many of the later idlers would doubtless be men who would have followed this occupation, if it had been open to them before they took to their wandering life. [34] _Tales of a Grandfather_, last chapter, Sir W. Scott. [35] _Utopia_, p. 30, "They that be thus destitute of service, either starve for honger or manfullye playe the thieves." [Sidenote: (2) Manufactures on a large scale less stable than old occupations.] No doubt the growing commerce and manufactures afforded employment in course of time to many more than those now displaced by the decrease of private and public war, but this very increase of manufacturing industry had effects of its own in increasing the numbers of the unemployed. In the first place, the peaceful life of the craftsman was favourable to the growth of population, and in the second place, the new occupations were less stable than the old industries had been. The simple manufactures necessary for the home market varied little; in bad times the craftsman might get a little less work, but he was not thrown utterly out of employment. But after great manufacturing centres came into existence and their produce began to be exported to other lands, the inhabitants of whole districts would have little or no work through no fault of their own. The great English manufacture of the time was cloth, and crises in this trade occurred both when Wolsey wanted to make war on the Netherlands and when the merchants wished to prevent the exactions of Charles I. We shall see that the misery of the inhabitants in the English cloth-making districts had much to do with stimulating the growth of an administrative system for poor relief. [Sidenote: (3) Rise of prices affecting food earlier than wages.] Later on in the sixteenth century, another cause tended to increase the hardships of the poor, and so necessitated new methods of poor relief. The influx of silver from the New World caused a general rise of prices. Food and clothing and rents rose more quickly than wages, so that the poor could obtain fewer of the necessaries of life[36]. The debasements of the English coinage, by Henry VIII. in 1527, 1543, 1545 and 1546, and by Edward VI. in 1551, still further increased this evil in England, and during the transition the poorer classes must have been the chief sufferers. [36] Between 1511 and 1550 provisions seem to have risen about 60 p.c. in price, and there is a further rise in the next ten years of another fifty p.c. Wheat the quarter. Barley. Oxen. Hens. Herrings. _s._ _d._ _s._ _d._ _s._ _d._ _d._ _s._ _d._ 1511-1520 6 8¾ 4 0¼ 23 2 2 6 0¾ 1521-1530 7 6 4 9 30 10¼ 3½ 6 7¼ 1531-1540 7 8½ 4 11¾ 28 7½ 3¼ 6 8 1541-1550 10 8 6 2¼ 42 3¼ 5¾ 10 3