For nearly five years after the accession of George IV. the state of the country was, on the whole, more prosperous, and the industrial classes were more contented, than in the five years next preceding. Such restlessness as there was prevailed among farmers and agricultural labourers rather than among workmen in the manufacturing districts, and in 1823 every branch of manufactures was reported to be flourishing. It is difficult for a later generation, accustomed to consider 30s. a quarter a fair price for wheat, to understand the perennial complaints and petitions of the agricultural interest when 60s. a quarter was regarded as a low price for wheat, and the cultivation of wheat extended over a vastly larger area than it does at present. Nor is the difficulty lessened, when we remember the miserably low rate of wages then paid by farmers. A partial explanation may be found in the fact that what they saved in wages they lost in poor rates, and that most agricultural products except corn were sold at a very small profit. The high poor rates were the result of the disastrous system of giving allowances to labourers. But there were other evils caused by the vicious policy pursued by the government. The encouragement of home production had led to the enclosure of land not fit for cultivation, so that a slight fall in prices meant ruin to many farmers. Moreover, the corn laws, though framed for the purpose of arresting fluctuations in price, actually increased fluctuations and thus enhanced the risks attending agricultural enterprise. Nor were landlords who had thriven on war prices, and raised the scale of their establishments as if these prices were to be perpetual, willing to reduce their rents on the return of peace. Rent was said to have risen 70 per cent. since 1792; but the landlords were often embarrassed, because their lands had too often been burdened with jointures, settlements, and mortgages during the war. It was in their interest that the act of 1815, which aimed at maintaining war prices, had been passed. But the deeper reason for all this clamour from the rural districts was the stagnation of ideas, and incapacity of improvement, engendered by an artificial monopoly of the national food supply. This was not the special lesson impressed upon landlords or tenants by Cobbett, whose violent and delusive writings had a large circulation in the country. But his teaching was so far beneficial that it quickened the demand for parliamentary reform, though the fruits of that reform were destined to be very different from the expectations which he excited. [Pageheading: _SPECULATIVE FRENZY._]