FISCAL POLICY AND AGRICULTURE 345 



He goes on to refer to the position of a class which 

 includes the agricultural labourers, and says : — 



"In other trades where wages have remained 

 almost stationary, the condition must have deterior- 

 ated in proportion to the increase in the cost of living 

 consequent on the greater dearness of commodities."^ 



Many other writers might be quoted to the same 

 effect. Professor Thorold Rogers, writing after nearly 

 thirty years' experience of free imports, while admitting 

 the increased prosperity of the towns and other centres 

 of industry, declares that " the mass of agricultural 

 labourers, and many among the unskilled and under- 

 paid occupations," had not benefited by the changes 

 in our fiscal system. 



" I am persuaded," he says, "that with the solitary 

 exception of house-rent — though that has also risen — 

 the cost of living in country districts has doubled 

 within the last thirty years, and that some articles of 

 food, once within the reach of all, are now practically 

 unattainable by country people." '^ 



Clothes, after free imports, were lower in price, but 

 on account of their shoddy character were not so cheap 

 in the long run. The old smock frock, so generally 

 worn up to the middle of last century, was a hand- 

 some and durable garment. The present writer had 

 many labourer friends who wore their Sunday suits of 

 clothes for twenty to thirty years. The village-made, 

 well-nailed boots merited the name of " everlastings," 

 by which they were called. 



The price of shoes supplied to the inmates of 



* "Wealth and Increase of Wages," Prof. Fawcett ("Fortnightly 

 Review," January, 1874). 



* "Cobden and Modern PoHtical Opinion," Thorold Rogers, 1873. 



