His influence amongst the middle-classes was increasing; and the artisans and labourers were beginning to club together to buy the _Register_; readers were more numerous than ever.[2] But the landed interest could not, or would not, understand him. The farmer could not see the identity of interest which properly existed between himself and his labourers; and the man who preached this theme was, of course, not to be trusted when dealing with other topics. He told them that ruin was impending; that, immediately upon a cessation of the war, prices would go down, and the consequences would be disastrous. There was no chance of escape, but by immediate Reform, by which means there should be a searching reduction in the public expenditure. The poor-rates were now nearly eight millions. Government annuitants were swelling their numbers with every year of war; dignitaries of state had higher salaries, and courtiers larger pensions; army-contractors and stock-jobbers were swallowing up the wealth of the country, and elbowing out the squires. So, when the Corn Bill was proposed, Mr. Cobbett was standing alone again, or very nearly alone.[3] In vain did he point out that it would tend to keep up the high price of food, which was already driving the able-bodied out of the country; that the principal reason for keeping up high prices was, that the land might continue to pay the exorbitant taxes, and so continue to support a multitude of idlers. The Corn Bill became law; peace was signed, but plenty came not along with it; and the farmers straightway fell to pieces, dragging all the industry of the country along with them. During these three or four years (1812-1816), there was more revolution in personal property in England, than there had been seen, in the same space of time, since the Restoration. The terrible load which weighed upon the people may be judged of by the fact that Cobbett was paying, the year after the war, several hundred pounds in direct and indirect taxes. It is not difficult, then, to understand how intolerable would be the burden upon the land, for people whose only resource was the land; and all the more so, that inflated prosperity had engendered improvidence. Tea, coffee, wine, spirits, and other exciseable articles had taken the place of beer on the tables of the farmers; their wives and daughters had found sofas, carpets, and parlour-bells necessary to existence. A generation had grown up which must needs _send_ its butter and eggs to market, instead of carrying them; silk stockings had usurped those of worsted; the fashions were finding their way into the farm-houses. So, in a little while, the poor farmers were breaking stones on the highway by hundreds.