2

2

The Revolution meant the triumph of the line of policy advocated by the Whigs. And their steady adherence to this line of policy achieved much. "That the Whigs made grievous mistakes is true, but it is also true that the main object they had at heart was achieved to an extraordinary extent during the period when they were in power. At the time of the Civil War, English industry was but little developed, and English agriculture was very backward. When the Wealth of Nations was published, both had advanced enormously." Obviously it was this progress which made it possible, during the latter part of the eighteenth century, to take full advantage of those mechanical inventions which produced the Industrial Revolution. And the economic policy pursued by the Whigs accentuated the political effects of the Revolution. We have seen that the 1 Revolution, by diminishing the power of the crown, gave a larger measure of economic freedom. The industrial development, consequent on the Whig policy, increased it. Both before and after the Revolution it was the individual capitalist or the joint stock company which had done most to develop native industry; and, as it developed, it tended more and more to be 3 organized upon a capitalistic basis. From this three important results flowed, which will in future cause large modifications of legal doctrines and rules. In the first place, the older regulations, designed to secure skill in the workman and quality in the article produced, gradually became obsolete. They could not be applied easily to industries thus organized; and the capitalist could be trusted to supervise these matters, as the success of his business depended upon the adequacy of his supervision. In the second place, those engaged in industry tended to become less and less independent workmen, and more and more wage earners. In the third place, the rapid development of our modern commercial law," which originated in and was adapted to a system of commerce and industry organized on this basis, was assured.

5

We shall now see that these new developments are to some extent reflected in the legislation affecting some of the more domestic branches of commerce and industry.

1" During the period of Whig ascendency, the economic policy of the country became a thorough-going imitation of the principles of Louis XIV.'s great minister Colbert, though they were put into effect, not by royal mandates as in France, but by Parliamentary legislation," Cunningham, op. cit. ii 406. 3 Above 333.

2 Ibid 601.

Child, A Discourse of Trade (1694) 148, 149; Cunningham, op. cit. ii 511-512
Ibid ii 496-498.

514-515.

6 Pt. II. c. 4.

(4) Agriculture, the prices of food, and wages.

That the prosperity of agriculture was a condition precedent to the prosperity of all other branches of commerce and industry was as firmly and as universally held in this period as in the last.1 "The encouragement of tillage," it was said in the preamble to a statute of 1663,2 "ought to be in an especial manner regarded and endeavoured, and the surest and effectualest means of promoting and advancing any trade occupation or mystery being by rendering it profitable to the users thereof." All through this period, therefore, agriculture had a large measure of protection and encouragement from the legislature; agricultural methods were improved, with the result that the area of land under cultivation was enlarged; and, as a result, we see that the tendency, which had begun in the preceding period, to put capital into the land, and to treat farming as a business to be run for profit, made considerable progress. I shall examine the course and effects of the legislation upon agriculture under these three heads.

(i) The legislature aimed at so stimulating the agricultural industry that it could produce a sufficient food supply for the nation. With that object in view it, in the first place, protected it from foreign competition. Thus it imposed an import duty on corn in 1660,* in 16635 it imposed duties upon fatted cattle and sheep imported, in 1666o it prohibited the import of such cattle and declared such import to be a common nuisance, and in 16671668' it increased the penalties for the infringement of the Act of 1666. By a statute of 1680 the statute of 1666 was made perpetual; and it was provided that no butter or cheese should be imported from Ireland. But it was necessary to do more than this. The farmers who grew corn must be protected from being obliged to sell at unprofitable prices if the harvest was too abundant for the needs of the nation, because, if they were thus ruined and let land go out of cultivation, the effects of a year of scarcity would be aggravated. To obviate this danger the legislature had, in 1660, allowed the export of certain food-stuffs when the price did not exceed a certain amount. In 1663 more elaborate provisions were made as to the conditions under which the export of grain was to be permitted. If its price did not exceed certain

1 Vol. iv 362 seqq.

215 Charles II. c. 7—the grammar is a little odd, though the meaning is unmistakable.

7

412 Charles II. c. 4.
6 18, 19 Charles II. c. 2 § 1.

19, 20 Charles II. c. 12; § 9 of the Act made those who conspired to evade it liable to the penalties of the statute of Præmunire.

932 Charles II. c. 2.

12 Charles II. c. 4 § 11-the enumerated commodities were wheat, rye, peas, beans, barley, malt, oats, pork, bacon, butter, cheese, and candles.

2

rates, specified in the Act, it could be exported, paying customs duties; and if it were imported, when the price was at these specified rates, it must pay an import duty. Further, when these specified rates prevailed, grain could be bought and stored in granaries, notwithstanding the law as to forestalling and regrating, provided that there was no attempt to forestall the market, or to sell the grain so bought in the same market within three months from its purchase. In 1670, the prices, on the attainment of which export was allowed, were raised, and the duties payable on import were rearranged on a sliding scale which fell as the price increased. The same Act provided also for the raising of the prices, on the attainment of which the other commodities mentioned in the Act of 16603 could be exported. In 1690,1 partly in consequence of the prohibition of all French imports, the distillation of spirits from corn was encouraged, and its export was allowed-a liberty considerably restricted in 1698,5 in order that the price of corn might not be unduly raised.

It is clear that the object of all this legislation was so to regulate the various branches of the agricultural industry, that it should be able to produce abundant food supply at reasonable prices. In furtherance of this policy a new step was taken in 1689. The export of corn was encouraged by a bounty when the price fell to a certain level. The adherence to this policy, in Dr. Cunningham's opinion, had the results which its authors expected. "By promoting the growth of corn to serve as a commodity for export in favourable seasons, a motive was brought into play for growing as much as would meet the home consumption in unfavourable years."7 This policy had of course its political aspect. We have seen that the Whig policy of encouraging the growth of native industries by protection, tended to diminish the customs revenue, and so to throw a greater fiscal burden on the land. The results of this bounty system, by ensuring the prosperity of agriculture, helped the landed proprietors to bear this burden. Further, it enabled the country to support the increase in population to which the progress of native industries gave rise. From this point of view it had an effect similar to

8

115 Charles II. c. 7 §§ 1-3.

222 Charles II. c. 13; 1 James II. c. 19 provided a machinery for ascertaining the prices on the basis of which the import duty was payable. In 1698, owing to its being a time of scarcity, the export of corn and certain other food-stuffs was prohibited for a year; but the king was given power to permit the export of corn by proclamation if the price decreased.

3 Above 342 n. 9.

5 10 William III. c. 4.

42 William and Mary sess. 2 c. 9.
"I William and Mary c. 12.

7 Op. cit. ii 541; he points out, ibid, that the bounty "was continued with suspensions in the four famine years of 1698, 1709, 1740, and 1757."

8 Above 339-340.

the effect produced by the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. But, unlike that measure, it attained this result by ensuring the prosperity both of agriculture and of industrial development. The belief in the necessarily beneficent action of the free play of economic forces, had not yet relieved statesmen from the labour of considering the probable effects upon national strength of their commercial and industrial legislation.

(ii) We have seen that, towards the close of the preceding period, the agitation against that species of inclosure which converted arable into pasture had died down.1 We have seen that it had died down mainly because the increased gain to be made from arable farming had caused the large inclosures, which at the beginning of the sixteenth century threatened to depopulate the country, to be no longer profitable. On the other hand, that species of enclosure which tended to improve the productiveness of the land either (a) by getting rid of the common field system of cultivation, or (b) by draining and developing parts of the country which had never been cultivated, continued to progress.3

(a) It is probable that the inclosures which were made to get rid of the common field system of cultivation did not proceed at so rapid a rate as in the eighteenth century. We have seen that between 1607 and 1692 no inclosure Act was passed, and that such Acts do not become common till George II.'s reign.* In 1664 an attempt was made to pass a bill " to inclose and improve commons and waste lands"; but it failed. On the other hand, it is probable that this species of inclosure proceeded continuously by agreement among the shareholders in the common fields. Suits to enforce or to confirm such agreements were in this period often brought before the court of Chancery; and, if the agreement were proved, the court would decree its specific performance, even though all the parties to the agreement were not parties to the suit. Apparently in some cases the court was prepared to make a decree, even though all the shareholders

2 Ibid.

1 Vol. iv 368. 3 Gonner, Common Land and Inclosure 154-" Inclosure continued steadily throughout the seventeenth century, and the inclosures of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were no new phenomena but the natural completion of a great continuous movement."

5 Gonner, op. cit. 56.

4 Vol. iv 368 n. 10. "A large body of evidence as to inclosures and their distribution, mainly affecting the latter part of the century, lies in the Chancery Enrolled Decrees, where cases of inclosure suits and agreements occur in large numbers," Gonner, op. cit. 167-168. 7 Thirveton v. Collier (1664) 3 Ch. Rep. 13, 14-It appeared that there were to be 03 eighteen allotments and that there were only fifteen parties to the suit, "Decreed nevertheless, that the agreement for the inclosure should be performed; and a commission then was awarded to set out each person's lot; and the Court said, that if there were any that had interest, and were not parties to the agreement, they could not be bound by the decree, and so at no prejudice: and however that it should not be in the power of one or two wilful persons to oppose a publick good."

concerned had not agreed. A bill was introduced into the House of Lords in 1666 to confirm these decrees, but it failed; 2 and in 1689 and 1706 the court laid it down that it had no power to coerce any but the parties to an agreement. It was probably the difficulty of arriving at, or of proving, an agreement that made it clear that a private Act of Parliament was the only effectual method of procedure."

(b) All through this period the process of reclaiming waste land proceeded. Elaborate Acts of Parliament provided for the draining of Bedford level," Deeping Fenn in Lincolnshire, and Sedgmore. It is fairly clear, therefore, that the progress of the kinds of inclosure which improved the fertility of the soil was by no means stopped during this period. It is true that we hear less about inclosure than in the sixteenth, or in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. But this is probably due to the fact that, on the whole, it caused less hardship than it did in the earlier or the later period. It did not, as in the earlier period, depopulate the country, and it was more possible in this period, than in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for a small holder to live from his holding. 10 But this introduces us to our third head-the tendency to treat farming as a business run for profit.

(iii) We have seen that in the preceding period capital had been applied to agriculture, and that in many cases farming was

This seems to be hinted at in the case cited in the last note; and considering the nature of the distribution of strips in the common fields it is difficult to see how any sort of inclosure could be made without prejudicing those not parties to the agreement; see Gonner, op. cit. 168; he says that these decrees were used, not only to bind a minority, but also third persons who might be ignorant of the proceedings"that this was illegal is clearly stated by the author of the legal text book on the Law of Commons and Commoners (1698), but his language leaves no doubt as to its occurrence."

2 Gonner, op. cit. 56.

Delabeere v. Beddingfield (1689) 2 Vern. 103-where a distinction, as to the power of the court to override a minority, was drawn between an agreement to stint à common and an agreement to inclose.

4 Bruges v. Curwin (1706) 2 Vern. 575-where the court denied that it could override a minority in the case of an agreement to stint a common.

Gonner, op. cit. 168.

615 Charles II. c. 17; for the earlier history of this undertaking see Scott, Joint Stock Companies ii 352-356.

716, 17 Charles II. c. II.

8 10 William III c. 15.

Child, A Discourse of Trade (1694) 192 can speak of, " great improvements made this last sixty years upon breaking up and enclosing of wastes forrests and parks, and draining of the fens, and all those places inhabited and furnished with husbandry."

19 The conditions determining the effect of eighteenth century inclosure on small farms were largely wanting (in earlier centuries). Capital was not so great a necessity. Facilities in transport were lacking. The inclosure was less exacting in its demands for improvement or expensive hedging by those concerned, and also less costly in itself. While lastly, the small holder was less likely to be tempted to sell," Gonner, op. cit. 375.