70 LAND REFORM 



rapidly. A golden era for the landlord began about 

 1770, which lasted for about a century. 



Mr. Porter, writing on the subject in 1846, states : — 



"With scarcely an exception the revenue drawn in 

 the form of rents has been at least doubled since 

 1790. This is not a random statement, but as re- 

 gards many counties in England can be proved by 

 living witnesses"; and he adds : " During the same 

 period the prices of most of the articles which con- 

 stitute the landowner's expenditure have materially 

 fallen." ' 



Mr. Caird (afterwards Sir James Caird), after 

 visiting thirty-two out of the forty counties of England, 

 states : "It thus appears that in a period of eighty 

 years the average rent of arable land has risen 100 

 per cent. 



It must not be supposed, however, that the rapid 

 increase of inclosures, the eviction of farmers and 

 copyholders, and the consolidation of farms, were car- 

 ried out without the strongest opposition. The litera- 

 ture of the time is full of it. The expropriated class 

 of small farmers, having no power and no longer any 

 social standing, had to accept their lot. The peasantry 

 were not a factor in the political system that then 

 existed, and were cov/ed into submission. There was 

 no longer any violent resistance, except occasional out- 

 is more akin to the general practice as regards rent : " The rent of land, 

 therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of land is naturally a 

 monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may 

 have laid out upon the improx-ement of the land, or to what he can afford 

 to take, but to what the farmer can afford to pay." (" V/ealth of Nations," 

 llth ed., 1805, Vol. I, p. 231.) 



1 Porter's "Progress of the Nation." 



""English Agriculture in 1850-1." (James Caird— the "Times" 

 Commissioner.) 



