Slaney on Rural Expenditure. 179 



living much better than they formerly did, and raised in all 

 respects far above that level, at which their ancestors stood; 

 in the midst of a great increase of real wealth to the landed 

 proprietors, — to the bettering of the condition of both which 

 classes, farmers and landlords, the agricultural labourers have 

 mainly contributed — in the midst of all this wealth around 

 them, — more productive fields, a much greater quantity of 

 land in cultivation, richer farmers, richer landlords, — they 

 alone are, not even stationary, but in many respects, and 

 that especially which is of primary and essential importance, 

 a command over the necessaries of life, they alone have 

 retrograded, while all about them, all they see, all they are 

 connected with, has been, and is rapidly and steadily ad- 

 vancing. 



Our first position is, that the agricultural labourer is much 

 inferior in ability to support a family to his ancestors, three 

 or four centuries ago, and to what he was half a century 

 since. There may have been times, when, from the operation 

 of temporary causes, this ability was less than it is at pre- 

 sent; but as these temporary causes subsided, their effect 

 disappeared; and the labourer rose to his former level of 

 ability to support a family. And were the causes that at 

 present depress the agricultural labourer temporary ; did they 

 exhibit any symptoms of dissolution, or even weakness ; did 

 they not, on the contrary, exhibit annually all the symptoms 

 of having struck deeper root, and of shedding their baneful 

 influence over a wider tract, we should have hopes, and 

 suffer the evil to die away of itself. But, convinced that the 

 causes lie at the very heart's core, we do not hesitate to assert, 

 not only that the condition of the agricultural labourer is 

 worse than it ever was, but that it is more desperate, seeing 

 that the cause is not temporary, and that while all around 

 smiles with prosperity, he alone is overshadowed with gloom ; 

 while all around him share more or less in the daily encreas- 

 ing improvement of the country, he alone, like Tantalus, 

 labours but to be disappointed. This is a strong picture; 

 now to our proofs that it is a just one. 



It may be necessary, in the first place, to mention our 

 authorities : these are, Sir John Cullum's History of H-aw- 

 sted ; Blomefield's Norfolk ; Sir Frederick Eden on the State 

 of the Poor : Macpherson's Edition of Anderson's History 

 of Commerce; Dr. Whitaker's History of Whally; Hal- 

 lam's History of the Middle Ages, &c. Mr. Hallam justly 

 characterises Blomefield's Norfolk, as among the most valu- 

 able of our county histories. From it, and Cullum's History 



