320 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION AND POOR LAW 



improbable that its extent was understated. Agricultural witnesses 

 and writers were anxious, not only to prevent any relaxation of the 

 Corn Laws, but, if possible, to increase their stringency. The 

 depression, therefore, " lost nothing in the telling," though its depth 

 and reality remain unquestionable. Brougham, speaking on 

 agricultural distress in the House of Commons, April 9, 1816, said : 

 " There is one branch of the argument which I shall pass over 

 altogether, I mean the amount of the distresses which are now 

 universally admitted to prevail over almost every part of the Empire. 

 Upon this topic all men are agreed ; the statements concerning it 

 are as unquestionable as they are afflicting . . . and the petition 

 from Cambridgeshire presented at an early part of this evening, has 

 laid before you a fact, to which all the former expositions of distress 

 afforded no parallel, that in one parish, every proprietor and tenant 

 being ruined with a single exception, the whole poor-rates of the 

 parish, thus wholly inhabited by paupers, are now paid by an 

 individual whose fortune, once ample, is thus swept entirely 

 away." 1 



With wheat standing at over 60s. a quarter, it is difficult to realise 

 that the landed interests could be distressed, and it might be supposed 

 that farmers had made enough in prosperous times to tide over a 

 period of depression. But though the rise in prices had been enor- 



4. On the State of the Country in December 1816, by the Rt. Hon. Sir John 

 Sinclair (1816). 



5. Agricultural State of the Kingdom in February, March, and April, 1816. 

 Being the Substance of the Replies to a Circular Letter sent by the Board of 

 Agriculture (1816). 



6. An Inquiry into the Causes of Agricultural Distress, by W. Jacob, F.R.S. 



(1817). 



7. Observations on the Present State of Pauperism in England, by the Rev. 

 George Glover (1817). 



8. Speech of J. C. Curwen, M.P., in the House of Commons on May 28th, 



1816, on a Motion for a Committee to take into Consideration the State of 

 the Poor Laws (1816). 



9. Two Letters on the Present Situation of the Country, by A. H. Holds worth, 

 M.P. (1816). 



10. Letters on the Present State of the Agricultural Interest, by the Rev. Dr. 



Crombie (1816). 



11. On Famine and the Poor Laws, by W. Richardson, D.D. (1816). 



12. An Inquiry into Pauperism and Poor Rates, by William CJarkson (1816). 



13. Observations ... on the Condition of the Labouring Classes, by John 

 Barton (1817). 



14. Inquiry into the Causes of the Progressive Depreciation of Agricultural 



Labour, by the Same (1820). 



1 " Speech on Agricultural Distress." Speeches of Henry, Lord. Brougham, 

 vol. i. pp. 503-4 (1838). 



