M.—AGRICULTURE 205 
had ceased in 1822) Justices of the Peace, sitting in special Assize, deter- 
mined the retail price of the loaf, allowing certain margins of profit to 
miller and baker. ‘Their findings were thus promulgated to our grand- 
parents: ‘ The Assize of Bread for this town was reduced three farthings 
in the quartern loaf wheaten, the price of which is now eightpence three 
farthings * (Cambridge Chronicle, March 1822). We ourselves may 
correspondingly read in our morning newspaper such edicts as the fol- 
lowing : * The London millers announce that the current price of standard- 
grade flour in the Home Counties is now 27s. per 280 Ibs.’ The principle 
is the same, but, as in many other cases, we have witnessed a substitution 
of independent and unbiased bodies by combinations of almost mono- 
polistic trade interests. 
In the legislation of 1918 and 1925, which prevented any material 
increase in the level of tithe payments, there is ample evidence that the 
popular agitation which had been successful in securing the passage of the 
Commutation Act of 1836 was still alive, and it is almost certain that, 
exactly a century later, there will be placed upon the Statute-book another 
far-reaching measure to regulate or to modify the incidence of this charge. 
In passing, may I point out that if nowadays, in order to control tithe 
disputants, extraneous police detachments are sent to Kent, in the early 
nineteenth century troops were being despatched to that same county, 
where ‘ the disturbances [on the part of the agricultural labourers] have 
now attained to almost alarming magnitude. Each day brings fresh 
accounts of violence and outrage, and fear and excitement everywhere 
prevail ’ (The Times). 
Yet again, the Reform Act of 1832 had its correspondingly expanded 
successor in our Representation of the People Act ; both, by enlarging 
the field of responsibility, reflect the same psychological reaction to times 
of stress. The legal treatment of the rural workless had, after twenty 
years of misery and even of bloodshed, been mercifully metamorphosed 
by the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, the principles of which survived 
until a few years ago when, once again, the recurrent twin problems of 
unemployment and the inequitable distribution of the resultant charges 
forced the State to recast the whole system in various Acts of Parliament, 
ranging from reconstitution of Local Government to extended provision 
for social insurance. 
This chronological analogy could be further extended by effecting com- 
parison between the crude Protective duties current for a generation after 
1815 and their ostensibly revenue-producing successors of recent years. 
Sugar-beet may illustrate the continuity of international agrarian history, 
for, although the Germans could claim priority in this field, it was as a 
result of our blockade of France that the crop was first subsidised and 
commercially developed by that country; while the former nation’s 
submarine threat led to our adoption of a like policy in the Great War. 
It is, indeed, only when one turns to the human element—and then 
especially in its capacity as an employee—that this remarkable series of 
analogies breaks down, for a century ago the evils associated with the 
prevalent system of rural employment are epitomised in such words as 
“Tolpuddle,’ ‘Swing,’ and in many another place—or family-name, 
