RURAL WAGES AND ALLOWANCES 717 
wages, and Arthur Young appears himself to have inclined A-D. 177 
to approve this policy’. On the whole it appears that this 
1 Ib. 640. There was no more interesting argument in support of the pro- 
posal, however, than that of the Norfolk labourers who held a meeting in Heacham 
church (Nov. 5, 1795) “in order to take into consideration the best and most 
peaceable mode of obtaining a redress of all the severe and peculiar hardships 
ander which they have for many years so patiently suffered. The following 
resolutions were unanimously agreed to:— 
“1st. The labourer is worthy of his hire, and that the mode of lessening his 
distresses, as hath lately been the fashion, by selling him flour under the market 
price, thereby rendering bim an object of a parish rate, is not only an indecent 
insult on his lowly and humble situation (in itself sufficiently mortifying from his 
degrading dependence on the caprice of his employer), but a fallacious mode of 
relief, and every way inadequate to a radical redress of the manifold distresses of 
his calamitous state. 
“2nd. That the price of labour should, at all times, be proportioned to the 
price of wheat, which should invariably be regulated by the average price of that 
necessary article of life; and that the price of labour, as specified in the annexed 
plan, is not only well calculated to make the labourer happy without being 
injurious to the farmer, but it appears to us the only rational means of securing 
the permanent happiness of this valuable and useful class of men, and, if adopted 
in its full extent, will have an immediate and powerful effect in reducing, if it does 
not entirely annihilate, that disgraceful and enormous tax on the public—the 
POOR RATE. 
“Plan of the Price of Labour proportionate to the Price of Wheat. 
‘When wheat shall be 
£14 per last, the price of labour shall be 14d. per day. 
£16 ' ad, 
£18 ' 
£20 
£22 
£24 
£26 
£28 
£30 
£32 ”» 
£34 " 3 » - 
£36 ” ” ” ” 3/- 
And so on, according to this proportion. 
“3rd. That a petition to Parliament to regulate the price of labour, con- 
formable to the above plan, be immediately adopted ; and that the day labourers 
throughout the county be invited to associate and co-operate in this necessary 
application to Parliament, as a peaceable, legal, and probable mode of obtaining 
relief; and in doing this, no time should be lost, as the petition must be 
presented before the 29th of January, 1796. 
«4th, That one shilling shall be paid into the hands of the treasurer by every 
labourer, in order to defray the expenses of advertising, attending on meetings, 
and paying counsel to support their petition in Parliament. 
«5th. That as soon as the sense of the day labourers of this county, or 
a majority of them, shall be made known to the clerk of the meeting, a general 
meeting shall be appointed, in some central town, in order to agree upon the best 
and easiest mode of getting the petition signed; when it will be requested that 
one labourer, properly instructed, may be devuted to represent two or three