346 LAND REFORM 



Greenwich Hospital during the years 1830 to 1837 

 varied from 3s. 3^d. to 3s, 6d. per pair. The price of 

 those supplied to the officers of Chelsea Hospital 

 during the same period was from 4s. 6jd. to 5s. per 

 pair. (Porter's " Progress of the Nation.") 



"Free Importers" may claim that the increase in 

 prices was caused by increased consumption on the 

 part of the people, and was therefore a proof of the 

 soundness of their policy. So far as the manufactur- 

 ing and other classes of skilled workmen were con- 

 cerned, there is no doubt that better employment and 

 higher wages added to their purchasing power, and 

 consequently the average consumption of the principal 

 articles of food by the population, taken as a whole, 

 was largely increased. But the increased demand 

 for foodstuffs in the large towns and the improved 

 facilities for transit and distribution, while they in- 

 creased the profits of the dealer, placed the rural 

 labourers — and it is their case we are mainly con- 

 sidering — in a far worse position. They found, not only 

 that all kinds of necessaries were dearer, but that im- 

 portant articles of food — abundant in former times — 

 were no longer within their reach. The increase of 

 wages which took place was but a small and totally 

 inadequate compensation for these adverse changes. 

 All things considered, there is no doubt that Professor 

 Rogers' description of their reduced circumstances, 

 after the fiscal changes referred to, comes very near 

 the truth. 



These views are abundantly confirmed by the re- 

 ports of the various Royal Commissions which deal 

 with the state of the rural population. These reports 

 are more fully dealt with in other chapters. They 

 show that during the forty years or more which 



