CHAPTER XLVI. 

 FOOD, DRESS, AND " CREDIT." 



A QUESTION that will naturally arise in connection with 

 the increase in agricultural labourers' wages between 

 1872 and 1880 is how far has that increase been wholly 

 beneficial to the recipient, and how far has it been 

 counterbalanced by a corresponding rise in the cost of 

 living ? It may be stated, generally, that the increase 

 of wages has appreciably outstripped the increase in 

 the cost of living. 



But whilst we are on this subject of the cost of living, 

 which in the case of the farm labourer we confine 

 practically to the cost of food, it will be interesting to 

 go much further back than 1872 to go back, in fact, a 

 hundred years, and information carefully obtained is avail- 

 able to enable us to compare the differences between 1770 

 and 1878, the last-mentioned date corresponding practic- 

 ally to our selected date of 1880 ; and we will make 

 the comparison in respect of the value, as shown by the 

 rent, of cultivated land, the cost of provisions limiting 

 these to bread, meat, and butter (quite enough to cover 

 an agricultural labourer's dietary), the rents of peasant 

 dwellings, and the average wages of the labourers. The 

 available information enables three periods to be taken, 

 1770, 1850, and 1878 ; but it relates to England only. 

 In 1770 the average rent of land was thirteen shillings 

 per acre ; in 1850, twenty-seven shillings ; and in 1878, 

 thirty shillings per acre. In 1770 the four-pound loaf 

 was sixpence ; meat, threepence farthing ; and butter, 



