8 10 THE CONDITION OF 



281 1 Ss. 3t</., the rise being entirely due to the corn-rents. 

 Now taking the mean of the first twenty years at unity, the 

 rise in the next fifty years is to 1*6177. In the first twenty 

 years of the period, 1583-1602, the average price of wheat was 

 295. 3j<^., in the next fifty 41^. 4J*/., a rise from unity to nearly 

 1-4124. Had King's College at once adopted the statute of 

 1576, 1 make no doubt that the money-rent would have almost 

 exactly corresponded to the corn-prices. 



An equally important factor in the elevation of rents is the 

 fact that bye occupations were carried on by tenants, who out 

 of the profits which they derived from these subsidiary callings 

 could pay the exalted rent and become more or less indifferent 

 to it. Now it is certain that early in the seventeenth century, 

 the spinning and weaving of woollen, linen, and hempen cloth 

 was a very widely distributed industry in England, and that the 

 products of this cottage and farm-house manufacture were pur- 

 chased by agents all over the country. If the price realised by 

 this industry was fairly remunerative, dependence on the sale 

 of agricultural produce was less urgent and engrossing, and the 

 landowner would be quick enough to take advantage of the 

 chance which the position of the tenant offered him. 



Such, as I have certainly found, was the origin of the Ulster 

 famine-rents, the conditions of which I have been recently 

 studying on the spot. A generation or so ago, I am informed, 

 nearly every Ulster farm-house had its spinning-wheel and 

 hand-loom ; and even now this domestic industry is far from 

 extinct, factors still visiting the farm-houses to collect the 

 product. During the time in which this manufacture was 

 flourishing the weaving of the household paid the rent, and 

 as long as a sufficient price could be got from this produce, 

 the tenant was, comparatively speaking, indifferent to the 

 amount of rent imposed on his holding, provided always he 

 could pay what was demanded out of the bye-product. The 

 domestic industry then suggested an elevated rent, and I make 

 no doubt, from what I have seen, that owing in great part to 

 this cause, Ulster farm-rents are more emphatically famine-rents 



