Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/150

 measured by the quantity of produce, were considerably less than in the period between 1740 and 1794.

That under the combined operation of the Poor Law of 1796 and the Corn Law of 1815, the wages of agricultural labour were lower, and the condition of the agricultural labourer was worse, than at any former period, except that in which the Poor Law of Elizabeth was passed. Mr. Villiers's labour as an Assistant Poor Law Commissioner "brought him," says the writer of the Political Memoir prefixed to his Free Trade Speeches, "into direct contact with the labouring classes, and introduced him to one of the most instructive branches of political science." Mr. Villiers may indeed have thus seen more clearly the effects of the combined operations of two bad laws upon the condition of all classes except the receiver of rent, and this would be of use to him in his free trade labours.

Whether his duties as Secretary to the Master of the Rolls and Examiner in the Court of Chancery enlarged his political views, I cannot take upon me to say.

Wolverhampton had always sought as representatives the opponents of the Corn Laws. It