These municipal orders were followed by statutes adopting similar regulations for the whole country. But the statutes were very irregularly enforced; they were constantly neglected, and new legislation was passed with little better result. Still the great distress of the years of scarcity of 1594 to 1597 excited public attention; men like Bacon and Raleigh joined in the discussions of Parliament and in 1597 the statutory provisions were made which remained for the most part unchanged until 1834. But the law was only well executed for a few years: good administration rather than good legislation was necessary, and it is in regard to the provision for administration rather than in regard to municipal regulations or statutory enactments that the history of England differs from that of France and Scotland. The difference was mainly caused by the coexistence in England of a Privy Council active in matters concerning the poor and of a powerful body of county and municipal officers who were willing to obey the Privy Council. Even in the reign of Elizabeth the Privy Council sometimes interfered in enforcing measures of relief, but only as a temporary expedient for relieving the distress caused by years of scarcity. But from 1629 to 1640 they acted continuously in this direction and by means of the Book of Orders succeeded, as far as children and the impotent poor were concerned, in securing the due execution of the law. The Council also succeeded in inducing the justices to provide work for the able-bodied poor in many of the districts in the eastern counties, and in some places in almost every county. This provision of work was provided either in Houses of Correction or in the parishes. In the former case it was punitive, in the latter it was given mainly with the object of enabling the unemployed to earn their living; in both cases it was often accompanied by training in a trade. It does not seem to have been designed at all as a test for the applicant for relief. The poor of the parishes were probably well known; the strange poor were all supposed to be sent indiscriminately to the House of Correction; moreover no other form of relief was granted to the able-bodied poor except when the parishes failed to find sufficient work. The organisation was needed because it was an age of economic transition; the agricultural revolution prevented men from finding work in their old employments, while under the new industrial organisation earnings were more unstable even when they were higher than they were before. [Sidenote: 2. The political side of this paternal government.] [Sidenote: 2 _a_. Possible attempt to secure the adhesion of poorer classes to government.]