The Land and the Commimity. 143 



as follows : — Here in England are 15,000,000 acres of redeem- 

 able waste principally devoted to the maintenance of sheep. 

 Under the present economy they employ large quantities of 

 the people in manufacturing wool, amongst whom may be 

 included many individuals who, either by old age or youth, 

 are incapacitated from being otherwise advantageously utilised 

 by the community. To illustrate the pernicious results of 

 the enclosure system, a champion of the commercial interests 

 cites ^ the following case : " One single act for enclosure has 

 destroyed 11,000 sheep, all the breeding stock from off one 

 ground within the county of York ; and, of consequence, has 

 taken away the employment of 600 manufacturers ; and in nine 

 years will prevent 80,000 sheep from coming to the shambles ; 

 but probably within that time may draw 20,000 pounds out of 

 the public treasury in bounties, for sending the produce of 

 corn abroad, and wounding this country in the most sensible 

 manner. A barbarous policy this ! and such a one as our 

 forefathers of any preceding generation for two centuries past 

 would have looked upon with resentment, but now unhappily 

 adopted as a laudable and prudent measure in this. They 

 encouraged and supported our woollen manufacturing with the 

 wisest laws human prudence could suggest, from a clear con- 

 viction that the prosperity of the nation was connected with 

 it ; and their policy has been justified by fact, it having 

 attained (in consequence of those measures) a degree of strength 

 and opulence unknown to former ages." 



Here indeed was a formidable attack on the enclosure 

 system, striking through it at the Corn Laws, and based not 

 on what might be found to be advantageous for one particular 

 class, but for the entire community. Young, in answering it, 

 had not only to bear such circumstances in mind, but to realise 

 that, though attacking a mercantilist, he was writing primarily 

 for farmers. If, in attempting to defend the Enclosure of 

 Wastes from the wide standpoint of the public welfare, he 

 failed to show tangible advantages to the agricultural class, 

 there were many vacillating minds among the farmers who 



* The. Occasion of the Dearness of Provisions, by a Manufacturer 

 p. 22, 



