armers had their implements, harness, and
household utensils made and mended in towns rather than by rural
workmen. Deprived of the profits of by-employments, and in many cases of
their accustomed rights of common, labourers became solely dependent on
farm wages at a time when prices were enormously high and a living-wage
was not to be gained by agricultural work. They either migrated to seek
work in a factory or came on the rates. In many districts villages
presented a picture of desolation. Wiston and Foston in Leicestershire
each before enclosure contained some thirty-five houses; in Wiston every
house disappeared except that of the squire, and Foston was reduced to
the parsonage and two herdsmen's cottages.[184]

[Sidenote: _COMBINATIONS OF WORKMEN._]

The old system of regulating wages by statute was not wholly extinct in
1760. A few years later a statute made in the masters' interests fixed
the maximum for the wages of the London journeymen tailors at 2s.
7-1/2d. a day, except at a time of general mourning. On the other hand
parliament, in 1773, under the pressure of a riot, passed an act
empowering justices to fix the wages of the Spitalfields silk weavers
and to enforce their ordinance. By 1776, however, Adam Smith declared
that the custom of fixing wages "had gone entirely into disuse". England
was adopting _laissez-faire_. The change of policy is illustrated by
the case of the framework knitters of Nottinghamshire. The employment of
children and apprentices enabled the masters to oppress them; they were
unable to earn more than 8s. to 9s. a week and their wages were
diminished by shameful exactions. They formed a combination, petitioned
the house of commons to regulate their wages in 1778, and were heard
before a committee. A bill was brought in the next year to regulate the
trade and prevent abuses, but was thrown out on the third reading. Wages
were to be settled between the master and the men. Some rioting followed
on the rejection of the bill, and the masters promised redress, but soon
broke their word. Combinations of workmen to set aside statutory
arrangements of wages were of course illegal, but when formed to secure
their fulfilment do not seem to have been so regarded.[185] In 1799,
however, when parliament was anxious to prevent seditious assemblies, a
statute, amended in 1800, rendered it unlawful for workmen to combine
for the purpose of obtaining higher wages. This grossly unjust law made
the wor