Agricultural Revolution 37 



wages. To these considerations was added the natural desire to add 

 every available acre of ground to the very profitable arable area 1 . 

 The consequence was that not even the most capable labourer could 

 get the necessary means of raising himself out of his dependent 

 position. 



The distress which came upon the great mass of the agricultural 

 population along with the development of large farming and enclo- 

 sures contributed to the intensification of a phenomenon then as now 

 regarded as most unsatisfactory by all students of social policy. The 

 fall in the purchasing-power of agricultural wages, the deterioration 

 in the position of the agricultural labourer, the swamping of the agri- 

 cultural labour-market by the expropriated small holders, all joined to 

 increase the dimensions of the rural exodus. It is true that industrial 

 expansion was at the same time raising the attractive power of the 

 towns and manufacturing districts : and this circumstance must be 

 given the first place in any attempt to understand the causes of the 

 ever-increasing exodus from the land at this period. But it is remark- 

 able that the exodus should so have increased precisely when English 

 agriculture was in such a flourishing condition, and when the rapid 

 progress of English corn-growing was the envy and admiration of all 

 continental observers. Although in the period from 1760 to 1815 the 

 corn-supply of the kingdom was almost entirely home-grown, there 

 were by 1811 only 35-2 per cent, of the families of Great Britain 

 occupied in agriculture as against 44*4 per cent, who were interested 

 in trade or commerce. So that in spite of the immense investment of 

 capital in agriculture throughout the period, England was in process 

 of transformation from an agricultural to an industrial nation. 

 Complaints against the rapid decrease of the agricultural population 

 resounded as loudly as they do to-day. In place of the modern 

 lamentations over railway facilities Arthur Young in 1772 declaimed 

 against the cheapening of transport. " Young men and women 

 in the country fix their eye on London, as the last stage of their 

 hope ; they enter into service in the country for little else but 

 to raise money enough to go to London, which was no such easy 

 matter, when a stage-coach was four or five days creeping an hundred 



1 Letter of the Earl of Winchihea in Communications^ Vol. I, 1794, p. 83. He says that 

 the farmers were as a rule disinclined to allow their labourers to hold land. " Perhaps one 

 of their reasons for disliking this is, that the land, if not occupied by the labourers, would fall 

 to their own share ; and another, I am afraid, is that they rather wish to have the labourers 

 more dependent upon them ; for which reasons they are always desirous of hiring the house 

 and land occupied by a labourer, under pretence that by that means the landlord will be 

 secure of his rent, and that they will keep the house in repair." 



