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PART IL 



REVIEWS. 



Art, I. Essay on the beneficial Direction of Rural Expenditure. 

 By Robert Slaney, Esq. 



{Continued from Vol.1, p. 186.) 



In considering the condition and character of the agricul- 

 tural population of Great Britain, our first position was, that 

 at present they can command a smaller portion of the neces- 

 saries of life than their ancestors could. This position we 

 grounded on numerous and indisputable facts ; and we par- 

 ticularly refeiTed to a table of wages and prices, from the 

 middle of the 13th to the beginning of the 17th century, 

 which we inserted. We ought now, agreeably to our plan, 

 to proceed to our second position, but previously we may be 

 allowed to illustrate our first position by another table, bor- 

 rowed from Sir Frederic Eden's History of the Poor. 



We have dwelt thus long and particularly on this position, 

 not merely in order to establish it firmly, but likewise, be- 

 cause by establishing it, we virtually refute a very prevalent 

 but erroneous principle, which, so long as it is considered 

 true, and consequently is acted upon, must be injurious to the 

 amelioration of the condition of the poor. 



This principle is, that wages depend on the price of provi- 

 sions : if it were true, let us see what consequences and 

 inferences would follow : first, that though the present 

 agricultural population might not be better offj they could not 

 possibly be worse off than their ancestors ; because, wages 

 rising proportionally with the price of provisions, the present 

 race must have the command of the same quantity as their 

 ancestors had. But the second inference is still more import- 

 ant : if wages, and the price of provisions, or, more strictly 

 speaking, of corn, rise and fall together, of what advantage to 

 the poor would be a low price of corn, and, therefore, how 

 are they interested in the question of the Corn Laws ? Let us 

 grant that the free importation of wheat would reduce its 



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