FISCAL POLICY AND AGRICULTURE 337 



of life" which is attached to no other kind of food. 

 " Earning one's bread " is a figurative expression, 

 including in it other necessaries of human existence. 

 In the popular mind, therefore, the cry of dear bread 

 is connected intuitively with the idea of dear living. 



During the Corn Law agitation the question of 

 bread was ever to the front. A general impression 

 was given that, by the repeal of the Corn Laws, bread 

 was to be more plentiful and much cheaper ; but it is 

 a noticeable fact that the actual /r/^^ of bread which 

 ruled during the contest, was rarely, if ever, alluded 

 to. The cry of "Cheap bread! "was used for political 

 purposes then, just as the cry of the " big and little 

 loaf" is being used now, and was equally false. 



The prices of bread varied then, as they vary now, 

 at different times and in different parts of the country, 

 and the variations seemed to be then, as they have 

 been since, largely independent of the price of corn. 



As far as the rural districts are concerned, there is 

 no continuous record of prices of bread extending 

 over a number of years before and after the repeal of 

 the Corn Laws. But there are isolated quotations 

 and references to price to be found in different years 

 and in different localities, which abundantly prove the 

 point for which we are contending. 



At a Free Trade meeting held at Aylesbury in 

 1843, Mr. Cobden was asked by one of the audience : 

 " Did the members of the League think the existing 

 price of the quartern loaf, which was then 5d., too 

 high for either producer or consumer ? ' Cobden 

 answered with his usual dexterity," etc. (Morley's 

 '* Life of Cobden.")^ 



^ The present writer was in daily association with the poorer classes 

 during the "hungry forties." He witnessed one or two of the bread 



