692 ON THE PURCHASING POWER OF WAGES. 



Continental War was deplorable in the extreme. Wages were 

 exceedingly low and food was excessively dear. The period 

 between 1795 and 1815 was characterised by dearths which 

 on several occasions became wellnigh famine. The great war 

 expenditure of the time had its natural effect on trade and the 

 exchanges; and the general misery of the nation was aggra- 

 vated by the difficulties put in the way of supply by the cost 

 of freight and insurance. The natural energy of commerce, 

 directed towards equalising the scarcity of one region by the 

 plenty of another, was wholly crippled by the operation of the 

 corn-laws. The labourer was demoralized by the Allowance 

 system, and the trader was impoverished by high poor-rates. 

 These contributions, which are in effect an indirect method 

 of paying wages, were levied on those who neither employed 

 the labourer nor obtained the benefit of his services. The reader 

 may find the facts of this terrible crisis in the History of Labour 

 in England, in Mr. Porter's Progress of the Nation, sect. iii. 

 cap. 14. 



The farmers and yeomanry were better off" for a time. The 

 high prices which prevailed were followed by a great increase 

 in rents. But the profits on agriculture, now greatly enlarged, 

 altered the habits, and the reaction which followed on the 

 peace broke the fortunes, of the small proprietors. 



It would be hardly possible to interpret exactly the present 

 value of money, as denoted by its power of purchase, with a 

 view to comparing the condition of an agricultural labourer in 

 our own day with the same personage in the Middle Ages, or 

 even in the time of Young. But it will be easy to give an 

 outline of the modern labourer's case. Wheat, thanks to the 

 labours of the economical reformers of our age, is not dear, 

 being on an average not much in excess of the rate at which 

 it could be procured in the days of Young. But everything 

 else, agricultural labour excepted, is much dearer. Butter is, 

 instead of 6^., at least is. id. Cheese is from 7^. to 8^. 

 Meat is so dear that it is quite out of the reach of the labourer, 

 being worth as much as cheese. Rents have certainly doubled ; 



