How did Agricultural Depression lead to job insecurity?
OR
What happened to the soldiers who returned to their villages from Napoleonic wars?
Answer:
- After the Napoleonic wars had ended, thousands of soldiers returned to their villages. They needed alternative jobs to survive.
- But this was time when grain from Europe began flowing into England, prices declined and
- an Agricultural Depression set in.
- Anxious landowners began reducing the area they cultivated and demanded that the imports of crops be stopped.
- They tried to cut wages and reduce the number of workmen they employed.
- The unemployed poor tramped from village to village, and those with uncertain jobs lived in fear of a loss of their livelihood.