Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/221

 have undoubtedly been men who though born peasants have succeeded in climbing "the steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar." But the mass did not thereby emerge from its lot of poverty and toil. For they are particularly deprived of that power of combined action which is within the power of the artisans of some degree of cultivated intelligence, collected in considerable numbers in towns. This evil has gone on increasing till acre after acre of the soil of England which was termed common land has been appropriated with the manifest effect of making the rich richer, and the poor poorer.

The inclosure of commons may be taken as an instance of the conversion into private property of what was not private property, under the pretence that the effect will be to give more employment to the agricultural labourer. In my inquiry into this question, the evidence which I received, and my own observation, were not in favour of the conclusion that the inclosure of commons was advantageous to the poor. On the contrary, as the number of inclosure bills increased the condition of the agricultural labourer became worse and worse, till a man had but seven shillings a week to support himself, his wife, and seven children.