everyone, and probably knew their parents and grandparents. The peasants felt they had certain rights and the gentry, certain obligations. However, the industrialists in the big cities did not see things the same way. They had read Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham and Thomas Malthus and did not believe in interfering with the markets. Besides, fewer working class people went to church, and if they did, they may well have belonged to one of the non-conformist churches. So, who would administer poor relief?
