'I mean those who have banks in towns,' explained Gathercole. 'I've been to Mortlock's in Ely. I've seen what the clerks do there. They have drawers full of gold. They don't trouble to put their fingers to it, they shovel it in and shovel it out like muck. Whence does Mortlock get all that gold, I ask. It comes out of the Fens. The farmers are such dizzy-fools that they put their money there for Mortlock to take care of, and Mortlock sends the money out of the country to America. What's the advantage of the farmers growing corn, and of the labourers helping to grow it, what's the pleasure to reap and sow and plough and mow and be a farmer's boy, if all the money earned and addled goes into Mortlock's bank, and Mortlock sends it to America? I wish I was in Parliament one week, and I'd hang every banker in the country, and burn every ship as takes the money out of England and carries it to America.' 'I say it is the millers,' said Isaac Harley, a clayer. 'You send a sack of corn to the soak-mill, and you get back half a sack of flour. How is that? There should be as much flour come back as corn went, but there does not. I have proved it scores of times. I've sent a sack so full of wheat that I could scarce bind the mouth, and when it came back as flour it was but half full. That is what makes corn so dear—the millers steal it. If I were king for half a day, I'd drown every miller in England in his own dam.' '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.' 'Right you are, master,' said Goat; but others murmured.