st-rate extra board wage.

Again, in Henry VIII.'s first poll tax it is taken for granted that
many labourers have less than a pound a year in actual wages, and that
wages over this sum, up to two pounds, for instance, form a sort of
aristocracy of labour that can afford to pay taxation. Of course some
part of the wages so counted were paid in part board and lodging,
especially in the agricultural industries, but still, the reception of
240 pence for a year's work in money gives you a multiple of far more
than 20: you will not get a man about a house and garden for less than
thirty pounds though you feed and house him, and the unhoused outside
labourer gets, first and last, over fifty pounds at the least.

When the Reformation was in full swing the currency was debased almost
out of recognition, and before the death of Edward VI. prices are
rendered so fictitious by inflation that they are useless for our
purpose. It is only with the currency of Elizabeth that they became
true measures of value once more.

It is useless, therefore, to follow the inquiry after the Dissolution
of the monasteries, for not only was the currency at sixes and sevens,
but true prices were also rapidly rising with the influx of precious
metals from Spain and America.

I have said enough in this very elementary sketch to show that a
general multiple of 20, when one considers wages as well as staple
foods, is as high as can be fixed safely, while a general multiple of
12 is certainly too low.

But even to multiply by 20 is by no means enough if one is to
appreciate the social meaning of such-and-such a large income in the
first part of Henry VIII.'s reign.

A brief historical essay, such as is this, is no place in which to
discuss any general theory of economics; were there space to do so,
even in an elementary fashion, it would be possible to show how the
increase of wealth in a state is, on account of the increased
elasticity in circulation of the currency, almost independent of the
movement of prices. But without going into formulae; of this
complexity, a couple of homely comparisons will suffice to show what a
much larger thing a given income was in the early sixteenth century,
than its corresponding amount in values is to-day.

Consider a man with some L2000 a year travelling through modern
Europe. Prices, in the competition of modern commerce and the ease of
modern travel, are levelled up very evenly throughout the area that he
tra