vi PREFACE. 



plied me with the facts on which I have commented 

 in the following pages have been incomparably more 

 laborious than those which yielded me the materials 

 of the earlier period. The middle portion of my en- 

 quiry has been far darker than the first, while that 

 which remains, if I am ever able to complete my 

 purpose, is, on the whole, the clearest and easiest, at 

 least for the most important objects which I have had 

 in view. My labour too has been entirely unassisted, 

 and has been costly beyond my expectations. But 

 I have achieved the most important part of my object, 

 and am able to put before the public information 

 which others may be able to make better use of than 

 I have made myself ; for I reiterate that which I stated 

 previously, that all genuine facts are far more valuable 

 than the inferences of any individual who uses them. 



I have to the best of my powers gathered the con- 

 clusions which the aggregate of the materials which 

 I have collected suggests, in the chapter on general 

 prices, to be found at the latter part of this volume. 

 They are stated in the briefest form when I refer to 

 the fact that, while the rise, during the last forty-two 

 years of the period before me, in the price of provisions 

 was 2*71, the prices of the previous hundred and forty 

 years being taken as unity, the rise in the price of 

 labour, and of objects whose main value depended on 

 labour, is only 1*64. These figures concentrate the 

 results derivable from an analysis of the facts con- 

 tained in the third volume, and are of singular sig- 

 niiieance. They tell of the long cloud which was 



