RESULTS OF AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS 349 



valuable though they were, they were becoming commercially dis- 

 credited. Their disappearance was a social loss ; but it had become 

 an economic necessity. The land could no longer be cultivated for 

 the needs of a scanty, scattered population, occupied in the tillage 

 of the soil, or engaged in one-man handicrafts. So long as England 

 depended for food on her own produce, a condition which lasted 

 a quarter of a century after the repeal of the Corn Laws, it was 

 requisite that farming should be transformed from a self-sufficing 

 domestic industry into a profit-earning manufactory of bread, beef, 

 and mutton. Food, upon the scale that changed conditions 

 demanded, could only be produced upon land which had been 

 prepared for the purpose by the outlay of capitalist landlords and 

 the intelligent enterprise of large tenant-farmers. 



In other respects, also, the distress of 1813-37 produced good 

 results. So long as war prices prevailed, prosperous years had 

 brought wealth to slovens, and sluggards had amassed riches in their 

 sleep. The collapse of prosperity spurred the energies and enter- 

 prise of both landlords and tenants, who could only hold their own 

 by economising the cost and increasing the amount of production. 

 Within certain limits, low prices and keen competition compelled 

 improvement. Again, though the attraction of war-prices had 

 driven the plough through much valuable pasture, it had also supplied 

 the incentive which added hundreds of thousands of acres of wastes 

 to the cultivated area of the country. Finally, during the era of 

 Protection, landlords and farmers had learned to rely too entirely 

 upon Parliamentary help in their difficulties. They had been prone 

 to expect that alterations in the protective duties would turn the 

 balance between the success and failure of their harvests. Now, 

 disappointment after disappointment had taught them the useful 

 lesson that they could expect no immediate assistance from legis- 

 lative interference, and that, if they wanted aid, they must help 

 themselves. 



Meanwhile legislation had been active in many useful directions. 

 The agricultural revolution, and the effects alike of war and peace, 

 had completely disorganised the labour market. Parliament co- 

 operated with industrial changes in redressing the balance between 

 demand and supply and in adapting the relations of capital and 

 labour to new conditions. For agricultural labourers the Poor-Law of 

 1834 did what the Factory legislation of 1833 had done for artisans. 

 The change produced immediate effect. The number of paupers 



