were to be perpetual, willing to reduce their rents on the return of
peace. Rent was said to have risen 70 per cent. since 1792; but the
landlords were often embarrassed, because their lands had too often been
burdened with jointures, settlements, and mortgages during the war. It
was in their interest that the act of 1815, which aimed at maintaining
war prices, had been passed. But the deeper reason for all this clamour
from the rural districts was the stagnation of ideas, and incapacity of
improvement, engendered by an artificial monopoly of the national food
supply. This was not the special lesson impressed upon landlords or
tenants by Cobbett, whose violent and delusive writings had a large
circulation in the country. But his teaching was so far beneficial that
it quickened the demand for parliamentary reform, though the fruits of
that reform were destined to be very different from the expectations
which he excited.

[Pageheading: _SPECULATIVE FRENZY._]

The spell of general prosperity which, in spite of some distress in the
rural districts, prevailed in the years 1820-23 was somewhat broken in
1824 by strikes and outrages in the manufacturing districts. Strikes for
higher wages naturally arose out of the increase in mill owners'
profits, and the ferocious spirit displayed by the strikers against
masters and fellow-workmen was attributed by reformers to the one-sided
operation of the combination laws. Accordingly, a committee of the house
of commons reported in favour of repealing these laws, and also part of
the common law which treated coercion either by trade unions or by
masters as conspiracy. A bill founded on this report was hastily passed,
with the natural result that strikes broke out in every quarter of the
country; wholesale and cruel oppression was practised by trade
unionists, and it became necessary for parliament to retrace its steps.
Under a new act, passed in 1825, which continued in force until very
recent times, trade unions were recognised as legal, but their worst
malpractices were once more brought within the control of the criminal
law.[71] So far the commercial policy of Huskisson was justified, as a
whole, by its effects on trade, and the session of 1824 was closed on
June 25 by a cheerful speech from the king, in which the disturbed state
of Ireland was the only topic suggestive of anxiety. Already, however,
the revival of commercial hopefulness at home, with the opening of new
markets in