174 Rents ^ Wages^ and Profits m Agriculture 



Look at the progress of English agri- 

 culture over six centuries. The face of the 

 country shows what has been accomplished, 

 and the amount of the tenant's capital 

 employed in agriculture shows also the 

 moderate character of the rents. 



When we turn, however, to the case of 

 the agricultural labourer, the broad his- 

 torical survey is not so pleasing. It is 

 true that the ancestors of the present race 

 of substantial farmers were serfs, and the 

 representatives in the social scale of the 

 present agricultural labourers were practi- 

 cally slaves. But the mediaeval period 

 itself saw the break-up of this system, 

 which in other civilised countries, e.g.^ 

 Germany and Russia, lasted down to the 

 nineteenth century in its essential features. 

 From the beginning of the reign of Eliza- 

 beth, however, — that is, the beginning of 

 the modern era, — to the middle . of the 



