Still, it is probable that out of the two principles (roughly consistent with the unwritten laws of God in nature) there would have been evolved some practicable method of State-administered relief, had it not happened that the high cost of provisions (following the war with France) and the consequent sufferings of the “industrious indigent” so moved the magistrates at the end of the eighteenth century, that in 1795 they decided to give out-relief to every labourer in proportion to the number of his family and the price of wheat, without reference to the fact of his being in or out of employment. The effect was disastrous. The rich found no call to give their charity, and the poor no call to work. The rates ate up the value of the land, and farms were left without tenants, because it became impossible to pay the rates, which often reached £1 per acre. But an even worse effect was the demoralization of society. The stimulus towards personal effort and self-control was removed, for the idle and incompetent received from the rates what their labour or character failed to provide for them; and wages were reduced because employers realized that their workmen would get relief. Drink and dissipation, deception and dependence, cheating and chicanery, became common. Society threatened in those years to break up. It is a curious comment that a humane poor law stands out as chief amid the dissolving forces, so blind is pity if it be not instructed. This condition of things pressed for reform, and in 1832 a Poor Law Commission was appointed, which has left an indelible mark on English life. The Commissioners, like able physicians, diagnosed the disease, and dealt directly with its cause, prescribing for its cure remedies which may be classed under two heads:-- _I.--The Principle of National Uniformity._ _II.--The Principle of Less Eligibility._ The principle of national uniformity--that is, identity of treatment of each class of destitute persons from one end of the kingdom to the other--had for its purpose the reduction of the “perpetual shifting” from parish to parish, and the prevention of discontent in persons who saw the paupers of a neighbouring parish treated more leniently than themselves. The principle of less eligibility, or, to put it in the words of the report, that “the situation of the individual relieved” shall not “be made really or apparently so eligible as the situation of the independent labourer of the lowest class,” had for its purpose the restoration of the dignity of work and the steadying of the labour market. _Put briefly, the Commission said, “Poverty demands principles.”_