question_answer 3)

Read Sources C and D and answer the following.  

Source C One peasant who lost his rights to common land after the enclosures wrote to the local lord: 'Should a poor man take one of your sheep from the common, his life would be forfeited by law. But should You take the common from a hundred poor men's sheep, the law gives no redress. The poor man is liable to be hung for taking from You what would not supply you with a meal; and You would do nothing illegal by depriving him of his subsistence;...What should be the inference of the poor...when the laws are not accessible to the injured poor and the government gives them no redress? Source: JM Neeson, Commoners: Common Rights, Enclosures and Social Change, 1700-1820 (1993).

 

Source D                                                 In contrast many writers emphasized the advantages of enclosures. ‘There can be no question of the superior profit to the farmer of enclosures rather than open fields. In one case he is in chains; he can make no changes in soil or prices, he is like a horse in team, he must jog along with the rest.’  John Middleton, an 18th century writer.

    (a) What is the peasant trying to say in Source C?   (b) What is John Middleton arguing?   (c) Re-read from Section 1.1 to 1.4 and summaries the two sides of the argument for and against open fields. Which argument do you sympathies with?

Answer:

(a) He is trying to say that the law is one-sided, only favouring the rich farmers, who have taken over the commons. A poor man can be hanged for stealing one sheep, whereas the rich landlords have taken over the common land in which the poor were earlier grazing their large numbers of sheep.  The rich farmers were not being penalised for taking over the commons, although they deprived the poor men's sheep of fodder. He was protesting against the unjust laws. (b) John Middleton is arguing in favour of the rich farmers. He says that before the law regarding enclosures was enacted, the farmer could not make improvements in the soil, as other people were also using the same land. Now, when it is enclosed, he can make whatever changes he desires to improve the agricultural yield and thus increase his profits. (c) The main argument for open fields is that they are open to all for doing whatever they wanted, thus benefiting everybody. The main argument against open fields is that the land could not be improved for increasing the yield by anyone who wanted to do it. He would have to abide by the majority opinion of all who were using the land. I would definitely sympathise with the people who wanted open fields, as they benefited everyone equally, without giving excess profit to one person at the expense of all other users.