Modern agriculture dates in England from the middle of the 18th century, although the revolution in landed property, from which the changed mode of production starts as a basis, has a much earlier date.
If we take the statements of Arthur Young, a careful observer, though a superficial thinker, as to the agricultural labourer of 1771, the latter plays a very pitiable part compared with his predecessor of the end of the 14th century, “when the labourer … could live in plenty, and accumulate wealth,”[1] not to speak of the 15th century, “the golden age of the English labourer in town and country.” We need not, however, go back so far. In a very instructive work of the year 1777 we read: “The great farmer is nearly mounted to a level with him [the genttleman]; while the poor labourer is depressed almost to the earth. His unfortunate situation will fully appear, by taking a comparative view of it, only forty years ago, and at present.… Landlord and tenant … have both gone hand in hand in keeping the labourer down.”[2] It is then proved in detail that the real agricultural wages between 1737 and 1777 fell nearly ¼ or 25 per cent. “Modern policy,” says Dr. Richard Price also, “is, indeed, more favourable to the higher classes of people; and the consequences may in time prove that the whole kingdom will consist of only gentry and beggars, or of grandees and slaves.”[3]
Nevertheless, the position of the English agricultural labourer from 1770 to 1780, with regard to his food and dwell-
- ↑ {{subst:al|James E. Thorold Rogers}}. (Prof. of Polit. Econ. in the University of Oxford.) A History of Agriculture and Prices in England. Oxford, 1866, v. I., p. 690. This work, the fruit of patient and diligent labour, contains in the two volumes that have so far appeared, only the period 1259 to 1400. The second volume contains simply statistics. It is the first authentic “History of Prices” of the time that we possess.
- ↑ Reasons for the late increase of the Poor-Rates, or a comparative view of the price of labour and provisions. Lond., 1777, pp. 5, 11.
- ↑ Dr. Richard Price: Observations on Reversionary Payments, 6th Ed. By W. Morgan, Lond., 1808, v. II., pp. 158, 159. Price remarks on p. 159: “The nominal price of day-labour is at present no more than about four times, or, at most, five times higher than it was in the year 1514. But the price of corn is seven times, and of flesh-meat and raiment about fifteen times higher. So far, therefore, has the price of labour been even from advancing in proportion to the increase in the expenses of living, that it does not appear that it bears now half the proportion to those expenses that it did bear.”
