decay of
tillage, the dearth of corn, and the privations of the labouring
classes; and these complaints were met by the same kind of measures--by
statutes encouraging tillage, forbidding the enlargement of farms,
imposing severer restrictions on storing and buying and selling of
grain, and by renewed attempts to regulate export and import according
to prices. In 1562 the price at which export might take place was raised
to 10s. per quarter for wheat, and 6s. 8d. for barley and malt. This
only lasted a few years, and in 1570 the export of wheat and barley was
permitted from particular districts on payment of a duty of 1s. 8d. per
quarter, although still liable to prohibition by the government or local
authority, while it was entirely prohibited under the old regulations
from other districts. Only at the close of Elizabeth's reign (1603) did
a spark of new light appear in a further statute, which removed the
futile provisions in favour of tillage and against enlargement of
pastoral farms, and rested the whole policy for promoting an equable
supply of corn, while encouraging agriculture, on an allowed export of
wheat and other grain at a duty of 2s. and 1s. 4d. when the price of
wheat was not more than 20s., and of barley and malt 12s. per quarter.
The import of corn appears to have been much lost sight of from the
period of the statute of 1463. The internal state of England, as well
as the policy of other countries of Europe, was unfavourable to any
regular import of grain, though many parts of the kingdom were often
suffering from dearth of corn. It is obvious that this legislation,
carried over more than a century and a half, failed of its purpose, and
that it neither promoted agriculture nor increased the supply of bread.
So great a variance and conflict between the intention of statutes and
the actual course of affairs might be deemed inexplicable, but for an
explanation which a close economic study of the circumstances of the
times affords.

Besides the general reasons of the failure already indicated, there were
three special causes in active operation, which, though not seen at the
period, have become distinct enough since. (1) A comparatively free
export of wool had been permitted in England from time immemorial. It
was subject neither to conditions of price nor to duties in the times
under consideration, was easier of transport and much less liable to
damage than corn, and, under the extending manufactures of Fr