WAGES AND PRICES 239 



his earnings, the yearly budgets of fifty-three families in 

 twelve different counties showed generally large annual 

 deficiencies, amounting in one case to £21 i8i-. 4^. In one 

 case in Lindsey, where the deficiency was small, the family 

 lived on bread alone. The factory system, too, had already 

 deprived the labourer of many of his by-industries, and thus 

 helped the pauperism for which landlord and farmer had to 

 pay in rates. 



About 1788 Sir William Young proposed to send the 

 unemployed labourers round to the parishioners to get work, 

 their wages being paid by their employers and by the parish. 

 This method of obtaining work was known as the ' roundsman 

 system '.^ 



Landlords, however, and farmers were profiting greatly by 

 the high prices, which fortunately received a check by the 

 abundant harvest of 1796, which^ with large imports,^ caused 

 the price of wheat to fall to 57.?. 3^., and in 1798 to 4'js. lod. 

 It is difficult to conceive what instability, speculation, and 

 disaster such fluctuations must have led to. In 1797 the 

 Bank Restriction Act was passed, suspending cash payments, 

 and thereby causing a huge growth in credit transactions, 

 a great factor in the inflated prosperity of this period. In 

 January, 1799, wool was 2s. a lb., and prices at Smithfield : 



s, d. s. d. 



Beef, per stone of 8 lb 3 o to 3 4 



Mutton „ „ 3 o „ 4 2 



Pork „ „ 2 8 „ 3 8 



The summer of that year was uninterruptedly wet ; some 



corn in the north was uncut in November, so that wheat went 



up to 94i". id., and in June, 1800, was 134^. 5^., the scarcity 



being aggravated by the Russian Government laying an 



embargo on British shipping.^ Yet Pitt denied that the high 



^ Hasbach, op. cit. p. 181 ; Eden, op. cit. ii. 27. 

 * Imports of wheat and flour in 1796 were 879,200 quarters. 

 ' Yet imports were comparatively large : 1,264,520 quarters of wheat, 

 against 463,185 quarters in 1799. 



