ts of mutton at 3-1/2d.[590] Everywhere the farmers were
complaining bitterly, but 'hanging on like sailors to the masts or
hull of a wreck'. In Sussex labourers were being employed to dig holes
and fill them in again, proof enough of distress but also of great
folly. Many thousands of acres were now a mass of thistles and weeds,
once fair grass land ploughed up during the war for wheat, and
abandoned at the fall of prices. There were no less than 475 petitions
on agricultural distress presented to the House from 1820 to March 31,
1822. In 1822, it was proposed that the Government should purchase
wheat grown in England to the value of one million sterling and store
it; also that when the average price of wheat was under 60s. the
Government should advance money on such corn grown in the United
Kingdom as should be deposited in certain warehouses, to an extent not
exceeding two-thirds the value of the corn.[591] There were not
wanting men, however, who put the other side of the question. In a
tract called _The Refutation of the Arguments used on the Subject of
the Agricultural Petition_, written in 1819, it was said that the
increase in the farmer's expenditure was the cause of his discontent.
'He now assumes the manners and demands the equipage of a gentleman,
keeps a table like his landlord, anticipates seasons in their
productions, is as choice in his wines, his horses, and his
furniture.' Let him be more thrifty. 'Let him dismiss his steward, a
character a few years back only known to the great landowner, and
cease from degrading the British farmer into a synonym for
prodigality.' Lord Liverpool, in the House of Lords, in a speech which
roused great opposition among agriculturists, minimized the distress;
distress there was, he admitted, but it was not confined to England,
it was world-wide; neither was it produced by excessive taxation, for
since 1815 taxation had been reduced 25 per cent., while though rents
and prices had fallen they were much higher than before the war.
Another writer said at the time, 'Individuals of all classes have of
late been as it were inflated above their natural size: let this
unnatural growth be reduced; let them resume their proper places and
appearances, and the quantum of substantial enjoyment, real comfort
and happiness, will not be found lessened.' It was also asserted that
the taxes on malt, leather, soap, salt, and candles, were not very
pressing.

The persistent cries of distress