But for the next few years the focus of agitation was not ...

But for the next few years the focus of agitation was not Factory reform, but the New Poor Law.

The resources of the Poor Law Commissioners were limited; the Benthamite watchword-aggregate to segregate-remained a watchword only; and their comprehensive scheme for dealing separately with the young, the sick, the aged, the vagrant, and the destitute was never put into effect.

In its place nothing was visible but the New Bastilles, and the proposal which the workhouse system seemed to involve of applying factory discipline-if not prison discipline-to the pauper, lashed the working classes to fury. It was at this time that The House acquired its sinister meaning, and the Poor Law first inspired that repulsion which has hobbled our administration ever since.

The Forty-third of Elizabeth, which declared the Right to Work, had

degenerated into the

Right to Relief without working.

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