same period, it is necessary to suppose that an increasing number of young persons have annually migrated from the country parishes to seek for more profitable employment in commercial towns. Such migrations are continually taking place, and they would, of course, be promoted by a brisk demand for manufacturing labour. Another circumstance requires to be taken into consideration. The number of persons in a family is found to be now somewhat greater than it was in 1700: at that time, it was only 41-12; at present it is very nearly five. On this computation, the number of persons in the ten counties,

in 1600 will be 1,061,917

in 1801

1,215,945

an increase in our agricultural population, of only fourteen per cent (notwithstanding the increase of births) in 112 years; viz. from 1688 to 1800. 'What then,' Mr. Barton asks,' becomes of the doctrine which ascribes the depreciation of husbandry labour in modern times, to an excess of people?'

It will have been observed, that a decrease in the number of houses has not taken place in all the ten agricultural counties, but chiefly in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire. In Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Sussex, there has taken place a considerable increase, for which it might not be difficult to account, were we to examine the bistory of those counties, by the extension of manufacturing industry, the growth of particular towns, and, with regard to the last mentioned county, the increasing demand for houses on the sea coast. As no county has its whole surface occupied by agriculture, and as a very considerable proportion of the manufacturing counties, is devoted to husbandry, it is obviously impossible to come at any precise results with respect to the relative increase of the population in agricultural and in manufacturing districts. There is one circumstance, however, which ought not to be overlooked in inquiring into the causes of a redundant population, because it serves to explain, at least in some measure, the remarkable decrease of the number of houses in those counties in which the population is perhaps more entirely agricultural; we allude to the system of large furms, which has been so rapidly gaining ground during the latter part of the last century. The immense economy of labour which forms in the view of some writers the chief recommendation of this system, and the extensive use of machinery by which human labour has been still further superseded, have obviously tended to produce an excess of population quite irrespectively of an increase in the number of births. Houses and villages have vanished in consequence of the all-absorbing monopoly of large apitalists in many districts, the work of depopulation has proceeded to a frightful extent. It is, indeed, still going forward.

The landed proprietors, looking only to the augmentation of their revenues, find it answer their purpose better, to throw two or three farms into one, and to look out for a tenant whose capital may enable him to cultivate the whole at a saving of expense that shall admit of his paying individually a higher rent than the two or three former tenants whom he displaces, could make up together. As the profits of tillage are lessened by the fall of prices, more and more arable land of inferior quality will be thrown out of cultivation. The quantity of land which has been laid down during the last few years, has been, in some counties, very considerable. This is a further step in the retrograde process by which an artificial excess in the population has been produced, that must inevitably augment the sum of pauperism. So long as the surplus labour of the country could find a market in the manufacturing towns, so long as there was commercial capital enough in active operation to absorb it, and the demand for the produce of manufacturing industry continued sufficient to keep all the vast machinery in motion, the gradual but not the less fatal consequences of agricultural monopoly, were not felt; the war, too, operating as a convenient drain for the redundant population, prevented our suffering the natural effects of this mischievous system. But now that the waste of human life is suspended, and our commerce is no longer adequate to take off the hands of the productive labourer the work he is able to furnish, and our towns are ready to disgorge back upon the country the population with which they have been glutted,→ now, all at once, the effect has come upon us in the fearful shape of an excess of people, the cause of which is unperceived or denied. What has more directly contributed to produce that excess in agricultural counties, than the destruction of small farms and the boasted economy of human labour, which has alienated from the soil so large numbers of the peasantry?

The true cause of the depreciation of country labour, is, not an excess of population, but, Mr. Barton contends, the general enhancement of the money price of commodities, unattended by an equal advance in the money price of labour. This rise of prices is common to all European countries; it has originated in the increased productiveness of the American mines, occasioning a fall in the value of the precious metals, which form the standard of value.

But the rise has been greater in England than in most other parts of the world, because the vast improvement of skill, and extensive use of machinery among our manufacturers, has enabled us to purchase the precious metals at a cheaper rate than other nations. If we, by twenty days' labour, can produce a piece of cloth which in France requires thirty days' labour, we can purchase gold and sil ver one third cheaper than the French.-Money, therefore, is one

third cheaper on one side of the channel than on the other; and with regard to those commodities which in their production do not admit of the application of the same improved skill and machinery,-which cost as much manual toil in one country as in the other, they of course exchange for more gold or silver here than in France; that is, they are dearer.' pp. 53, 54.

The Writer then proceeds to shew how this dearness arising from an increased abundance of gold and silver, gradually spreads over the various productions of human industry. As the subject is highly interesting, and the passage is not susceptible of abridgement, we shall give it in his own words.

In the first place, then, it is to be observed that the precious metals are brought into this country solely by the progress of commerce.They arrive chiefly from Spain and Portugal, or their colonies, for in those colonies are comprised the most productive mines in the world. When a new vein of extraordinary fertility is discovered, a new demand is created for our goods, because the possessors of that vein have acquired new means wherewithal to purchase all kinds of conveniences and gratifications. Perhaps too, additional tools and implements are required from England for the working of the ore.In return for the various commodities and implements thus exported, we receive of course remittances in gold or silver;-such remittances forming at once the most obvious, the most convenient, and the most profitable mode of repayment; inasmuch as those metals are at once the natural produce of the country whence they are sent, and as they may be brought over in increased quantity without very materially lessening their value; whereas if Buenos Ayres should send hither an extraordinary quantity of hides, or New Spain of indigo and tobacco, the supply of those commodities at market would exceed the demand, and they could not be disposed of except at a reduction of price.

Thus the discovery of a new gold mine in Brazil causes an acces sion of demand for all articles of British manufacture suited to the Brazilian market. This accession of demand raises the price of those goods, and enhances the profits of the persons concerned in their production,-until the gradual transfer of capital from other employments, by creating an increased competition, again reduces those profits to the ordinary level.-In the mean time a new demand slowly and insensibly arises for all articles of home consumption, on the part of the various merchants, manufacturers, and artizans connected with the South American trade.-The increased gains of the commercial classes, the increased sum paid for wages in all these departments of industry, enable the workman as well as his employer to consume a greater quantity of all the necessaries and conveniences of life; and this new demand slowly raises the price of every commodity intended for domestic use. It must not be supposed that all kinds of goods are immediately enhanced in value by an influx of the precious metals. It is only by a gradual process that those metals are distributed among the different classes of the community, and come to influence the price of all sorts of productions.As by the operation of foreign commerce alone they are brought into the country, so it is

by the operation of internal trade alone that they are gradually diffused among the people. The different productions of industry successively rise as the demand for them is successively enlarged: exportable conf modities rise first, because they are wanted by the possessors of the mines;-articles of domestic use rise afterwards, because they are wanted by the manufacturers. An abundance of money can only raise the value of any commodity in so far as it adds to the demand for that commodity: the farmer, when he carries his corn to market, does not inquire whether the productiveness of the mines is increasing or decreasing-nor does any man consent to give an advanced price for a loaf of bread simply because he learns that fresh importations of specie have taken place. The ordinary transactions of life are not influenced by such fine-spun speculations. The seller obtains the most he can get; and the purchaser buys as cheap as he is able. The proportion borne by the effective demand at any particular time to the actual supply at market, is the sole cause which immediately regulates, in every case, the price of commodities ;-it is only by altering the terms of this proportion that an abundance of the precious metals affects indirectly the value of the different productions of human industry; it is only as those productions are in their turn sought for by an increased number of purchasers, that they participate in the general enhancement of prices.

It will now be apparent, perhaps, why the wages of husbandry labour have not risen in proportion with the expense of subsistence. The superior rate of profit obtainable in commercial employments, while an influx of money is taking place, by drawing away all surplus capital from the land, prevents the cultivator from taking into pay an additional number of workmen, and so hinders the demand for labour from keeping pace, as it naturaily ought to do, with the demand for the produce of labour. Were it not for this scarcity of capital, the increased consumption of food in the manufacturing districts would operate as a powerful stimulus on cultivation-the farmer or proprietor of the soil would be induced by the high price of agricultural produce to raise a larger quantity, either by bringing new land under the plough, or by improving that already in tillage. A more abun dant supply of provisions being thus brought to market, their price would be somewhat reduced; while on the other hand the necessity of employing an additional number of hands in carrying into effect the newly undertaken improvements, would somewhat enhance the rate of wages:-so that between one and the other an equilibriuni would be restored between the price of labour and the expense of subsistence. But when capital is scarce, and money hardly obtain. able at the legal rate of interest, few persons are willing to lend upon a security so little transferable as landed property; or, as it is often expressively termed, to lock up money on mortgage. However much, therefore, the cultivator of the soil may be tempted by the high price of corn to enlarge the sphere of his operations, he is for the most part compelled to restrict those operations within the limited scope of his own capital; and his projected improvements are necessarily laid aside. The extra hands which he would have employed in those improvements remaining unoccupied, the supply of disposeable

labour in the market is not lessened, and of course the rate of wages does not rise. The additional sum which a bushel of corn obtains in the market, instead of being equally divided between the labourer and his employer, falls exclusively to the share of the latter.

It is not till the level is in some measure restored between agricultural profits and commercial profits, that husbandry labour, be gins to advance. When corn sells so high as to raise the gains of the grower to an equality with those of the manufacturer, or the foreign merchant, a portion of capital may be drawn back to the cultivation of the soil; this will necessarily create a new demand for country labour, and enhance its value. It is to be observed, however, that the rise of wages thus slowly brought about, by no means compensates for the rise of provisions : it follows only at a long interval, and in a much inferior degree. An influx of money, therefore, always enriches the farmer, while it depresses the condition of the labourer: — a new division of the produce of industry takes place, to the advantage of the employer, and the loss of this workman. Nor is it only in agriculture that this change becomes sensible. In all departments of industry, unconnected with foreign trade, the same operation may be traced: thus the condition of common artificers. bricklayers, carpenters, masons, plumbers, and the like, is affected by a fall in the value of money just in the same manner with the condition of the country labourer. The same observation may be extended to some branches of manufacture, where the article produced is destined entirely for home consumption: thus the wages of the silk weavers in Spitalfields, and of the shawl weavers at Norwich, have not, if I am rightly informed, advanced in equal proportion with the expense of subsistence. pp. 55-60.

That the depreciation of labour as measured by commodities, (for the money price has not fallen,) has arisen from the depreciated value of the circulating medium, is not a novel opinion: Mr. Barton has, however, succeeded in throwing a stronger light upon the fact. He shews that the fluctuations of wages during three centuries, from the reign of Henry VII. to the present day, (a period comprising three remarkable changes in the value of money,) agree perfectly with the theory; that in 1495, previously to the discovery of the American mines, a labourer earned per week a sum equal.in value to 199 pints of wheat; that during the sixteenth century, when the influx of the precious metals quadrupled the prices of commodities, the earnings of the labourer fell to 82 pints of wheat; and in 1610, they had further declined to 46 pints, at about which rate they continued in the middle of the seventeenth century. From this era, the annual produce of the mines having ceased to increase, while the extension of commerce and the growth of luxury required annually an additional supply, the price of corn began to decline, continuing to fall progressively till the middle of the last century. During the same period, husbandry wages consequently advanced from 48