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THE EFFECTS OF

CHAP. XX.

the community ; which is more copiously and re-gularly supplied with all the products of the soil,and on more advantageous terms, than by anyother known system.

If the mere labourers in agriculture be lookedat, it is to be feared that their condition will notappear to have been benefited by the great advanceof prices. The rates of wages to day labourersdo not seem to have risen in the same proportionas the necessaries of life, and the laws passedunder Elizabeth for the relief of the poor are suf-ficient evidence of their wretched condition. Itmay deserve some slight investigation, not cer-tainly with a view to any benefit to the same classin the present day, whose whole circumstances areso totally different, but to account for the un-doubted fact at the period now under consideration.

In consequence of the great advance of prices,each cultivator was solicitous to fix on objectswhose produce would sell most readily, and forthe highest prices. The extension of the woollenmanufactory in England, and the great demandfor English wool in Flanders, had raised the priceof that product at a much greater rate than wasexperienced in corn and other vegetable substances.The conversion of arable land into sheep walks,which was the common subject of complaint, andforbidden by laws enacted for the purpose, causeda diminution of the demand for labourers, andthat in two ways: a flock of sheep required few