[666] See Appendix III.

[667] R.A.S.E.  Journal, 1881, pp. 142, 199.

[668] Parliamentary Reports of Commissioners, 1882, xiv. pp. 9 sq.

[669] Parliamentary Reports of Commissioners, 1882, xiv. 14.

[670] The rise between 1857 and 1878 has been estimated at 20 per cent., and between 1867 and 1877 at 11-1/2 per cent.  Hasbach, op. cit., p. 291.

[671] R.A.S.E.  Journal, 1890, p. 324.

[672] See infra, p. 330.

[673] Rural Economy of Southern Counties, i. 285-6.

[674] Victoria County History:  Hereford, Agriculture.

[675] In one respect the Act of 1883 restricted the rights of tenants to compensation, for while the Act of 1875 had expressly reserved the rights of the parties under ‘custom of the country’, the Act of 1883 provided that a tenant ’shall not claim compensation by custom or otherwise than in manner authorized by this Act for any improvement for which he is entitled to compensation under this Act’ (Sec. 57).

[676] Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 96.

[677] R.A.S.E.  Journal (1892), p. 63.

[678] R.A.S.E.  Journal (1901), p. 33.  Cf. infra, p. 310.

[679] R.A.S.E.  Journal (1893), p. 286; (1894), p. 677.  Sometimes to artificially raising them.

[680] Ibid. (1901), p. 34.

[681] Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv.

[682] Broadly speaking, the arable section, or eastern group, included the counties of Bedford, Berks., Bucks, Cambridge, Essex, Hants, Hertford, Huntingdon, Kent, Leicester, Lincoln, Middlesex, Norfolk, Northampton, Notts, Oxford, Rutland, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Warwick, and the East Riding of York; the grass section, or western group, included the remaining counties.

[683] Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1894), xvi. (1), App.  B. ii.

[684] Ibid.  App.  B. iii.

[685] Ibid. (1895), xvi. 169.

[686] Ibid. p. 164.

[687] Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1895), xvi. 187-8.

[688] R.A.S.E.  Journal (2nd ser.), xxiv. 538

[689] Ibid. (1894), p. 681.

[690] Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 22.  Cf. p. 319 n.

[691] Ibid. pp. 30-1.

[692] Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners (1897), xv. 31.

[693] Ibid. p. 37: 

  NUMBER OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS
  IN ENGLAND AND WALES.

   1871. 1881. 1891. 1901.

  996,642 890,174 798,912 595,702

The figures for 1901 are from Summary Tables, Parliamentary Blue Book (C, d. 1, 523), p. 202, Table xxxvi.

[694] According to the Report of the Royal Commission on Labour, 1893-4, the labourer was ’better fed, better dressed, his education and language improved, his amusements less gross, his cottage generally improved, though generally on small estates there were many bad ones still’.—­Parliamentary Reports, 1893, xxxv.  Index 5 et seq.