SCIENCE WITH PEACTICE, 1812 TO 1845 



93 



startling rapidity.' Landowners, who had raised money 

 upon their land, found themselves confronted by ruin. Their 

 reluctance to reduce rentals involved hundreds of tenants 

 in their fall. The alternative was hard. Petitions show 

 that where mortgagees foreclosed upon estates the land was 

 sold for sums which barely, if at all, recouped the charges. 

 In 1819 Cobbett's ominous prophecy respecting the Cur- 

 rency Bill seemed in danger of literal fulfilment : ' Before 

 this Bill could be carried into complete execution a million 

 of persons at least must die of hunger.' 



The cheapness of food abated distress among the manu- 

 facturing population, but it aggravated the difficulties of 

 farmers. For the next fifteen years the attention of Par- 

 liament was continually called to the landed interests. 

 Resolutions were passed at county meetings demanding 

 relief; innumerable pamphlets proved that three pounds did 

 not now go as far as two had done during the war,^ and 

 asked for remunerating prices for agricultural produce ; 

 petitions covered the table of the House, and select com- 

 mittees sat in 1820, 1821, 1822, 1833, and 1836. But 

 within twenty years after the peace had been readjusted to 

 diminished prices, and agriculture slowly began to share in 



1 Table sliowing the Fall of Prices, 1819-22. 



- The following illustration from ' A Letter to a Member of Parlia- 



