790 ON PRICES GENERALLY BETWEEN 1583 AND 1702. 



explanation of the desire which was felt to overcome the 

 difficulties of navigation in the Upper Thames, and of the 

 legislation which was enacted on the subject. The average 

 rise in these four articles is from unity to 1-4168. 

 The next table is of the principal metals. 



Here the rise is from unity to 1-3456. It cannot, I think, 

 be doubted, that though the price of iron and lead increased 

 during this period, there were the counteracting causes at 

 work of domestic development, and improved processes of 

 production. The use of pit-coal in smelting iron is assigned 

 to the middle of the century, and on turning to the annual 

 and decennial averages of lead, my reader will I think find 

 evidence of a declining market. But it is in articles like 

 these that one would naturally expect to find the full and 

 only the full effect of the new silver and gold, for rent was 

 with one exception, the Cornish tin products, as yet an incon- 

 siderable element in mining operations. 



The next series is one, the whole or nearly the whole value 

 of which is referable to labour, in which rent plays but little 

 part, and there is no reason to believe that in these products 

 there had been, or for many a year there was likely to be, any 

 improvement or economy in the cost of production. Every 

 producer however of these articles was directly, if the au- 

 thorities chose to make him, under the quarter sessions 

 system. That they did not always make him liable to it 

 is certainly due to the local character of the industry. 

 Besides, there was the proximity or distance of the material 

 from the market, and the cost of carrying heavy goods from 

 the place of origin to the place of use. Lime is dear or cheap 

 as it is near the raw material, and clay products are similarly 



