for the price of wheat forms a useful standard by which to gauge the real value of wages, even when it is not consumed in large quantities. It will be seen that wages were at their lowest point just after the conclusion of the war, while, on the other hand, wheat was almost at famine prices. After this, however, and till 1830, the wages of weavers rose again, for the new spinning machinery had increased the supply of yarn at a much greater rate than weavers could be found to weave it, and hence there was an increased demand for weavers, and they gained proportionately higher wages, the average for woollen cloth. weavers from 1830-1845 being 14s. to 17s. a week, and for worsted stuff weavers 11s. to 14s. a week.1 these rates are miserably low. But even The wages of spinners were also very poor, the work being mostly done by women and children, though when men are employed they get fairly good pay. The following table 2 will show clearly the various rates, and it will be seen that here wages sink steadily till 1845, owing to the rapid SPINNERS. Men Women 1808-15. 1815-23. 1823-30. 1830-36. 1836-45. 24/ to 26 24/ to 26/24/ to 26/24/ to 26/24/ to 26/ 13/ to 14/13/ to 14/ | 11/ to 12/ 8/ to 10/7/ to 9/ production of the new machinery. The women's wages exhibit the fall most markedly, the labour of children being already affected to some extent by the provisions of the Factory Acts. As for the agricultural labourer, he, too, suffered from low wages, the general average to 1845 being 8s. to 10s. a week, and generally nearer the former than the latter figure. In fact, the material condition of the working classes of England was at this time in the lowest depths of poverty and degradation, and this fact must 1 From a Table of Wages and Prices, 1720-1886, by Thomas Illingworth, Bradford (privately printed). 2 Ib. Cf. also Porter, Progress of the Nation, ii. 253, where women's wages decrease from 10s. in 1805 to 8s. 54d. in 1833. 3 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 510. According to the Parliamentary Report of 1822 (Reports, &c., 1822, v. 73) agricultural wages had sunk from 15s. or 168. a week before 1815 to 9s. a week in 1822. always be remembered in comparing the wages of to-day with those of former times. Some people who ought to know better are very fond of talking about the "progress of the working classes" in the last fifty years, and the Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887 afforded ample opportunity—of which full advantage was taken for such optimists to talk statistics. But to compare the wages of labour properly we must go back a hundred years, and not fifty, for fifty years ago the English workman was passing through a period of misery which we must devoutly hope, for the sake of the nation at large, will not occur again. It is interesting to note, though it is impossible here to go fully into the subject, that in trades where workmen have combined, since the repeal of the Conspiracy Laws in 1825 and the alteration in the Act of Settlement,1 wages have perceptibly risen. Carpenters, masons, and colliers afford examples of such a rise.2 But where there has been no combination, it is noteworthy how little wages have risen in proportion to the increased production of the modern labourer, and to the higher cost of living, nor does the workman always receive his due share of the wealth which he helps to create. Of the results of labour combinations we shall, however, have something to say in the final chapter of this book. there was one class of people who happened to obtain a very large share of the national wealth, and who grew rich and flourished while the working classes were almost starving. In spite of war abroad and poverty at home, the rents of the landowners increased, and the agricultural interest received a stimulus which has resulted in a very natural reaction. The rise in rents and the recent depression of modern agriculture will form the subject of our next chapter. 1 Above, p. 416. But 2 Thomas Illingworth's table, cited above. Carpenters' wages have risen from 23s. or 24s. in 1823-30 to 30s.-32s. in 1886; masons from 238.-26s. to 32s.-34s.; colliers from 16s.-18s. to 22s.-288. CHAPTER XXV THE RISE AND DEPRESSION OF MODERN AGRICULTURE § 242. Services Rendered by the Great Landowners. ALTHOUGH there have been occasions in our industrial history when one is compelled to admit that the deeds of the landed gentry have called for anything but admiration, we yet must not overlook the great services which this class rendered to the agricultural interest in the eighteenth century. It has been already mentioned that the development and the success of English agriculture in the half-century or more before the Industrial Revolution was remarkable and extensive; and this success was due to the efforts of the landowners 1 in introducing new agricultural methods. They took an entirely new departure, and adopted a new system. It consisted, as was mentioned before, in getting rid of bare fallows and poor pastures by substituting root-crops and artificial grasses.2 The fourfold or Norfolk rotation of crops was introduced, the landowners themselves taking an interest in and superintending the cultivation of their land and making useful experiments upon it. The number of these experimenting landlords was very considerable, and in course of time, though not by any means immediately, the tenant farmers followed them, and thus agricultural knowledge and skill became more and more widely diffused. The reward of the landowners came rapidly. They soon found their production of corn doubled and their general produce trebled.5 1 Rogers, Six Centuries, pp. 472-475; Prothero, Agriculture in England in Dict. Pol. Econ. 2 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 468. 3 Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, p. 43. 4 In 1836 Porter, Progress of the Nation, i. 149, mentions the various improvements in farming in a way which shows that by that time they were very widely employed. 5 Rogers, Economic Interpretation, 269. They were able to exact higher rents,1 for they had taught their tenants how to make the land pay better, and, of course, claimed a share of the increased profit. About the years 1740-50 the rent of land, according to Jethro Tull, was 7s. an acre; 2 some twenty years or more afterwards Arthur Young found the average rent of land to be 10s. an acre, and thought that in many cases it ought to have been more. Before very long it became more, indeed. Between 1790 and 1836 rent was at least doubled in every part of the country, and in many cases it was multiplied four or five times. Thus we are told, by a very competent authority,* that in Essex farms could be pointed out which just before the war of the French Revolution let at less than 10s. an acre; but their rent rose rapidly during the war, till in 1812 it was 45s. to 50s. an acre; and though the rent was subsequently reduced, it remained double the figure of 1790. In Berkshire and Wiltshire, farms let at 14s. an acre rose to 70s. in 1810, and after a reduction were still 30s. in 1836, which gives an advance of no less than 114 per cent. on the first figure. In Staffordshire, again, several farms on one estate are instanced, which in 1790 let at 8s. an acre, and after having advanced to 35s., were afterwards lowered to 20s., an advance of 150 per cent. within less than half a century. In Norfolk, Suffolk, and Warwick, the same, or nearly the same, rise was experienced, and it is more than probable that it was general throughout the kingdom. During the same period the prices of most of the articles which constitute the landowners' expenditure fell materially, so that, this writer remarks, “if his condition be not improved in a corresponding degree, that circumstance must arise from improvidence or miscalculation or habits of expensive living beyond even what would be warranted by the doubling of income which he has experienced and is still enjoying."7 In fact, it is evident that the employment of the new 6 1 Porter, Progress of the Nation, i. 164, gives some startling instances. 2 Quoted by Rogers, Economic Interpretation, p. 268. 3 Cf. Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 477. 4 Porter, Progress of the Nation, i. 164. 5 Ib., i. 165. 6 Ib. 7 Ib. methods in agriculture considerably benefited the land- 1 It was due, e.g., also to the rise in the price of corn, which came from (1) bad harvests, (2) growth of population, and (3) the great increase in prices during the war. Prothero, Agriculture in England, in Dict. Pol. Econ., and also Pioneers of English Farming (1881), p. 79. 3 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 475. Prothero, Agriculture in England, in Dict. Pol. Econ. 5 Ib. ; cf. also his Pioneers and Progress of English Farming generally. |