'You are all of you out,' said a small landowner, named Abraham Cutman. 'But it is like your ignorance. You feel that the shoe pinches, but you don't know where it pinches, and why it pinches. I will tell you. I have education, and you have not. It is the rates. We are paying from six to seven shillings an acre for the drainage of the Fens. The rate has been up to ten shillings and sixpence. Why should we pay that? We can't afford to pay seven shillings an acre in rates, and pay our workmen well also. All the profits are consumed in rates. The Commissioners stick it on, and they can't help it; they must have the banks kept up and the mills in working order.'
'Of course they must,' threw in the gaulter.
'They must have their mills,' said Beamish. 'But why am I thrown out of employ, that did no wrong, and never neglected my duty?'
'Silence all round. Listen to me,' said Cutman. 'The wrong lies here. Take off the rate, and the price of corn will go down, and the price of labour will go up.'
'That's it. Cutman has it!' exclaimed several.
But Goat dissented. 'There must be a rate,' said he, 'or how should I be paid for my gaulting? and without gaulting there can be no banking.'
'Of course there must be a rate. I'd have it permanently fixed by Act of Parliament at fifteen shillings an acre.'
'You would?'
'Yes, I would; so that gaulters and bankers should have double wages. They work hard and deserve it.'