34 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



tariffs. In 1801 wheat rose to 128/6 a quarter, 

 and from 1805-1813 the average price was 

 100/4 ! Nor was it the labourers alone who 

 suffered, for the contemporary testimony 

 of Cobbett and others depicts not only the 

 deep penury of the poorer folk but the wide- 

 spread ruin and bankruptcy of the farmers, 

 the increase of derelict land, the decay of 

 agriculture ; the landowners alone flourished. 

 The nation seemed to realize at last that 

 something must be done, and the nineteenth 

 century was a period of palliative legislation 

 for the crying needs of the English village. 

 In 1812 the claim of the magistrates to fix 

 the rate of wages was abolished and twelve 

 years later the laws directed for five centuries 

 against the right of combination were finally 

 abolished. 1 Nevertheless the old spirit of 

 repression was still in evidence amongst the 

 governing classes of the countryside. What- 

 ever sympathy was extended to the labourers 

 during the futile rising of 1830, a last feeble 

 echo of the Peasant Revolts, came apparently 

 from the towns. The rioters, described by 



1 A statute of Edward VI. punished by fine of 10 

 or twenty days' imprisonment any combination of 

 labourers " concerning their work and wages," and at the 

 end of the eighteenth century labourers were liable 

 to severe penalties, including transportation, if they 

 combined to demand an advance of wages. 



