But as to the fact of
the melioration of their diet, I shall enter into the detail of proof,
whenever I am called upon: in the mean time, the known difficulty of
contenting them with anything but bread made of the finest flour and
meat of the first quality is proof sufficient.
I further assert, that, even under all the hardships of the last year,
the laboring people did, either out of their direct gains, or from
charity, (which it seems is now an insult to them,) in fact, fare better
than they did in seasons of common plenty, fifty or sixty years ago,--or
even at the period of my English observation, which is about forty-four
years. I even assert that full as many in that class as ever were known
to do it before continued to save money; and this I can prove, so far as
my own information and experience extend.
It is not true that the rate of wages has not increased with the nominal
price of provisions. I allow, it has not fluctuated with that
price,--nor ought it; and the squires of Norfolk had dined, when they
gave it as their opinion that it might or ought to rise and fall with
the market of provisions. The rate of wages, in truth, has no _direct_
relation to that price. Labor is a commodity like every other, and rises
or falls according to the demand. This is in the nature of things;
however, the nature of things has provided for their necessities. Wages
have been twice raised in my time; and they hear a full proportion, or
even a greater than formerly, to the medium of provision during the
last bad cycle of twenty years.
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