788 ON PRICES GENERALLY BETWEEN 1583 AND 1702. 



The earlier prices, greatly as they are exalted over those 

 which ruled for the hundred and forty years preceding them, 

 do not in my opinion, as I am increasingly convinced, 

 represent more than the accommodation of money prices to 

 the new currency, and to the calculation of money values by 

 tale. But the second set of prices, which exhibit over a cent, 

 per cent, rise in nearly every kind of grain, must be ascribed 

 to this concurrent set of causes: (i) an increasing dearness 

 owing to the cheapening of silver ; (2) a greater demand for 

 grain products in a country which was making little or no 

 progress in agriculture ; (3) an increasing population ; (4) a 

 compulsory exaltation of rents ; (5) a forcible depression in 

 the wages of labour, or, what is the same thing, in a rising 

 market, a vigorous and successful effort to keep wages down 

 by law and police. I do not think that the existence of the 

 first of these causes can be disputed, though it is quite 

 possible that an exaggerated importance has been given to it. 

 For the second and third, I do not think that the growth 

 of population, partly due to immigration, partly to the settle- 

 ment of Northern England, partly to the rapid extension of 

 textile and other industries, can be disputed. All the evidence 

 points to a stationary population up to the middle of Eliza- 

 beth's reign, and to a doubling of this population by the end 

 of the century. The universal complaint of all writers on 

 husbandry during this period proves the existence of the 

 fourth cause, and the facts of the quarter sessions assessments, 

 the direct effect of which on labour and wages I shall reserve 

 to the last chapter of this volume, are conclusive as to the 

 fifth. 



I now come to a second series, the price of animal food and 

 salt. In this list I must premise that the rise in the price of 

 sheep during the second contrasted period is a little deceptive, 

 for the second period includes the price of the sheep regularly 

 bought after the Restoration by Eton College. I have no 

 complete series of the price of mutton as I have of that of beef, 

 but there is practically no difference in the price of the two 



