Cernuschi, M. Michael Chevalier et le Bi-métallisme, | bouring years, was followed by a great decrease Silver Vindicated, The Bland Bill, Bi-metallism in England and Abroad, Bi-metallism at 15 a Necessity, The Monetary Conference, The Bi-metallic Par, London, various dates, etc. Mémoire sur le Bi-métallisme International et le moyen juste de la réaliser, W. F. Rochussen, La Haye, 1891.-Le Problème Monétaire et sa solution par G. M. Boissevain, Paris and Amsterdam, 1891, translated by G. T. Warner, The Monetary Question, London, 1891. Also Journals of Statistical Society, London, Institute of Bankers, London, Economist, London, Economiste Français, Paris, passim; many detached articles and pamphlets by W. Bagehot, P. Leroy Beaulieu, O. Haupt, Prof. H. Sidgwick, Mr. R. Giffen, etc. The number of writings on this subject has, in general, restricted the reference given above to one of the works of the authors named.]

BIRTH-RATE means generally the ratio which the number of births per annum bears to the number of persons in the population under consideration. The rate thus defined depends largely on another rate which has been called fecundity, and has been defined as the ratio which the number of births per annum bears to the number of persons of reproductive age, or of women of reproductive age (say 15-45); or of married persons, or wives only, of that age (see Bertillon, "Mouvement de la Population in Annales de Démographie, vol. i. ; also Quetelet, Physique Sociale, bk. ii. § 6). Some of these relations are illustrated by the accompanying table which shows the average annual births per 1000 in the kingdom of Bavaria (1871-1872). It is taken from Mayr's Die Gesetzmässigkeit in Gesellschaftsleben, p. 244. (Decimals have been omitted.)

""

Fixing attention on legitimate births, we may regard the birth-rate as depending chiefly on two factors: (a) the ratio which the number of married persons of reproductive age bears to the general population, and (b) the ratio which the number of births per annum bears to the number of married persons of reproductive age. The first factor (a) varies with the number of newly married persons; this varies with prosperity, which (in many countries) varies with the price of bread. Accordingly it has often been observed that bad harvests are followed by a decline in the birth-rate and vice versa. Thus the year 1817, in which the price of corn in Belgium rose to twice the average of the neigh

of births. Other instances are referred to by Quetelet (Physique Sociale, bk. ii. § 6) and Haushofer (Lehr- und Handbuch der Statistik). The Swedish statistics, extending over more than a century, have been arranged in such a way as to bring out the connection between good or bad harvests with many or few marriages and births (see Journal of the Statistical Society, 1862, vol. xxv., p. 140, "Vital Statistics of Sweden," by Mr. Hendriks' Table A ; ib. 1885, opening address of Sir Rawson Rawson, p. 586). When several good or several bad harvests come together the effect is conspicuous in the case of Sweden. But this law is not universal. It cannot be traced in the case of the United Kingdom of late years (see Journ. Stat. Soc., 1890, p. 257 et seq.) and in other cases where the price wheat is not the main factor of prosperity. (b) The fecundity of marriages depends partly on the age of the parties. This subject has been discussed by Dr. Ogle (Journ. Stat. Soc., 1890, p. 275), who shows that, to cause a sensible alteration in the birth-rate, a very considerable displacement of ages would be required. That other causes beside age are operative is evidenced by the fact that in France and New England the age of marriage is not remarkably late, while the fecundity is remarkably small (see the table at the end of this article). Among causes which may affect the fecundity of marriages are climate and food. These and other causes are discussed by many of the authorities cited here.

As to the consequences of variations in the birth-rate the most obvious is the tendency of population to increase more rapidly when the birth-rate is high (and vice versa). But this tendency may be counteracted by a high deathrate. That a high birth-rate is not a consequence of a high death-rate, though to some extent causally connected therewith, is maintained by Dr. Noel Humphreys in the Journal of the Statistical Society, 1874. The two phenomena frequently co-exist. Thus the statistics of the Austrian empire compiled by Hain (Statistik des Österreichischen Kaiserstaats, 1852-3) exhibit birth-rates, marriage-rates, and death-rates varying concurrently. Moving through the provinces along a line in a southeasterly direction you would find the three factors constantly increasing together. The increase of the population (the natural increment, abstracting the effects of emigration and immigration), is therefore not in general proportionate to the birth-rate. Thus the birth-rate of Russia for the period 1865-1883, viz. 4.94 per 100 living, was much greater than the birth-rate for England and Wales, viz. 3.51; yet the annual excess of births over deaths per cent of the whole population was the same for the two countries, viz. 1.37 (see table subjoined). The natural increment for England

BIUNDI-BLACK DEATH

first was much the most destructive-August | gregations" to which we find allusion in later

1348 to summer1349; August 1361 to May 1362; July 1368 to Michaelmas 1369. The period during which Europe was devastated by this plague was remarkable for the occurrence of great natural convulsions such as earthquakes, with which contemporary opinion attempted to connect it causally, and for other pestilences, attacks of which took place in 1370, 1381-82, 1396. Of its nature many descriptions remain (Hecker, Epidemics of the Middle Ages). Whilst the name it bore in England was derived from one of its symptoms, its terrible destructiveness won it its Italian title of La mortalaga grande (Hecker, p. 2).

statutes (e.g. 1 Rich. II. c. 6). To a people thus placed the loss of a very large portion of the working population could not but be of the utmost gravity. The force of the economic laws of supply and demand in relation to wages began to make itself felt. There was a demand for much higher wages and an inclination to enforce this demand by combination on the part of the labourers, while the landowners on their side found themselves in need of labour as before, but unable to obtain it at the old rates. The payments which they received in lieu of labour services were insufficient for the hire of the labourers who might perform these services. As a matter of fact, this had naturally tended to be the case even before, but if it had been so before how much more was it the case now. In one instance the tenant paid in commutation

received 3d. (Archæologia xi.)

It is of some importance when examining its economic effects to attempt to ascertain the extent of the mortality which it occasioned. This is very differently estimated. The loss of life in Europe has been roughly reckoned atd. while the labourer who performed the work 25,000,000 (Hecker). While, with regard to England, accounts nearly contemporary give estimates which cannot but be regarded as exaggerations, e.g. Adam of Usk reckons the survivors as but one-tenth of the previous population. In more recent times attempts have been made to found conclusions on such statistical data as may be still extant. Arguing from the clergy lists, Mr. Seebohm places the number of deaths as at least one-half. He assumes that the rate of mortality among the clergy was not exceptional. Taking then an estimate of the population living in 1377, drawn from the receipts of the poll tax in that year, he conIcludes that those who died numbered some two millions and a half (Fortnightly Review, vol. ii. pp. 149, 268). On the other hand Professor ROGERS, having regard to the quantity of wheat consumed, considers that the loss of life was by no means so great. It is possible, however, that this conclusion does not allow sufficiently for the other cereals which entered into the consumption of the great body of the people; and the data on which it rests seem less certain than those by which Mr. Seebohm was guided (Fortnightly Review, vol. iii. p. 191). But whether the one or the other estimate be accepted, there can be no doubt that a very great loss of life was the consequence of the Black Death. Equally there is no doubt as to the magnitude and critical importance of the economic change which it was instrumental in producing.

For some time there had been in operation two processes of widely differing tendency. By slow but certain degrees fixed money payments were being substituted for the labour rents or services originally due from the tenants to the lord of the manor. Disproportion between the money payment and the services had been manifesting itself. It was to ensure the continuance of the former substitution that the tenants began to form those" alliances" and "con

But now legislation intervened. Hitherto rates of wage, when determined, had been settled in the manorial courts, or by CORPORATIONS and GILDS, but wages form the subject of the royal ordinance of 1349 (23 Edward III.) enacting "that all able-bodied servants should serve their lords, or if not required by them, any one so requiring them at the same wages as were usual before the plague." There seems little room for doubt as to the immediate connection in which this ordinance stands towards the Black Death. But legislation was ineffectual. Wages did not diminish; even before the pestilence they had been gradually increasing, and the landowners were driven to seek a new remedy. They made the endeavour to revert to the old system of labour rents. Commuted service on the land was to be done away with, and the practice of earlier centuries was once more to be followed, but now to be followed by those who regarded its introduction as an innovation. In some instances indeed it would appear that attempts were made at illegal exaction, for we find the customary tenants appealing as against their landlords to the record of DOMESDAY. The whole country was thrown into a condition of economic disorder, for the tendency toward resistance was fanned by the efforts of the friars who carried the news from shire to shire, playing the part of the newsagents of discontent. So matters stood just before the rising in 1381. Demands were made with increasing persistence for the reduction of the money payments; the landowners on their side, finding even these payments insufficient, were striving to return to the system under which the various classes of tenants had to perform service in person or by substitute; while in the third place the long French wars had increased the burden of taxation under which the nation was groaning. The universality with which these three causes

BLACK DEATH-BLANC

were felt, and the part which the friars played | in enabling the inhabitants of the various districts to enter into communication with one another, explain the PEASANT'S REVOLT, 1381. The incidents of the rebellion and the mode in which it was met and the means by which it was suppressed are matters of political history. What were the consequences of the rising? During the struggle the rebels had destroyed many of the manor rolls, showing most clearly their desire of blotting out all record of the service which might be exacted from them; and despite the revocation of the royal grants made to them, their demand in this direction was substantially conceded. The practice of commutation was adhered to. In addition it is probable that the money payments, which even before the Black Death had been diminished, on many estates underwent reduction. Thus the second means of dealing with the economic consequences occasioned chiefly by the mortality owing to the pestilence had failed, and economic

The

153

tected by § 8 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875 (38 & 39 Vict. c. 86), which enacts that a person who for the purpose of preventing a lawful act (1) uses violence or intimidation; (2) persistently follows the person concerned from place to place; (3) hides his tools or other property; (4) watches his house or the place in which he works; (5) follows him in the company of others in a disorderly manner through a street, is liable to a fine of £20 or to imprisonment for three months with or without hard labour (see STRIKES).

E. S.

BLAIRIE, DRoit de. A right of the French lords to exact payment for leave to graze on open or waste lands within their territories. This right only existed in provinces regulated by droit coutumier.

[De Tocqueville, France before the Revolution (London, 1873), note lxxvii.]

R. L.

BLAKE, WILLIAM, F.R.S.; author of— Observations on the Principles which regulate the Course of Exchange, and on the Present De

Observations on the Effects produced by the Expenditure of Government during the Restriction of Cash Payments (London, 1823); and of Observations in reply to a Pamphlet by the Rev. Richard Jones, on the Assessment of Tithes to the Poors' Rate (London, 1839).

laws asserted their strength. There were, how-preciated State of the Currency (London, 1810); ever, results consequent on the failure of these two attempts at interference. The system of cultivation had depended for its profit on the existence of a large body of cheap labour. value of labour had been enhanced by no cause more effectually than the diminution in the supply. From this time we may date the change from arable to pasture which assumed such great proportions in the 16th century. The last stage of the medieval system of cultivation was beginning.

It is somewhat difficult to determine the exact importance of the Black Death in bringing about the change. As we have seen, causes were already in operation which tended toward change; but that change was undoubtedly precipitated by the great and sudden loss of life endured by the nation in the middle of the 14th century. This then is the reason why the Black Death deserves so much attention on the part of the economic student. The causes of the events clustering around it display the strength of economic forces; the attempts at regulation, the uselessness of ignorant interference; and in its consequences we find the causes of the peculiar development of AGRICULTURE IN ENGLAND in the Tudor period. [Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices.Nasse, Ueber die mittelalterliche Feldgemeinschaft und die Einhegungen des 16 Jahrhundert in England. -Denton, W., England in the Fif teenth Century.-W. von Ochenkowski, Englands wirthschaftliche Entwickelung im Ausgange des Mittelalters.-Fortnightly Review, vols. ii. iii. iv. (1865-66).-Hecker, Epidemics of the Middle Ages. -Barnes, History of Edward III.] E. C. K. G.

F. Y. E.

BLANC, JEAN JOSEPH LOUIS, born at Madrid, 1813, died at Cannes, 1882. His first work for some years after the Revolution of 1830 was in journalism; he wrote in Le Progrès du Pas-de-Calais and in La Revue démocratique, then in La Nouvelle Minerve, all republican journals. Afterwards he became chief editor of Le Bon Sens, and then founded La Revue du progrès social, in which appeared, in the year 1839, the articles which, collected and extended, formed the volume entitled L'Organisation du travail, which made the reputation of Louis Blanc as leader of the socialist school. He afterwards employed his unquestioned talent as a writer on two works, the one, Histoire de dix ans, a pamphlet in five volumes, assuming a historic form, and directed against the monarchy of July; the other, Histoire de la révolution française, three volumes of which had appeared when the Revolution of February 1848 broke out. Elected a member of the provisional government, as he could not obtain the formation of a "ministère du progrès," he was "Commission de appointed president of a gouvernement pour les travailleurs," which he established in the palace of the Luxembourg in the Chamber of Peers. This commission was composed of delegates from the working classes, supported from outside by 100,000 bayonets. BLACKLEG. (1) A card-sharper or forger; In its discussions he put forward with a too (2) a person who works for an employer whose feverish eloquence, considering what the characregular workmen are out on strike. These ter of his audience, and of the unsettled period persons are often exposed to great annoyance then passing, was, the most revolutionary from the strikers, but they are somewhat pro- | and socialistic ideas. This did not hinder