Under
the Labour-rate Act, not so much as one rood of ground could be
reclaimed or improved. The whole bone and sinew of the nation, its best
and truest capital, must be devoted to the cutting down of hills and the
filling up of hollows, often on most unfrequented by-ways, where such
work could not be possibly required; and in making roads, which, as the
Prime Minister himself afterwards acknowledged, "were not wanted," but
which Colonel Douglas, a Government Inspector, more accurately described
"as works which would answer no other purpose than that of obstructing
the public conveyances." This radical defect of the Act was well and
happily put by Lord Devon, when he said it authorized "unproductive work
to be executed by borrowed money."
The Act was criticised for other reasons too. It made no provision for
the completion of the works taken in hand to relieve the people in 1846;
and those works must be finished by the 15th of August of that year, or
not at all, a full fortnight before the Labour-rate Act had become the
law of the land. Of course many of them were unfinished at that date.
Clearly, this was wrong; for on the supposition that they were works of
at least some utility, and not mere child's-play to afford an excuse to
the Government for giving the people the price of food, they should have
been completed.
Pages:
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309