264 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



There were no less than 475 petitions on agricultural distress 

 presented to the House from 1820 to March 21, 1822. In 

 1822 it was proposed that the Government should purchase 

 wheat grown in England to the value of one million sterling 

 and store it ; also that when the average price of wheat was 

 under 6os. the Government should advance money on such 

 corn grown in the United Kingdom as should be deposited 

 in certain warehouses, to an extent not exceeding two-thirds 

 the value of the corn. 1 There were not wanting men, how- 

 ever, who put the other side of the question. In a tract 

 called The Refutation of the Arguments used on the Subject 

 of the Agricultural Petition^ written in 1819, it was said that 

 the increase in the farmer's expenditure was the cause of his 

 discontent. ' He now assumes the manners and demands the 

 equipage of a gentleman, keeps a table like his landlord, 

 anticipates seasons in their productions, is as choice in his 

 wines, his horses, and his furniture.' Let him be more thrifty. 

 ' Let him dismiss his steward, a character a few years back 

 only known to the great landowner, and cease from degrading 

 the British farmer into a synonym for prodigality.' Lord 

 Liverpool, in the House of Lords, in a speech which roused 

 great opposition among agriculturists, minimized the distress ; 

 distress there was, he admitted, but it was not confined to 

 England, it was world-wide; neither was it produced by 

 excessive taxation, for since 1815 taxation had been reduced 

 25 per cent., while though rents and prices had fallen they 

 were much higher than before the war. Another writer said 

 at the time, ' Individuals of all classes have of late been as 

 it were inflated above their natural size : let this unnatural 

 growth be reduced ; let them resume their proper places and 

 appearances, and the quantum of substantial enjoyment, real 

 comfort and happiness, will not be found lessened.' It was 

 also asserted that the taxes on malt, leather, soap, salt, and 

 candles, were not very pressing. 



1 Report of the Committee on Agricultural Depression (1822), pp. 3, 4. 



