Rural Depopulation 145 



diminished by 35,000 persons. And yet, 

 as explained in the last chapter, in this 

 period there was a constant glut of 

 agricultural labour, partly because this 

 falling off in the numbers employed had 

 been accompanied by a great increase 

 in productive power ; and roughly, it may 

 be said that whilst in 1831 1,000 

 persons provided food for 3,000 persons, 

 including themselves, in 1841 1,000 

 persons provided food for 4,000 persons, 

 including themselves. 



The cry that the cultivation of the soil 

 was being abandoned was as loud in the 

 palmy days of the Corn Laws as it is at 

 present. A sentence may be quoted from 

 Earl Fitzwilliam in an address to the land- 

 owners of England in 1835 on the Corn 

 Laws : "It is somewhere about twenty 

 years since we began to hear pro- 

 phetic annunciations of this approaching 



K 



