Intro: History: this report was made after the royal commission appointed a inquiry on usage of the old poor law, then called the Elizabethan poor law (because it was introduced by Queen Elizabeth the first in 1601). In the old poor law, the principal was that the parish had to deal with the poor, making each parishioner pay a tax in order to help the poor. Edwin Chadwick was the main protagonist of this inquiry, but how does this report induce a new manner of arranging the classes?

I) The issues raised by the inquiry:

• The way some laborers, victim of the tax, found it easier to become a poor.

 first of all at the time, the condition in which the laborers lived was not clear, the situation of some of them was declining so much because of the Speenhamland system under which the owners of land where asked to paid a tax to the parish in order to help the poorer members of this parish. The raise in tax caused many of the poorer landowners of parishes to fall deeper in poverty.  Has they’re condition was declining some of the laborers where better off becoming a pauper to seek the assistance received from the parishes. The help of the parish was therefore creating a new sort of pauper, the one that didn’t work and just relied on the help to live. The report showed how the food the laborers had was mostly inferior to the one the paupers had and even the one the prisoners had.

• The condition of most laborers was not that bad, they had money in the bank

 This inquiry showed how when the agricultural laborers where employed, they were able to put money aside, this showed how the payment received at work was superior to the necessaries.

II) The solution proposed by the Chadwick

• Introduction of a lowest class:

 To stop laborers from using the facilities of the poor, the report suggest the creation of a new class, for the people that own little and work little, a class concerning the shall be put to work and paid a minimum