영국 1834년 신빈민법 제정과 생계부양권리

This paper examines the strategic role of the 1834 Poor law Commission Report that became the basis for the enactment of the Poor Law Amendment (New Poor Law) in 1834. While the debate over the problematic nature of the Old Poor Law rose after the Napolean Wars, it did not reach any fruitful resolution until the New Poor Law came into effect. This was due to landlords’ management of the poor relief in their local provinces in the form of paternalism, which culminated in a state where the poor relief was intertwined with customary traditions, thus making the poor-law reforms even a more challenging problem. As the 1834 Poor Law Commission Report was essentially a proposal suggesting an overhaul of the current administration of poor relief to the landlords with various backgrounds in this field, it needed to avoid sensitive issues such as ideological debates that landlords would be reluctant to consider. As such, the report did not touch upon issues of the financial problems of the administration, the landlords’ authority in the local administration of poor relief, or the cause of the poverty among the laborers. Consequently, the report could propose a reform that reflected the interests of landlords without undermining their authority. The report was enacted as the New Poor Law with overwhelming support in Parliament. This falls in line with A. Brundage claims that the New Poor Law obtained its continuity as a follow-up to its predecessor through upholding landlords’ authority in the administration of poor relief. Still, the report strongly criticized how the laborers’ right to subsistence was heavily dependent on the paternalistic management by the landlords and proposed the principle of less-eligibility to get rid of the right to relief. The New Poor Law distinguished poverty from indigence, declaring that the able-bodied have no right to relief. Therefore, in this aspect, the New Poor Law embodies discontinuity from the Old Poor Law from the perspective of the lower class.