settled the terms of the petition. Even the next step-that of obtaining signatures-might be taken privately. Sometimes it happened that the first intimation which the bulk of the inhabitants received of the scheme was that the petition had been presented, and that leave to bring in an enclosure Bill had been granted. To prevent so flagrant an abuse, clauses as to notice had been generally inserted in Bills from 1727 onwards. But, in order to secure the necessary publicity of proceedings, the House of Commons in 1774 made it a standing order that notice of the scheme must be affixed to the door of the church of the parish affected, for three Sundays in the months of August or September. Other standing orders corrected other abuses in the procedure. They regulated the payments of the Commissioners, required them to account for all monies assessed or expended by them, restricted the choice of men who could fill the office, limited their powers of dealing with the titles of claimants, and laid down the principle that the allotments to titheowners and lords of manors should be stated in the Bill. At all stages of the proceedings heavy costs were incurred. The fees paid to Parliamentary officials were considerable. If a tract of common land was to be enclosed, over which several parishes claimed rights, fees were charged for each parish. On this ground, partly, the Lincolnshire Reporter explains the delay in enclosing the East and West and Wildmore Fens. Forty-seven parishes were there affected, and the general Act would be charged as fortyseven Acts, with fees in proportion. Witnesses had to attend the Committee of the House of Commons and subsequently of the House of Lords. There might be postponements, delays, and protracted intervals; but the witnesses, often professional men, had either to be maintained in London or to make two or more costly journeys to town. Such an expenditure was generally prohibitive for the opponents of the Bill. Unable to fee lawyers, produce witnesses, or urge their claims in person, they were obliged to content themselves with a counter-petition, which, possibly, might not be referred to the Committee. Nor did the cost cease when the Bill was passed. There were still the expenses of the Commissioners and their clerk; the fees for the surveyor and his survey, and the valuer and his valuation; the charges of the lawyers in proving or contesting claims, preparing the award, and other miscellaneous business; the outlay on roads, gates, bridges, drainage, and other expenditure necessitated by the A GENERAL ENCLOSURE BILL 251 enclosure of the land. Where the area was large, a portion of the land was usually sold to pay the necessary expenses. But the cost of fencing the portions allotted to individuals was thrown upon the owners, and the smaller the allotment, the greater the relative burden. Small men might well hesitate, apart from the uncertainty of proving their title, to support an enclosure scheme, since the value of their allotment might be almost swallowed up in the expense of surrounding it with a hedge. Many small tracts of common land were left unenclosed, because the extravagant cost threatened to absorb the possible profits of the undertaking. A general Enclosure Act would, it was urged, reduce the cost of enclosing small areas, promote uniformity of legislative action by embodying the best methods of procedure and the most requisite safeguards which experience suggested, and provide means for overcoming opposition by modifying the existing powers of resistance. On all these grounds, a Bill was framed by the Board of Agriculture. It was strongly opposed in Parliament.1 Many persons were interested in the continuance of the existing procedure. "What," asks one of the Board's Reporters, "would become of the poor but honest attorney, officers of Parliament, and a long train of etc, etc, who obtain a decent livelihood from the trifling fees of every individual inclosure Bill-all these of infinite use to the community, and must be encouraged whether the wastes be enclosed or not? . . . The waste lands, in the dribbling difficult way they are at present inclosed, will cost the country upwards of 20 millions to these gentry etc. which on a general Inclosure Bill would be done for less than one."2 The first Bill proposed by the Board was rejected mainly through the influence of these private interests. A further attempt was made in May, 1797, when two Bills were introduced. The first was wrecked by the opposition of titheowners. One of the chief advantages of enclosures was that tithes were usually extinguished by an allotment of land in lieu. This commutation of tithe was favoured by the Board, which in consequence incurred the suspicion of being hostile to the Established Church. The House of Lords seems to have been particularly influenced by this view. Though the first of the two Bills passed the Commons, it was rejected in the Upper House. The second Bill did not advance beyond the Committee stage in 1 Arthur Young's Lecture before the Board of Agriculture, May, 1809. 2 Brown's West Riding, App. I., p. 14. the House of Commons. Finally, in 1801, the first General Enclosure Act (41 Geo. III. c. 109) was passed "for consolidating in one Act certain provisions usually inserted in Acts of Inclosure, and for facilitating the mode of proving the several facts usually required on the passing of such Acts." No alteration in the machinery of enclosure was made. Private Acts of Parliament were still required. But they were simplified, and to some extent the expense was reduced. The effect was at once seen in an increase in the number of private Acts and a diminution in the size of the areas which each enclosed. The Act of 1801 was mainly applied to commons. Open-fields were specifically dealt with by subsequent legislation. In 1836, an Act (6 and 7 Wm. IV. c. 115) was passed "for facilitating the inclosure of open and arable fields." It empowered two-thirds of the possessors of open-field rights, in number and value, to nominate commissioners and carry out enclosure; or seven-eighths, in number and value, to enclose without the intervention of commissioners. The debate in Parliament is chiefly noticeable for the stress which, for the first time since the days of Elizabeth, was laid on the desirability of preserving commons as breathing-places and play-grounds. In the Bill itself the point was not really raised. But, as the nineteenth century advanced, this aspect of the question of enclosing commons and wastes became increasingly important. It was prominent in the General Inclosure Act of 1845 (8 and 9 Vic. c. 118). The principal change made in this Act was the substitution of Inclosure Commissioners for the Parliamentary Committee as a local tribunal of enquiry, before which the necessary examination could be conducted on the spot. But Parliamentary control was not abandoned. All the schemes framed by the Commissioners in each given year were embodied in a general Act, and submitted to Parliament for sanction. The administration of the Inclosure Acts is now entrusted to the Board of Agriculture. As a State department, the Board can deal with open-fields and commons on broader lines than the strict interpretation of the statute, which constituted their authority, allowed to the Inclosure Commissioners. SMALL EFFECT OF THE CORN LAWS 253 CHAPTER XII. THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS.1 Difficulty in deciding on the good or bad influence of the Corn Laws; restrictions on home as well as on foreign trade in corn; gradual abandonment of the attempt to secure just prices by legislation; means adopted to steady prices; prohibition both of exports and of imports: the bounty on homegrown corn; the system established in 1670 and 1689 lasts till 1815; its general effect; influence of seasons from 1689 to 1764, and from 1765 to 1815; difficulty of obtaining foreign supplies during the Napoleonic wars; practical monopoly in the home market: small margin of home supply owing to growth of population; exaggerated effect on prices of good or bad harvests; protection after 1815; demand by agriculturists for fair profits; changed conditions of supply; repeal of the Corn Laws, 1846. MEN are apt to pass a hasty judgment on the Corn Laws in accordance with their political prejudices. One party condemns them as mischievous; another party approves them as salutary. Neither troubles to consider their practical effect. Yet, from 1689 to 1815, it is probable that the marked deficiency or abundance of the harvest in any single year produced a greater effect on prices than was produced by the Corn Laws in the 125 years of their existence as a complete system. It is almost impossible to decide whether the total effect of the Corn Laws has been to promote or to retard agricultural progress. Probably the balance of their influence in either direction would be found to be inconsiderable. The utmost nicety of calculation would be required in order to measure with any degree of accuracy the extent to which, before 1815, they affected prices of corn. Before the balance can be correctly struck, the advance in price, which was due to the increased demand consequent on the growth of population and to the gradual depreciation of gold and silver, must be discounted; the fall in price, which resulted from economy in the cost and increase in the yield of production, must be 1 See Appendix III. 1 eliminated; an explanation must be offered of the facts that in England, during the seventeenth century, wheat averaged only a halfpenny the bushel cheaper than during the eighteenth century,1 and that the general prices of Europe, under different fiscal systems, did not, during the period, materially differ from those of England. Still more difficult would it be to determine whether, taken as a whole and over the entire period of their existence, they have benefited or injured consumers, so far as these can be distinguished from producers. If they aggravated evils in some directions, they compensated them in others. Whatever else the legislation effected, it did, except during the last few years of its operation, steady prices, and to consumers steadiness was perhaps as great a boon as a spasmodic cheapness which alternated with excessive dearness. At a time when England was practically dependent on home-grown supplies, prices of corn were extravagantly sensitive to fluctuations in the yield of harvests. The reason is obvious. Average harvests provided bread enough for the population; but there was often little margin to spare. A partial failure, therefore, meant the prospect of dearth, if not of famine. In prolonged periods of scarcity, like that of the Napoleonic wars, our ancestors might pass self-denying ordinances to reduce their domestic consumption by one-third, dispense with flour for their own wigs or the hair of their lackeys, substitute clay imitations for the pastry of their pies, forbid the sale of bread till it was twenty-four hours old, prohibit the use of corn in the making of starch or in distilleries. Yet, in the case of a necessary like corn, it was impossible to exercise such economies as would make good any considerable shortage. Hence corn, when a deficient harvest was anticipated, was specially liable to panic-stricken competition. Any falling off in the annual yield caused a far greater advance in price than was justified by the actual shortage. Somewhat similar, though less exaggerated, was the effect of an anticipated abundance. The fall in price was wholly disproportionate to the real surplus. These violent alternations between dearness and cheapness, if they had not been steadied and regulated by the legislature, would have been disastrous to both consumers and producers. Beginning in the early Middle Ages, and ending in 1869, the English Corn Laws lasted for upwards of six centuries. Attention 1 Seventeenth century, 38s. 2d. the quarter; eighteenth century, 38s. 7d. the quarter (Arthur Young's Progressive Value of Money, p. 76). |