Note 27 — THE BASIS OF SOCIALISM.

This statement, though generally true of England, is not absolutely so. It needed an Act of Parliament in 1758 (32 George II, c. 61) to free the inhabitants of the “village” of Manchester from the obligation to grind all their corn and grain at the manorial watermills (Clifford’s “History of Private Bill Legislation,” vol. ii, p. 478). Even so late as 1809 they had to obtain the consent of Sir Oswald Mosley, the lord of the manor, before a company could be incorporated to provide a water supply (Ibid., p. 480). Leeds was theoretically compelled to grind its corn, grain and malt at the lord’s mills down to 1839, and actually had then to pay £13,000 to extinguish this feudal “due” (Ibid., p. 498).