would add to the quantity of bread, demands much greater powers of argument than I have ever met with in any person who took that side of the subject.

Rusticus will observe, that I am always speaking of wastes in general, and not of wastes, in the neighbourhood of which, local circumstances present artificial aid. These particular and partial instances, have nothing to do with the general question.

I return, therefore, to the charge, and again ask him, from what source he would draw the means of putting the wastes of the kingdom into a state to make them produce corn? These means consist of labour and manure, or rather, they consist simply of labour, for every one must perceive, that manure itself is the consequence of labour.

Whence, then, is the labour to come to dig ditches, to make banks and fences round waste lands, to make roads through them, to pare and burn, and plough, and drag, and harrow, and cart chalk, and lime, and marl, and clay, and dung, and, at last, to sow these waste lands? WHENCE, I, once more, ask, is this labour to come?

He will allow, I suppose, that the labourers in England are all employed now. He must allow this, or else he will have to find out a reason why the lands already enclosed are not better cultivated than they are. Let him travel through the country, and he will see the fields smoking from the fire of couch grass. Out of ten fields he will not see above two that are sown with wheat, that most valuable of all corn crops. Let him look closely at the land where even that wheat is, and he will see that the weeds and the couch grass are, in general, enjoying, at least, one-half of the benefit of the last year's dung and tillage.

There are some few exceptions to this, but this is the general state of the lands in England.

Let Rusticus ask the farmer why he suffers his land to get into such a foul state, and why he has not five fields of wheat in place of two. The farmer will tell him, that all his capital, all his labour, and all his manure, are employed upon his farm, and that he gets as much out of it as he is able, and keeps it as clean as he is able.

Would it not be a pretty proposition to make to such a man, to enclose an additional piece of ground, and add it to this farm? It is very likely, that greediness might make him grasp at the proposition, nothing appearing to be more natural to the taste of man than the love of extent of landed possessions. But, does Rusticus really believe, that by adding a piece of waste land to this man's farm (worse of course in its nature than that which he has already enclosed); does Rusticus really believe, that such an addition to the extent of the farm, would make an augmentation in this man's crops?

To enclose the piece of waste, even before he begin his process of cultivation, this farmer must take from his present farm a considerable portion of the labour which he now there employs; and, before he can make the piece of waste produce him anything at all, he must take from his present farm a great deal more of the labour that he now employs upon it. If he does this, his present fields must have less labour than they now have; must be still fuller of weeds and couch grass than they now are; must be still poorer; and, of course, must produce less than they now produce, and that, too, observe, in a proportion exceeding the produce of the new enclosure, because on the new enclosed land there are fencing and other labours to be performed, which are not necessary upon

the land already enclosed, to say nothing about the nature of the soil being worse in the new enclosure than in the old, which, however, in general must necessarily be the case.

Thus, then, we see, that this augmentation of extent of culture, could not produce an augmentation of corn, in this instance.

Perhaps Rusticus will say, that this farmer might get more labourers, more horses, more implements than he now has, and might thus avoid robbing his old farm to bring into tillage the new enclosure. But WHERE, my good friend is he to find them? Are not all the labourers, all the horses, all the wheel-wrights, all the blacksmiths, and all the collar-makers employed now? And if they are not all employed now, why, I ask again, are not the present enclosed lands better cultivated than they are? But, it is a monstrous proposition, to assert that they are not all employed. This being the case, then, WHERE is this farmer (supposing him to have more capital than he employs) to find these additional labourers, horses, and implements? It is obvious, that he can find them nowhere but upon other people's farms, and if he draws them thence, he must, of course, cause a diminution of the crops upon those farms; and then how is the general quantity of corn to be augmented by this new enclosure?

Besides, we are talking of a general enclosure, and then we are to suppose, of course, that all the other farmers are enclosing as well as this one; so that the labourers, the horses, and the implements, to bring these new enclosures into a bearing state, must come from abroad, or from the clouds, or it is impossible that new enclosures can make any addition to the positive quantity of corn grown in the country.

If, indeed, the enclosed lands were now cultivated in the best possible manner; that is to say, if they were now made to produce as much food as it is possible to make them produce, then there might be some reason in supposing, that there was in the country labour to spare for the cultivation of new lands; but while we see, all over the country, the contrary of this; while we see nearly one-half of the land which is already enclosed, lying in an unproductive state, or producing corn but once in two or three years, and then in very scanty quantity; while we see these enclosed lands in general overrun with weeds and couch grass, and stifled with hedge-rows, many of which are a pole or two in breadth, and which in general serve no useful purpose, while they are a harbour for mice, moles, rabbits, and destructive birds; while we have this spectacle before our eyes over the far greater part of the kingdom, can any man in his senses believe that there are labourers, horses, and implements to spare for the enclosure and cultivation of worse lands than those which are already enclosed?

Let me not be told, that these hedge-rows, weeds, couch grass, and scanty crops, arise out of the slovenliness and obstinacy of the farmers: for though they may be, in general, slovenly and obstinate, they take pretty good care to have their pennyworth for their penny. Few of them let either men or horses eat at their expense without working for it. In short, all the labour that there is in the kingdom is employed upon the lands already enclosed, and it necessarily follows, that, as those lands are not made to produce so much as they might be made to produce, there is not, as yet, any labour to spare for the cultivation of worse lands, and for making a fence round them into the bargain.

Perhaps I shall be told that by an improvement in the mode of culti

vating the lands, more produce might be raised from the same quantity of labour that is now employed. I accede to this proposition. I believe. that even with the present quantity of labour, distributed judiciously, and applied industriously, with great care and skill, upon true principles, all the enclosed lands in England might be made like a garden; that the weeds and the couch (or FIORIN) grass might be nearly extirpated; and that the crops might be trebled. But we are talking of enclosures in the present state of agriculture; we are not talking of enclosures under a state of agriculture like that of China; a specimen of which may be seen at this moment on a piece of ground, which was recently waste, on the side of the turnpike-road, between Esher and Kingston in Surrey, where, on a bed of as sour a clay as I ever saw, Mr. BRADDICK will, in my opinion, have, at least, forty bushels of wheat upon three-quarters of an acre of ground, the seed being somewhat less than two quarts, or, half a Winchester gallon; we are not talking of new enclosures under a state of agriculture like this, the effect of an ingenious mind attentively applied to the object; I am not talking of new enclosures under a state of agriculture like this, but under a state of agriculture such as that now existing in England, and this is the way, of course, in which we must talk upon the subject.

Those who are so eager for new enclosures always seem to argue as if the waste land, in its present state, produced nothing at all. But is this the fact? Can any one point me out a single inch of it which does not produce something, and the produce of which is not made use of? It goes to the feeding of sheep, of cows, of cattle of all descriptions; and what is of great consequence in my view of the matter, it helps to rear, in health and vigour, numerous families of the children of labourers, which children, were it not for these wastes, must be crammed into the stinking suburbs of towns, amidst filth of all sorts, and congregating together in the practice of every species of idleness and vice. A family reared by the side of a common or a forest is as clearly distinguishable from a family bred in the pestiferous stench of the dark alleys of a town, as one of the plants of Mr. Braddick's wheat is distinguishable from the feeble-stemmed, single-eared, stunted stuff that makes shift to rear its head above the cockle, and poppies and couch grass, in nine-tenths of the broad-cast fields in the kingdom.

This is with me a consideration of great importance. In the beggarly stinking houses of towns, the labourers' children cannot have health. If they have not health, the greatest of all blessings, they must be miserable in themselves and a burden to the parish. It has been observed, that when bred on the side of commons and forests, they are more saucy and more daring. There may be some inconvenience in this perhaps but, for my part, give me the saucy daring fellow in preference to the poor, crawling, feeble wretch, who is not saucy, only, perhaps, because he feels that he has not the power to maintain himself. I am not in love with saucy servants any more than other people. But I know how to tackle them. A poor, feeble, heartless, humble, crawling, creature I can do nothing with; and of this description I have observed are almost all those who are bred up, under a gossiping mother, in the stinking holes, called houses, in country-towns, or large villages.

If this scheme of a general enclosure were to take place (the scheme is a mad one, and physically impracticable), the whole race of those whom we in Hampshire call foresters, would be extirpated in a few years;

and my sons, I dare say, would live to see the day when there would be scarcely a man to be found capable of wielding a felling axe. Rusticus appeals to me, as a farmer. If he had known all, he might have appealed to me in a character still more closely connected with the subject; that is to say, as a person entitled, in case of a general enclosure, to, perhaps, fifty, sixty, or a hundred acres of waste land, and that, as it happens, very good land too. But, though I make no use of this waste, and it is very likely that I never shall, I will never give my consent to the enclosure of it, or any part of it, except for the purposes of the labourers. All around this great tract of land, which is called waste, the borders are studded with cottages of various dimensions and forms, but the more beautiful for this diversity. The greater part of these are encroachments, as they are called; but the Bishop of Winchester, who is the Lord of the Manors, has never had a very harsh Steward, and the tenants have had too much compassion to attempt to pull down and lay open any of these numerous dwellings. For my part, rather than see them destroyed and their inhabitants driven into towns, I would freely resign all the claim that I have either to the land or to the herbage. These wastes, as they are called, are the blessing and the ornament of this part of the kingdom; and, I dare say, that they are the same in every other part of the kingdom where they are to be found.

These are my reasons for being glad that the general Enclosure Bill has failed; and, until I see them satisfactorily confuted, I shall, of course, retain my present opinion upon the subject.

Botley, 28th July, 1813.

WM. COBBETT.

PRICE OF BREAD.

(Political Register, Oct. 1813.)

In spite of all our boasting of being in an enlightened state, my opinion is, that, in few countries does ignorance, profound ignorance, as to all matters, only a little complicated, prevail so completely as in this.

Who could imagine, that, at this day, an opinion should prevail, that laws, that compulsion is necessary to cause bread to be sold at the proper price? Yet, this opinion does prevail, and such laws are in existence and acted upon too. Nay, some people go further in their notions in this direction; and seem to wish for new and more rigorous laws upon the subject.

An article, in the Courier of the 23rd of September, would almost make one believe, that there was not a grain of mere common sense left in the nation.

I will insert it, and then make a few remarks upon it.

"PRICE OF BREAD.-According to the statement of the Lord Mayor on Wed"nesday last to the Bakers and Dealers who then assembled at the Mansion"House, the public might reasonably have expected a further fall in the assize 'of Bread this week. The average price of wheat was then (last week) stated

"to be 89s. 74d., and the average price of flour 89s. 1d.; so that in justice to the I public, the average price of flour ought not to have exceeded 748. per sack this “week, nor even so high as 74s., there having been a further decline of 28. 9d. "in the price of wheat at Mark-lane. Surely the Bakers cannot be so lost to their "own interest, or to what is due in strict justice from them to all ranks of society, "as to stop at home, and by that means expose themselves to the mercy of such "avaricious machinations.-Bread, if assized from flour at 748., would be 1s. 14d. "per qnartern loaf; and although the returns to the Mansion-House this week "are made to average at 898. 0d., they, under all circumstances, ought not to "have averaged at more than 74s. His Lordship has, therefore, given notice to "the Bakers Company of his intention to fix the price of Bread next week "from the average of wheat, unless prevented by a fall in the price of flour." It is very hard to say what this wiseacre would drive at! He talks of "avaricious machinations ;" but, on the part of whom? The flour-denlers, it would seem. The millers, I suppose, and those who sell their

flour for them.

What a brutish nation! To suppose it possible, that so many hundreds, so many thousands of persons, who, from the very nature of the case, must be rivals in trade, should agree together, should plot and contrive, should combine and co-operate, to raise, or keep up, the price of the article, in which they deal; and, that they should do this, too, without a possibility of gaining, in the end, any thing by such combination!

It requires only common sense, and a very moderate portion of it, to see, that such a combination is out of nature; that it is, in short, impossible; and, that no better reason can be given for a combination amongst millers than for a combination amongst mercers or drapers. Every miller, or seller of flour, is desirous to sell; it is his object to turn his flour into money; as much money as he can get, to be sure; but, he must sell, and, if he will not sell at the price which the price of wheat warrants, his neighbour will, and the former must then come down to his neighbour's price.

How many instances do we see of this daily? Who can doubt, who has either eyes or ears, that every thing of this sort will regulate itself to a hair?

Well, but let us, for sake of argument, allow the possibility of a combination of all the flour-sellers in this island: and, then, let me ask, what they could possibly gain by their combination? More money for their flour, do you imagine? That must be their object, of course; but, that object they could not possibly secure by their combination; unless in a case, where the flour, at a period subsequent to the combination, should be sent out of the country, and to some market wholly new.

Let us suppose, that there are only ten millers in a country, and that, by a combination, they raise the price of flour 10s. a sack, on the first of October. What would be the consequence of that? Why, that less of their flour would be sold, than would be sold, if it were not so dear by 10s. a sack. Supposing it to be 70s. a sack, they would only sell six sacks, where they would have sold seven sacks, if the price had been 60s. a sack; for, their rising their price would not add to the means of purchasing their commodity.

The effect of this would be an accumulation of flour upon hand; and, in the end, they would have in their store-houses more flour than the whole of their capital would answer, flour being made out of an article, which always was, and always must be, a ready-money article.

Where are the millers to find money to keep up such a combination as this? Was there ever a notion more perfectly barbarous?