s. It is also true that the drafting of a Bill
applicable to every English parish was beset with difficulties, and that
enclosures, while adding greatly to the food supply of the nation, had
for the most part told against the independence of the poorer villagers.
But this was largely due to the expense and chicanery consequent on the
passing of parochial Acts of Parliament; and what objections were there
to facilitating the enclosure of wastes and open fields by parishes
where everyone desired it? In such a case it was the bounden duty of
Parliament to end the law's delays and cheapen the procedure.

That Pitt did little or nothing to avert the hostility of bishops and
lawyers in the Upper House convicts him either of apathy or of covert
opposition. He is largely responsible for the continuance of the old
customs, under which a parish faced the expense of procuring a separate
Act of Parliament only under stress of severe dearth; and, as a rule,
the crisis ended long before the cumbrous machinery of the law enabled
the new lands to come under the plough. It is, however, possible that he
hoped to inaugurate a system of enclosures of waste lands by a clause
which appeared in his abortive proposals of the year 1797 for the relief
of the poor. His Bill on that subject comprised not only very generous
plans of relief, but also the grant of cows to the deserving poor, the
erection of Schools of Industry in every parish or group of parishes,
and facilities for reclaiming waste land. His treatment of the question
of poor relief is too extensive a subject to admit of adequate
description here; but I propose to return to it and to notice somewhat
fully the criticisms of Bentham and others.[434] It must suffice to say
that the draft of that measure bespeaks a keen interest in the welfare
of the poor, and indeed errs on the side of generosity. Abbot,
afterwards Lord Colchester, was asked by Pitt to help in drafting the
Poor Bill; and he pronounced it "as bad in the mode as the principles
were good in substance."[435]

After the withdrawal of Pitt's Poor Bill, nothing was done to facilitate
enclosures until the accession of Addington to power. His General
Enclosure Act of the year 1801 afforded timely relief in the matter of
food-supply, a fact which shows that the difficulties in the way of such
a measure were far from serious. The passing of that Bill, it is true,
was helped on by the terrible dearth of that year, when the average