FARMING IN OLDEN TIMES. 17 



" very earnestly recommended to the farmers and others 

 throughout the country to increase the pay of their 

 labourers in proportion to the present price of provisions." x 

 The scheme adopted was in fact devised to provide for 

 every agricultural labourer a living or minimum wage, 

 an allowance in supplement of earnings being given in 

 proportion to the price of bread. The object was laud- 

 able ; the scheme, on paper, plausible ; the results may 

 be found recorded in all their horror in the Report of 

 the Poor Law Commissioners of 1834. The revolt of 

 1830, while largely attributable to this and other long- 

 continued causes, found its immediate incentive in the 

 antagonism to labour-saving machinery. 



The destruction of machinery was to be a prominent feature 

 of this social war. This was not merely an instinct of violence ; 

 there was method and reason in it. Threshing was one of the 

 few kinds of work left that provided the labourer with a means 

 of existence above starvation level. 2 



The revolt was suppressed with the severity of an age 

 when flogging was regarded as necessary for the mainte- 

 nance of discipline, and hanging was the penalty for almost 

 any serious crime. But reform followed quickly. The new 

 Poor Law of 1834 struck at the root of the evil. It could 

 not undo the past or remove the consequences of a 

 disastrous policy the effects of which scar the country- 

 side still but, at any rate, it lifted an incubus which was 

 crushing farmer and labourer alike, and assisted agri- 

 culture to recover from the long-drawn depression. The 

 Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 removed another obstacle 

 to farming progress by abolishing almost the last relic 

 of the old payment-in-kind system. 



Perhaps the most significant and far-reaching effect of 

 this long period of agricultural depression was the decline 

 of the yeoman or small freeholder class. This is commonly 

 attributed to inclosure, but it may plausibly be regarded 

 as the result of the bad times. 



1 Hammond, " The Village Labourer," 1760-1832, p. 162. 



2 Ibid., p. 245. 



A.F. C 



