The Policy of Enclosure

William Cobbett was an English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist, who were born in Farnham, Surrey. His believes were to reform the parliament and abolishing rotten boroughs which would help to end the poverty of farm labourers.From brief reading of his biography I can pick out some of the motivation for Rural Rides, or at least explain some of the views which he expresses. His childhood certainly put him and his heart closer to the countryside. It may even explain why he continued to return to a country ruled by, in his eyes, an oppressive government as he called it. His attempts to expose the corruption of his quartermaster in the military show that, even at a young age, he was willing to fight for the right and put himself on the line in order to stand up for what he believed in. Despite the fact he was home schooled, he was able to teach English as a foreign language, and shows that he was skilled with words. It is likely that his father instilled his values and convictions in him as well. But Cobbett found that he was directly oppressed. His freedom of speech was stifled, he was imprisoned for speaking his mind, and his newspaper efforts were suffocated by taxes. Is it any wonder that, in Rural Rides, he speaks so angrily about the system which not only seems to be trying to ruin his adult life, but take away the setting of his childhood as well. But that is not to say that Rural Rides was written only to preserve his sense of nostalgia. Throughout the book, Cobbett’s main concern seems to be about the people. He describes some of the remaining workers as “walking skeletons”, suggesting that when farmers became gentleman, their labourers became slaves. Labourers used to live in with the farmers, but this stopped when farmers became wealthy thanks to the war and the Corn Laws, and enclosure ended the strip system which allowed local residents to grow their own crops. Enclosure provided food for the booming population, but the high prices and inability to farm for themselves crippled the people who were reliant on the old system.He believed of this continued to happen something similar to French Revolution will occur in England. However, in fear of revolution the government had two choices: either pay workers more so they can afford bread, or repeal the Corn Laws so they could afford bread. Cobbett criticizes the way the new system is widening the gap between the rich and the poor, still a hot topic of conversation today. This is part of his reputation of being a campaigner for the people. William Cobbett interest was in the rural people. The exodus from the countryside which concerned Cobbett caused in the overcrowding of the cities, the filthy workhouses and the exploitation of the downtrodden poor. Cobbett also discusses “tax-eaters”, people in highly paid, pointless jobs who take all from society and give nothing back, clogging up the broken system which is wholly supported by the efforts of the poor labourers. This wasteful and pointless clogging is exemplified in the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case of ‘Bleak House’. The ‘fog’ which receives so much attention at the beginning of the book is a metaphor for the confused and overcomplicated system about which Cobbett complains. The reason why he complained was because the government was seen in his eyes as corrupt because it was only place and made up for the rich. Another point to be made was that he was extremely un-happy at seeing the majority of the countryside empty and he even argued that the population of England could not be growing, as he cannot see any people, but in fact it had doubled from 8.3 million to 17 million. The reason behind this was not a lot of people where interested in farming as him. Many would find jobs and opportunities in the big cities that would not have anything to do with farming. He thought that rapid industrialisation was going to destroy traditional ways of life. Cobbett states Enclosure is when a field would be divided up into common land, cattle would graze. In this landowners gave up enclosure, as they needed bigger fields in order to make way for new technology. This meant the farm workers had to go in search of other jobs that meant they had to migrate to the cities. Cobbett was not very happy about this so he jumped on a horse and went through the countryside of Southeast England and the Midlands in order to highlight the problems of rural England and how the relationship between landowner and worker had deteriorated. As I stated above he believed in workers being treated right and equal and he didn’t not believe how can they be treated as slave as they once where the same as owners. Cobbett continued publishing controversial material in the Political Register and was charged on many occasions, escaped conviction twice, once by fleeing the country and once by conducting his own defence so successfully the jury had no means to convict him. This is another example showing his opinion on the corrupt government and how strong was his opinion on them. William Cobbett overall view on policy of enclosure was going around cities and gathering different information. His views were that everyone should be treated equal no matter of the work you do. Cobbett believed in natural over technical creation.