Returning to our period,we may apply these principles to explain the fall in wages between 1790and 1820.During this period,while rent was doubled,interest also was nearly doubled (this by the way disproves Mr George's theory on that point),and yet wages fell.We may take Mr Porter's estimate.'In some few cases there had been an advance of wages,but this occurred only to skilled artisans,and even with them the rise was wholly incommensurate with the increased cost of all the necessaries of life.The mere labourer...did not participate in this partial compensation for high prices,but was...at the same or nearly the same wages as had been given before the war.'In 1790 the weekly wage skilled artisans and farm labourers respectively would buy 82 and 169 pints of corn:in 1800 they would buy 53 and 83.According to Mr Barton,a contemporary writer,wages between 1760 and 1820,'estimated in money,had risen 100 per cent.;estimated in commodities,they had fallen 33 per cent.'What were the causes of this fall?Let us first take the case of the artisans and manufacturing labourers.One cause in their case was a series of bad harvests.To explain how this wOUld affect wages in manufactures we must fall back on the deductive method,and assume certain conditions from which to draw our conclusions.Let us suppose two villages side by side,one agricultural,the other manufacturing,in the former of which the land is owned by landowners,and tilled by labour employed by farmers.Suppose the manufacturing village to be fed by its neighbours in exchange for cutlery.Then,if there is a bad harvest in the agricultural village,every labourer in the manufacturing village will have to spend more on corn.The owners of land will gain enormously;the farmers will be enriched in so far as they can retain the increased prices for themselves,which they will do,if holding on leases.But every one else will be poorer,for there has been a loss of wealth.In order to get his corn,the labourer will have to give more of his share of the produce;and hence the demand for all other goods,which are produced for the labourers' consumption,will diminish.Nothing affects the labourer so much as good or bad harvests,and it is because of its tendency to neutralise the consequences of deficient crops at home,that the labourer has gained so much by Free Trade.When we have a bad harvest here,we get plenty of corn from America,and the labourer pays nearly the same price for his loaf,and has as much money as before left to spend on other commodities.Still,even at the present day,some depression of trade is generally associated with bad harvests.And though Free Trade lessens the force of their incidence on a particular locality,it widens the area affected by them-a bad harvest in Brazil may prejudice trade in England.
The next point to be taken into consideration is the huge taxation which fell upon the workmen at this time;even as late as 1834half the labourers'wages went in taxes.There was also increase in the National Debt.During the war we had nominally borrowed *600,000,000,although owing to the way in which the loans were raised,the actual sum which came into the national exchequer was only *350,000,000.All this capital was withdrawn from productive industry,and the demand for labour was diminished to that extent.Lastly,the labourer was often actually paid in bad coin,quantities of which were bought by the manufacturers for the purpose;and he was robbed by the truck system,through which the employer became a retail trader,with power to over-price his goods to an indefinite extent.
Some of these causes affected the agricultural and manufacturing labourers alike;they suffered,of course,equally from bad harvests.But we have seen in former lectures that there were agrarian and social changes during this period,which told upon the agricultural labourer exclusively.The enclosures took away his common-rights,and where the land,before enclosure,had been already in cultivation,they diminished the demand for his labour,besides depriving him of the hope of becoming himself a farmer,and,to mention a seemingly small but really serious loss,cutting off his supply of milk,which had been provided by the 'little people'who kept cows on the commons.He was further affected by the enormous rise in cottage rents.Mr Drummond,a Surrey magistrate,told the Commission on Labourers'Wages in 1824,that he remembered cottages with good gardens letting for 30s.before the war,while at the time when he was speaking the same were fetching *5,*7,or *10.
This rise was due to causes we have before had in review,to the growth of population,the expulsion of servants from the farmhouses,and the demolition of cottages in close villages.
When the labourers,to meet the deficiency,built cottages for themselves on the wastes,the farmers pulled them down,and,if the labourers rebuilt them,refused to employ them,with the result that such labourers became thieves and poachers.Again,during this period,it was not uncommon for the farmers absolutely to determine what wages should be paid,and the men in their ignorance were entirely dependent on them.Here are two facts to prove their subservience.In one instance,two pauper families who had cost their parish no less than *20a year each,were given instead an acre of land rent free,and the rates were relieved to that amount;but though successful,the experiment was discontinued,'lest the labourer should become independent of the farmer.'And this is the statement of an Essex farmer in 1793:'I was the more desirous to give them an increase of pay,as it was unasked for by the men,who were content with less than they had a right to expect.'The agricultural labourer at this time was in an entirely helpless condition in bargaining with his employer.Nor were the farmers the only class who profited by his deterioration;for the high rents of the time were often paid out of the pocket of the labourer.The period was one of costly wars,bad seasons,and industrial changes.The misfortunes of the labouring classes were partly inevitable,but they were also largely the result of human injustice,of the selfish and grasping use made of a power which exceptional circumstances had placed in the hands of landowners,farmers,and capitalists.
