A hundred years ago
From the 'Spectator,' 18 January, 1868—Mr Fawcett delivered a lecture on Tuesday to the Reform League on the condition of the agricul- tural population, whom he described as living in a state of semi-starvation on 10s. a week, working like machines—the farmers, we fear, will not en- dorse that—and with only the workhouse for a prospect.. . . Mr Fawcett extolled peasant pro- prietorship, denounced primogeniture as a legal sanction to an injurious custom, and would abolish "entails"—that is, we presume, settlements, to facili- tate sales. He would, moreover, introduce house- hold suffrage into the counties, believing the labourers sure ultimately to know their own in- terests. We note a readiness to pass that measure in many widely different directions, while no one takes the trouble to disparage it. All we can say is. if we are to have it, for heaven's sake let us have a Poor Law Reform first, for the labourers will reform the existing system with a vengeance. Their poor law would be more dangerous to property than all Mr Fawcett's proposals.
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