RISE IN AGRICULTURAL WAGES 313 



found him defenceless. Without the commons he was entirely 

 dependent on purchased food ; without domestic industries he had 

 less money to buy the means of existence. The greater the distance 

 from London, the lower the wages and the higher the prices. This 

 was certainly true of the West and South- West of England. Thus, 

 the labourer had more to buy, less money to buy it with, and what 

 money he had did not go so far as formerly. In yet another way, 

 the great rise in prices affected the rural population for the worse. 

 It no longer paid the farmer to board servants in husbandry. In the 

 North, the system still survived, partly because of the high wages of 

 day-labour, partly because the diet which custom accepted was more 

 economical, and barley-broth and porridge were staple foods. 

 Elsewhere the number of servants who were boarded and lodged 

 in farm-houses dwindled ; they became day-labourers, living how 

 and where they could. Another opportunity for saving and another 

 restraint on improvident marriage were thus removed. 



To a certain extent the rise in the prices was met by a substantial 

 advance in wages. It is always easy to raise wages ; it is extremely 

 difficult to lower them. The reluctance of farmers to increase wages, 

 when an advance in prices may be only temporary, is therefore 

 intelligible. How far wages rose is a difficult field of enquiry. The 

 remuneration of labour varies with the different seasons, with the 

 different occupations of the men, with different contracts of service, 

 with different districts of the same county. The one outstanding 

 point is that the real earnings of agricultural labourers are not now, 

 and, to a greater extent, were not then, represented only by the 

 weekly sums which are paid in cash. To these weekly payments 

 must be added earnings at piece-work, at hay and corn harvest, 

 perquisites, allowances in kind, cottages and gardens, either rent 

 free or rented below their economic value. On these points the 

 Reports to the Board of Agriculture, 1793-1815, supply no reliable 

 evidence. Most of them speak of a considerable rise in wages ; 

 they rarely mention the point from which the advance is 

 measured. They register the averages of the daily or weekly 

 payments ; they seldom give the method by which the rate is 

 calculated. 



Failing the Reports to the Board of Agriculture, the enquirer is 

 thrown back on Young's generalisations. As the result of his 

 calculations in the Farmers' Tours of 1767-70, it may be estimated 

 that the average rate of wages was Is. 2d. a day, more in the 



