31 



of lime, and nitrate of soda. Reapers had come intone ; 

 roads had been improved ; and railways gave the farmers tht 

 advantage of dealing quickly with the rapidly growing urban 

 centres of population. The ghost the farmers feared Free 

 Trade had been laid for a time by high corn prices which 

 during a period of twenty years, from 1853-72 were sustained 

 at an average of 543. 3d. per quarter. What moral excuse 

 the farmeis had for paying low wages during this period 

 it is difficult to imagine. Perhaps they considered no 

 excuse was necessary, for unfortunately the suppliants 

 for work outnumbered the jobs and the taskmasters could 

 dictate their own terms. 



Many of the large f aimers in a good agricultural county 

 like Lincolnshire, lived in considerable comfort and even 

 luxury, as became men who had invested large sums in their 

 farms. Some farmers had invested as much as 20,000 in 

 their business, and kept carriages, hunters, and servants. 1 

 Landowners were growing rich, too, and many a palatial 

 country house was built during this period. The rich, as 

 represented by the landlords and farmers, became richer. 

 On the other hand, the poor, as represented by the labourer, 

 still remained, during these golden years, in the depths of 

 poverty. The gulf between farmer and labourei, at one 

 time barely perceptible, widened. The labourers were ill- 

 fed, ill-housed, scantily clothed, uneducated, and voteless. 

 Since the brutal repressions of 1830 and 1834, crushed in 

 body and spirit, they had endured all in silence. That silence 

 was now about to be broken ; and Arch knew that' a silence 

 so long maintained was a dangerous silence. Would the 

 released pent-up feeling be expressed by blazing ricks and 

 broken machines ? The spectre of the gibbet or of the 

 cross must have haunted the road which led Arch to 

 Wellesbourne. 



Wages touched as low a figure as 75. in some of the south- 

 western counties, and even in the industrial north they did 

 not appear to be higher than 153. Prices, it is true, for 

 many commodities had fallen 30 per cent., but rents of cot- 

 tages had increased 100 per cent, and meat 70 per cent. 



1 A Short History of English Agriculture, by W. H. R. Curtler. 



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