/ 8 Large and Small Holdings 



might have been prevented in England as elsewhere by the erection 

 of high tariff walls. But after the experience which England had had 

 of protection nothing of the kind was to be expected. Faith in Free 

 Trade was rooted deep in the hearts of the people, and recent ex- 

 perience has shown how difficult it is to shake it. The landed interest, 

 being in the minority, had to give way to the interests of the majority 

 of consumers. Consequently a new agricultural order had to come 

 into being. This could only consist in the development of those 

 branches of production in which foreign competition was felt less or 

 not at all, and putting them in the place of the branches which had 

 now become unprofitable. To this end agriculturists increasingly 

 directed their efforts after 1880. In fact, men who intended to con- 

 tinue to devote themselves to agriculture could not well do otherwise, 

 in view of the impossibility of State help and the consequent necessity 

 of self-help. And the possibility of achieving success in this direction 

 was given by the changes which had taken place in market conditions. 

 The fall in the price of corn and of second and third quality 

 meat ruined a great part of existing English agriculture. But it 

 represented an inestimable advantage to the consumer. And in 

 proportion to this advantage opportunities were created for replacing 

 the old agricultural products, so far as they had become unprofitable, 

 by new. As the price of bread and meat fell the purchasing power 

 of wages rose, even where wages remained at the old level. But 

 with the growing industrial prosperity of the country wages were 

 rising considerably, and this not only in industrial or distributive 

 employments. The wages of agricultural labour rose too, since 

 labourers migrated increasingly from the land to the industrial dis- 

 tricts, and so the supply of labour on the land constantly diminished. 

 Nominal wages thus rising and the price of bread and meat falling, 

 the increase in purchasing power must obviously have been large. 

 The following table compares wages and the prices of the more 

 important provisions from 1883 to 1902, the rates of 1900 being 

 taken as = TOO 1 : 



1 Memoranda, Charts etc., pp. a 60 and 11 7. 



