284 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



wholly to the influence of manufactures, which is still further 

 proved by the fact that in Lancashire in 1770 wages were 

 below the average for England. In fact since Young's time . 

 wages in the north had increased 66 per cent., in the south; 

 only 14 per cent. In Berkshire and Wiltshire there had been 

 no increase in that period, and in Suffolk an actual decrease. 

 It is not surprising to learn that in some southern counties 

 wages were not sufficient for healthy sustenance, and the 

 consequence was, that there, the average amount of poor relief 

 per head of population was 8s. 8^, but in the north 4s. 7|^., 

 and the percentage of paupers was twice as great in the former 

 as in the latter. This was mainly due to two causes: (i) the 

 ratepayers of parishes in the south were accustomed to divide 

 among themselves the surplus labour, not according to their 

 requirements but in proportion to the size of their farms, so 

 that a farmer who was a good economist of labour was reduced 

 by this system to the same level as his unskilful neighbours, 

 and the labourer himself had no motive to do his best, as every 

 one, good and bad, was employed at the same rate. (2) To the 

 system of close and open parishes, by which large proprietors 

 could drive the labourer from the parish where he worked 

 to live in some distant village in case he should become 

 chargeable to the rates, so that it was a common thing to 

 see labourers walking three or four miles each day to their 

 work and back, and in one county farmers provided donkeys 

 for them. Between 1840 and 1850 the labourer had, how- 

 ever, already benefited by free trade, for the price of many 

 articles he consumed fell 30 % ; on the other hand the rent 

 of his cottage in eighty years had increased 100 %, and meat 

 70 %, which however did not, unfortunately, affect him much. 

 The great development of railway construction also helped him 

 by absorbing much surplus labour, and the work of his wife 

 and children was more freely exploited at this date to swell 

 the family budget. 1 



1 Hasbach, op. cit., pp. 220, 226. 



