ON THE PRICE OF LABOUR. l6j 



the rise is] least in the western counties, and for some reason 

 it is not very notable on one estate, which has given me the 

 fullest information on prices from this region, that is on 

 Wolrichston in Warwickshire. It may be, too, that the statute 

 of labourers, though it manifestly failed to effect all the purposes 

 of its promoters, was more operative in certain regions than in 

 others. 



In 1767 Arthur Young informs us that wheat was threshed 

 in Norfolk at 2*., barley and oats at is. In Oxfordshire 

 the rates were 2^., if., and icd. In Yorkshire i*., is. 8d. 

 to 2*., is. 6^., and is. In the Isle of Wight 2,s. to zs. 6*/., is. to 

 is. 6d.^ and 8d. to is. The price of wheat, according to the 

 same authority, was 48*., of barley 24$"., of oats iSs. 



Now if we take the proportion which grain bore at this time 

 to wages, and we must remember that it was, on the whole, a 

 period in which the agricultural labourer was exceptionally well 

 offj we shall find that the quarter of wheat at 48^. was worth 

 4124 grains of pure silver, the quarter of barley at 24*. 2062 

 grains, and of oats at i8.r. 1546.5 grains; and that at 3*. for 

 wheat, is. for barley, and icd. for oats, the labourer received 

 171.83, 85.91, and 75.58 grains of silver for threshing the 

 quarters of each kind of grain. But during the last fifty years 

 of the fourteenth century the average price of wheat was 6s. i f </., 

 of barley 4*. of </., of oats zs. 6\d. or, taking the estimate given 

 above, that the price in grains of silver for each kind of grain 

 was 1518.51 for wheat, 1005.47 for barley, 629.06 for oats. 

 Had the labourer in the fourteenth century been paid at the 

 rate at which he was paid in the beginning of the last fifty 

 years of the eighteenth, the price of wheat in silver should have 

 been 2035.5 grains, that is about 8.r. 34^.5 of barley 1 1 14.4 grains, 

 that is about 41. 6d.j oats 946.4 grains, that is about y. icd. 

 In other words, while the labourer in Arthur Young's time got 

 one-twentyfourth part of wheat and barley and about the one- 

 and-twentieth part of oats, the labourer of the fourteenth 

 century received rather more than an eighteenth in wheat, rather 

 more than a twenty-second part of barley, and a little less than 



