POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



1798, Pitt estimated the total revenue from land in Eng- 

 land and Wales at 25,000,000, and the income of the 

 farmers at 18,000,000. This gives an average of 

 13s. 6d. per acre for rent, and 10s. for profit. It is very 

 doubtful, taking even the richest half of France, that a 

 similar result could be obtained at the present day. A 

 labourer's wages at that time were, on an average, 7s. 3d. 

 per week, or 15d. per working day ; and in many places 

 they were as high as 9s. and 10s., or 20d. per day. It is 

 again doubtful, taking still the best half of France, 

 whether agricultural wages are at this moment as high, 

 and the price of provisions then in England was rather 

 below than above what it is now in France. The value 

 of house property amounted, according to Dr Beeke, to 

 200,000,000 ; that of land, according to the same 

 author, to 600,000,000, or equal to 16 per acre, and 

 at that estimate they were giving an average return of 

 four per cent. 



Such were the fruits of an age of free and unimpeded 

 development, notwithstanding some casual disasters, such 

 as the American War. In the half-century which fol- 

 lowed, from 1800 to 1850, the population has again 

 doubled, and agricultural production has made almost 

 an equal progress, in spite of the frightful struggle which 

 occupied the first fifteen years. Not only did constitu- 

 tional England succeed at last in conquering that des- 

 potic power and genius, which was armed with the whole 

 strength of a nation greatly more numerous and more 

 warlike than herself, but the steady increase of her inter- 

 nal wealth was not sensibly retarded by the violence of 

 the struggle. Never were enclosure bills, for turning 

 uncultivated lands to account, more numerous than dur- 

 ing the war with France. It was then that the Norfolk 



