The system of farming and the state of the laws regarding the importation
of grain were such down to the period we refer to that the country was at
the mercy of the viscisitude of the seasons, and if these were adverse
nothing less than a partial or a general famine was the result, and it
sometimes happened that the use of an extra ounce or two of bread was
grudged if not considered sinful. Thus, an old writer commenting upon
the scarcity of grain in the above year, censured the use of tea on the
ground that it led to the use of bread and butter. He says:—
“I find, July 29th, that ‘in the parish of Madeley, Salop, there are
924 families; and since the use of Tea is becoming so prevalent, on a
moderate calculation each family consumes three and a half pounds of
flour each week more than formerly, by instituting a fourth meal each
day. In days of yore, Breakfast, Dinner and Supper were esteemed
sufficient, but now it must be Breakfast, Dinner, _Tea_ and Supper,
which wastes both Meal and Time, and makes a difference each week in
the parish of Madeley of 3234 lbs. of flour.’”
In that same year, on the ninth of July, a meeting of numerous gentlemen,
farmers, millers, and tradesmen was held at the Tontine, on “the alarming
occasion of the scarcity of corn and dearness of all kinds of other
provisions,” and a committee was appointed for the immediate collection
of contributions and the purchase of such grain as could be procured, to
be distributed to the necessitous at a reduction of one fourth, or nine
shillings for twelve. The wants of the poor were described as being
beyond what they had at any former time experienced, and according to the
best accounts that could be collected the quantity of grain of all sorts
in the country was very far short of the consumption before harvest.
Many families in Madeley were short of bread, and the colliers were only
prevented rising by assurances that gentlemen of property were disposed
to contribute liberally to their relief as well as to adopt measures for
obtaining from distant parts, such aid as could be procured. The
committee directed 2,000 bushels of Indian corn to be sent for from
Liverpool, to meet immediate requirements, but such were the murmurs of
the poor according to a letter from Richard Reynolds to Mr. Smitheman,
that it was impossible to say what would be the consequences, and the
writer adds:—
“I should not be surprised if they applied in a body at those houses
where they expected to find provisions, or from which they thought
they ought to be relieved. They already begin to make distinctions
between those whom they consider as their benefactors, and those whom
(as George Forester expresses it in the annexed letter) are at war
with their landlords; and I fear those whom they consider as
deserting them in their distress, would not only incur their
disapprobation, but might be the next to suffer from their
resentment. I therefore the more readily attempt to fulfil my
appointment by recommending thee in the most earnest manner to send
by the return of the post to Richard Dearman at this place, who is
appointed treasurer on the present occasion, a bill for such a sum as
thou shalt think proper to contribute, and at the same time to write
to thy servant at the West Coppice to give notice to thy tenants, (as
G. Forester has to his) and especially to William Parton of Little
Wenlock, that it is thy desire that he and they should conform to the
general practice and deliver immediately all his wheat to the
committee, at twelve shillings per bushel, for the use of the poor.
And if there is any wheat, barley, beans, or peas, at the West
Coppice, or elsewhere in thy possession or power, I recommend thee to
order it to be sent without delay to the Committee; and then if the
colliers, &c., should go in a body, or send, as I think more likely a
deputation to thy house, thy having so done, and thy servant shewing
them thy order for so doing, as well as thy contributing liberally as
above proposed, will be the most likely means to prevent the
commencement of mischief, the end of which, if once began, it is
impossible to ascertain.”
The letter goes on to state that the following sums had been subscribed:
George Forester, £105. Cecil Forester, £105. J. H. Browne, £105. the
Coalbrookdale Company, £105. and John Wilkinson, £50. In addition to
this the writer, Richard Reynolds, and J. H. Browne had consented to
advance £700. each to be repaid out of the corn sold at the reduced
price.
Mr. Reynolds concludes by saying, “such is the urgency of the temper of
the people, that there is not a day to lose if we are desirous to
preserve the poor from outrage, and most likely the country from plunder,
if not from blood.”
Periods of distress and panic arising from scarcity were not unfrequent
when wages were stationary, or comparatively so. Great changes had taken
place during the periods previously described. First, during feudal
times, here and elsewhere the great body of peasantry was composed of
persons who rented _small farms_, seldom exceeding twenty or thirty
acres, and who paid their rent either in kind or in agricultural labour
and services performed on the demesne of the landlord: secondly, of
_cottagers_, each of whom had a small croft or parcel of land attached to
his dwelling, and the privilege of turning out a cow, or pigs, or a few
sheep, into the woods, commons, and wastes of the manor. During this
period, the population derived its subsistence immediately from the
land;—the landowner from the produce of his demesne, cultivated partly by
his domestic slaves, but principally by the labour of the tenants and
cottiers attached to the manor; the tenants from the produce of their
little farms; and the cottiers from that of their cows and crofts, except
while working upon the demesne, when they were generally fed by the
landlord. The mechanics of the village, not having time to cultivate a
sufficient quantity of land, received a fixed allowance of agricultural
produce from each tenant.
Under the above system, not only the little farmer, but also the humblest
cottager, drew a very considerable portion of his subsistence directly
from the land. His cow furnished him with what is invaluable to a
labourer,—a store of milk in the summer months; his pig, fattened upon
the common and with the refuse vegetables of his garden, supplied him
with bacon for his winter consumption—and there were poultry besides.
Gradually the labourer and small cultivator lost the use they had made of
the road-side and other waste which were assigned under inclosure acts,
not to the occupier, but _the owner_ of the cottage; few cottages were in
the occupation of their owners; they generally, indeed we may say
universally, belonged to the proprietors of the neighbouring farms, and
the allotments granted in lieu of the extinguished common rights were
generally added to the large farms, and seldom attached to the cottages.
The cottages which were occupied by their owners had of course allotments
attached to them; but these by degrees passed by sale into the hands of
some large proprietor in the neighbourhood, _De facto_, in ninety-nine
cases out of the hundred, the allotment has been detached from the
cottage, and thrown into the occupation of some adjoining farmer.
That such a charge should have been attended with important consequences,
can excite no surprise, a complete severance was effected between the
peasantry and the soil; the little farmers and cottiers were converted
into day-labourers, depending entirely upon daily earnings which may, and
frequently did, in point of fact, fail them. They had no land upon the
produce of which to fall as a reserve when the demand for labour happened
to be slack. This revolution became unquestionably the cause of the
heavy and increasing burdens upon parishes in the form of poor-rates, and
jail rates.
It has been well said that from the moment when any man begins to think
that
‘The world is not his friend, nor the world’s law,’
the world and the world’s law are likely to have that man for their
enemy; and if he does not commence direct hostilities against them, he
abandons himself to despair, and becomes a useless if not a hurtful
member of the community.
If we go back to the time of the great plague, about the middle of the
reign of Edward III., which gave occasion to the first attempt to
regulate wages by law, corn rose from 5s. 4d., the average the first
twenty-five years to 11s. 9d., the average of the twenty-five years
following. In this reign the pound of silver was coined into 25s., and
at the end of the reign of Henry IV., into 30s. In 1444, other statutes
regulating wages were passed probably owing to the high price of corn,
which had risen on an average of the ten preceding years to 10s. 8d.,
without any further alterations in the coin; and for this reason there
seems no adequate cause but a succession of scanty crops; as a
continuance of low prices afterwards prevailed for sixty years. The
average price of wheat from 1444 to the end of the reign of Henry VII.
(1509) returned to 6s., while the pound of silver was coined into £1 17s.
6d. instead of £1 2s. 6d., as at the passing of the first statute of
labourers in 1350, thus indicating a continuance of favourable seasons,
and probably, an improved system of agriculture. The rise in the price
of corn during the next century was owing probably to other causes. From
1646 to 1665 the price of the quarter of wheat was £2 10s. 0d. During
the wars of the Roses, and subsequently it was cheap; but during the
civil wars under Charles I., and for some time subsequently it was dear.
The harvests of 1794 and 1795 were deficient, but the rise in the price
of grain, occasioned by the deficiency of these two years, which is
supposed to have been about one eighth, threw into the hands of the
agricultural interest, in 1795 and 1796, when prices were at the highest,
from 24 to 28 millions for the two years, the farmers with a deficiency
of one eighth, having sold their crops for nearly a third more than the
usual price before labour had risen.
Mr. Reynolds saw the evils we have been describing, and when he purchased
the manor of Madeley from Mr. Smitheman he made it a point to encourage
small allotments and leases of copyholds.