for
fair and generous dealing as that of the great body of the English
landlords.'

The custom of tenant-right was unknown except in certain counties,
Surrey, Sussex, the Weald of Kent, Lincoln, North Notts, and in part
of the West Riding of Yorkshire.[643] Where it existed, the
agriculture was on the whole inferior to that of the districts where
it did not, and it had frequently led to fraud in a greater or less
degree. Many farmers were in the practice of 'working up to a
quitting', or making a profit by the difference which their ingenuity
and that of their valuer enabled them to demand at leaving as compared
with what they paid on entry. The best farmers as well as the
landlords were said to be disgusted with the system. The dislike for
leases in the days immediately before the repeal of the Corn Laws was
partly due to the uncertainty how long protection would last; but
chiefly then, as afterwards, to the fact that if a man improved his
farm under a lease he had nearly always to pay an increased rent on
renewal, but if he held from year to year his improvement, if any, was
so gradual and imperceptible that it was hardly noticed and the rent
was not raised. It may also be attributable to the modern
disinclination to be bound down to a particular spot for a long
period. At all events, the general dislike of farmers for leases is a
curious commentary on the assertions of those writers who said that
leases were his chief necessity.

The disparity of the labourer's wages in 1850 was most remarkable,
ranging from 15s. a week in parts of Lancashire to 6s. in South Wilts,
the average of the northern counties being 11s. 6d., and of the
southern 8s. 5d. a difference due wholly to the influence of
manufactures, which is still further proved by the fact that in
Lancashire in 1770 wages were below the average for England. In fact
since Young's time wages in the north had increased 66 per cent., in
the south only 14 per cent. In Berkshire and Wiltshire there had been
no increase in that period, and in Suffolk an actual decrease. It is
not surprising to learn that in some southern counties wages were not
sufficient for healthy sustenance, and the consequence was, that
there, the average amount of poor relief per head of population was
8s. 8-1/2d., but in the north 4s. 7-3/4d., and the percentage of
paupers was twice as great in the former as in the latter. This was
mainly due to two causes: (1) the ratepayers of parishes in the