Now the opponents of enclosure of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries almost without exception opposed simply the enclosure of arable common fields; they usually expressly approve the enclosure of waste, as increasing the means of subsistence of the people. The advocates of enclosure on the other hand are equally concerned in advocating both kinds of enclosure. Hence we have statements to the effect that the enclosure of arable fields in the “champion” districts of England (i.e., the part much shaded on the [map]) caused rural depopulation, met by statistics and arguments to prove that all kinds of enclosure proceeding over all parts of England and Wales, on the whole, tended to increase population, urban and rural. Through looseness of wording on both sides, the controversialists seem to be contradicting one another; whereas, in reality, both might equally be right.

At the present day this particular issue is dead, though a similar question, the question whether by means of the modern representative of the open field, viz., the allotment field, and modern representative of the ancient co-operative ploughing, viz., co-operative purchase of machines, manures and seeds, borrowing of capital, sale of produce, and perhaps co-operative stockbreeding, the decay of the agricultural population can be arrested, is a living issue. Nor is there any period of the nineteenth century in which any serious rural depopulation as a result of enclosure, and consequent laying down in pasture, of common fields, could be asserted. Since Free Trade began to seriously affect the prices of British grain—and that was not for a good many years after 1846—the common fields have been too few, and the other forces tending towards rural depopulation too great, for this particular force to be felt. And if it were felt, no one would seriously urge that the hardly pressed farmer should be compelled to cultivate the land in a manner wasteful of labour, in order that more labourers might be employed. In the earlier part of the nineteenth century war, protection and a rapidly growing wealth and population so effectively encouraged tillage that attempted prohibition of conversion of arable to grass would have been superfluous.

Yet much, I think, can be learnt on the historical question from the present aspect of the country, even by anyone who merely travels by express train through the Midlands. Having spent a day in traversing the length and breadth of the great fields of Castor and Ailesworth, yellow with wheat and barley or recently cut stubble, I went straight through the county of Northamptonshire, seeing on either side scarcely anything but permanent pasture. From Northampton to Leicester was the same thing; again from Leicester to Uppingham. Just beyond Uppingham the cornfields become far more extensive; what were the Rutlandshire common fields till 1881 are still mainly under tillage. All this country of permanent pasture was mainly enclosed during the eighteenth century. Very frequently one can see on heavy land the old ridges piled up in the middle, ending in the middle of one field, crossing hedges, and showing plainly that very little, if any, ploughing has been done since the enclosure was effected.[39] The impression made on my mind by this apparent confirmation of all that the denouncers of “cruell Inclosiers” alleged was a very powerful one.

Before examining the evidence for and against rural depopulation in particular parts of England as the result of the extinction of common fields, it is well to consider the a priori arguments put forward by Dr. Cunningham.

It is urged, in the first place, that owing to the relatively high price of corn and low price of wool, there was no motive for lay-down arable as pasture. Dr. Cunningham seems to ignore the fact that sheep and cattle produce mutton, beef, milk, butter, cheese, and hides, as well as wool, and it is by the profit to be derived from all of these products together, and not from any one of them, that the question of laying down in pasture will be determined. That laying down arable in pasture was profitable is indicated by the surprise Arthur Young expressed in 1768 that landlords did not enclose, and put the land to grass, on passing through Bedfordshire,[40] and by Adam Smith’s reference in “The Wealth of Nations” to the exceptional rent commanded by enclosed pasture.[41] We have, further, the clear statement of the Board of Agriculture: “Whereas the price of corn from 1760 to 1794 was almost stationary, the products of grass land have risen greatly throughout nearly the whole of that period.”[42] William Pitt, again, in a pamphlet published by the Board in 1812 on the “Food Produced from Arable and Grass Land,” says that through the “increased luxury of the times more beef and mutton and butter are used than formerly, even by equal numbers, and consequently more inducement to throw all the best corn to grass” (p. 35). William Culley adds in a footnote that “In the Northern Counties more rent per acre is given for ploughing than for grazing farms ... more rent is given for grazing than for arable farms in the Southern Counties.” If this was so when famine prices were paid for wheat, how much more in normal times?

It is said, in the second place, that “the new agriculture gave more employment to labour than the old.” No doubt such an improvement as the substitution of well-hoed turnips for a fallow, the sowing of grass seeds with barley so as to produce a second crop, or feed for cattle after the barley was carried, both gave increased employment to labour, and tended to increased prosperity for the labouring as well as other classes. But these changes, as we have seen, and as Dr. Cunningham himself points out, might take place independently of enclosure, and might not follow if enclosure did take place. Whether they usually did follow upon enclosure is a question that has to be settled by an appeal to contemporary evidence. In taking this evidence reference must always be carefully made to the time and the place.

The Board of Agriculture’s General Report on Enclosures (1808) quotes with approval an anonymous pamphlet published in 1772: “The advantages and disadvantages of enclosing waste lands and common fields,” by “A Country Gentleman.” This tract appears to be a very able and impartial attempt to estimate the effects of enclosure on all the classes interested. The way in which Acts then originated, and the manner in which proposals were received, is described thus:—