Cobbett and Mill. 479 



have been reduced. Thus then, they find themselves in a 

 great difficulty. They wish the taxes to be kept up, and rents 

 to be paid too. Both cannot be, unless some means or other 

 be found out of putting into, or keeping in, the farmers' 

 pockets money that is not now there." He next demonstrates 

 that the only resource left to the clerical party is " to squeeze 

 rents out of the bones of the labourers." The Winchester 

 magistrates, it appears, had just been putting into practice the 

 Speenhamland device, viz., lowering the remunerative rates of 

 honest labour while, by extending the system of relief, they 

 favoured dishonest pauperism. Cobbett deduces from this 

 policy that- the great outcry then raised against the six millions 

 absorbed in poor-rates was virtually an outcry against wages, 

 of which the rates were chiefly composed, and he endeavours 

 to divert popular discontent (by much the same means as he 

 diverted Bradley's harriers) to the seven millions devoted to 

 tithe offerings. 



On another occasion, alluding to that Institution, the Board 

 of Agriculture, which did so much good during its short exist- 

 ence for all classes connected with the land, he writes as 

 follows : " The reports and other publications of this Board 

 will hereafter be preserved by curious men, as specimens of 

 solemn foolery ; but there will be found amongst them some 

 of a very mischievous tendency, especially those which relate 

 to the proposed ^compensation^ as it is called, for tithes in 

 kind, which is neither more or less than a proposition for 

 seizing the revenues of the Church, and for making the clergy 

 stipendiaries of the state." ^ 



The best policy for the rulers of a community which con- 

 tained individuals so indiscriminate in their abuse as this 

 man, was to leave them severely alone. All Cobbett required 

 was a sufficient quantity of rope, and presently he might have 

 hung himself. But the Government pursued an entirely 

 opposite policy, and prosecuted editors and writers almost 

 daily. By fines and imprisonment they made a martyr of 

 Cobbett in 1810, and by threatening him with the same treat- 



» Pol. Register, " Price of Bread," 1804. 



