320 History of the English Landed Intei-esi. 



his spare cash were expended in the amusements of the capital 

 and other fashionable resorts.^ 



Owing to the reduction in the ranks of the farmers, the class 

 of house servants had diminished, and the entire rural com- 

 munity was left almost absolutely dependent on parochial 

 poor-relief in times of need. 



It was also said that notwithstanding the corn laws (the 

 bounty system, be it remembered, was now withdrawn), the 

 greater and more general consumption of meat, together with 

 the vast increase in the number of horses, had diminished the 

 area of wheat-producing soil, in order to make room for the 

 wants of the manger and feeding-trough. To remedy such 

 drawbacks to the public prosperity the State was powerless. 

 It could hardly introduce another sumptuary law, this time 

 directed against the habits and diet of the rich, nor could it 

 interfere with the methods of cultivation practised by the 

 farmer. But so long as it assumed control over the prices of 

 bread and hours and wages of labour, so long would it be 

 responsible for the want prevalent amidst the lower classes. 

 It was incumbent on the authorities either to adjust the rela- 

 tive prices between bread and labour on the sliding scale 

 principle suggested by Davies, or, better still, to leave the 

 whole business for Nature unrestricted by Art to settle. 



If however we were to examine closely either alternative, 

 we should find that, in order to make them effectual, in the 

 first a partial repeal, and in the second a total repeal of the 

 corn laws would have been necessitated. 



But our forefathers, not content with artificially maintain- 

 ing the high price of bread, drew needless attention to this 

 policy by their utterly futile efforts to regulate it according 

 to the necessities of the moment. Such a notice as the 

 following, periodically posted up in Westminster, advertised 

 their well-meaning but impracticable intention to proportion 

 the cost of bread to the rates of wages. 



* We shall see later on, that when in 1795 wheat rose to 130s. per 

 quarter, the squire regained, if he ever really lost it, his old character 

 for charity. 



