I I I Li 1 1' J ?.\ 1 V. LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Class nni THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. **The Reports of the Agricultural Commissioners are ably summarized in Mr. Kebbel's book. After the flood of literature called forth by recent events, it still contains the best general survey, in a small compass, which has yet appeared." — Edinburgh Review, 1875. **An excellent little book." — Mr. Clare Sewell Kead, Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, April, 1887. THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER A SHORT SUMMARY OF HIS POSITION. t. ' T. E. KEBBEL, OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARBISTBE-AT-LAW. A NEW EDITION, BROUGHT DOWN TO DATE, WITH FRESH CHAPTERS ON WAGES, LABOUR, ALLOTMENTS, SMALL H0J^eK^^3Hnr««B EDUCATION ACT. '■"'^ '"" OF -HE ' \ UNIVERiBITY J lon: W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE PALL MALL, S.W. 1887. LONDON : PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER, MILFOKO LANE. STEAXD, W-.C. GENERAL Dedicated by Permission TO THE RIGHT HOKODRABLE THE PRESIDENT OF THE POOR LAW BOARD * BY HIS OBEDIENT SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. ♦ Now Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1887. 106508 CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Food and Wages, 1870 . j CHAPTER II. y^ AGES— continuedf 1887 16 CHAPTER III. Obneeal Pbospebity op the Ageicultural Peasantry . . 56 CHAPTER IV. Laboue. — Degeneeacy op Adult Laboue 62 CHAPTER V. Education : Its Effect on Paeents, on Farmers, on Childrbn. — Scarcity op Juvenile Labour 67 CHAPTER VI. Cottage Accommodation 79 viii Contents, CHAPTER VII. PAGE Allotments. — Proper Purpose op.— Plentiful Supply op. — Legislation Not Required. — "Allotments and Agricul- tural Holdings' Act" 9& CHAPTER VIII. Small Farms and Peasant Proprietors, 1870 .... 12S CHAPTER IX. Small Farms and Peasant Proprietors, 1887 . . . . 14& CHAPTER X. Hiring 162 CHAPTER XI. Injurious Influences. — The Public-House. — Poaching , . 18^ CHAPTER XII. Aids to the Labourers. — Benefit Societies. — Co-operative Farms. — Stores 20i CHAPTER XIII. Summary 221 Contents. ix APPENDIX.— PAGE I.— Wages 235 II. — General Condition op Labourer .... 23{> III. — Education 241 IV. — Allotments and Small Holdikgs — .... 252 Labourers' Allotments and the Tenants' Compensation ' Bill — Peasant Farming — Landlords and Allotments — Small Holdings — The Law of Allotments. PBEFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, This little book is intended chiefly for that class of readers who, while they take a considerable interest in the subject which it deals with, have no opportunities of obtaining access to original sources of information, and but little leisure to wade through bulky Blue Books, even if they had. The earlier chapters are con- fined more exclusively than the later within the area of the Reports* on which the work is primarily based. But into all alike I have allowed myself, in the course of reconstruction, to import whatever fresh matter ap- peared suitable for the purpose. Some subjects I have investigated independently for myself; and for a great part of the last four chapters I am scarcely, if at all, indebted to the Reports of the Commissioners. I have, however, consulted the works of various other writers who have recently devoted much time and thought to the condition of agriculture, both in this country and abroad. * Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners appointed to enquire into the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture, 1867. Report of the Enclosure Commission, 1869. xii Preface. Some degree of dryness is almost inseparable from the subjects of the first two chapters ; and the chapter on Education, having been written before the introduc- tion of the present Bill, will naturally have lost some of its interest. But, on the whole, I venture to hope that the book may prove acceptable to the public, and perhaps encourage others to condense in a popular form some of those stores of information which are periodi- cally entombed in the Eeports of Commissioners and Committees. T. E. K. 1870. INTEODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION. "Within the last seventeen years so many things have happened affecting the condition of the agricultural labourer that a volume written as long ago as 1870 might naturally be expected to contain little that was either useful or interesting. Life, however, even at the latter end of the nineteenth century, moves slowly in an English village ; and, "though much is taken, much remains " of the old habits and customs with which I was familiar in my youth. The Education Act of 1870, the agricultural Union, the agricultural depression, the gradual but steady decline in the num- bers of the peasantry, two Agricultural Holdings Acts, the prominence assumed among the questions of the day by the demand for allotments and small holdings, and the attention bestowed upon them by some of the leading landowners of the country ; last, but not least, the extension of the county franchise, and the endow- ment of the labourers with the consciousness of poh- tical power, have effected a change in the moral tone of the English peasantry, while other circumstances have added greatly to their material comfort. Yet in much that concerns them very closely the Eeports of xiv Introduction, the Duke of Eiclimond's Commissioners (1879-1881) do but echo the words of the Commission of 1867 *'For inquiring into the employment of women and children in agriculture/ ' and the information supplied to myself by my own correspondents in 1887 is in many respects an echo of both. Chapters II., III., IV., V., and IX. are entirely new, and Chapters YII. and VIII. nearly so. But other portions of the work I have re- tained as originally printed ; and it has been my object throughout so to arrange my materials as to enable the reader to compare the condition of the labourer and the state of public opinion concerning him as they stood at the three different periods referred to in the book — 1870, 1880, and 1887. It will be seen that the ex- perience of seventeen years confirms most of the opinions which I advanced in 1870, and that on numer- ous questions of which I then wrote with some degree of hesitation, I have now felt justified in writing with much greater certainty and decision. It will be found, I think, that in point of wages, food, and work, he is decidedly better off than he was when I first took up his cause. His circumstances have fluctuated very greatly during the interval on which we are now looking back, and comparing the end with the beginning, the balance of advantage is not always on his side. But it is generally. Wages, which rose with the agricultural Union, and fell again with the agricultural depression, have no more than Introduction, xv gone back to the point at which they originally stood, even if they have done that, while, on the other hand, the purchasing power of money has increased within the same period by something like 30 per cent. The agricultural labourer, therefore, has been no sufferer by the agricultural distress of the last ten years. It has not really fallen upon him. His condition, instead of being worse than it was before, is better ; and when we look round on the predicament of the farmers and gentry whom it has sunk so low, and then on the for- tunes of the agricultural labourer, which are above par, we shall be justified in concluding that the employers at all events have done their best, and that they are at present paying the very highest wages they can pos- sibly afford to give. Had it not been for the unfortunate cloud which settled down upon our great rural industry some ten or eleven years ago, a different prospect might still have been before us. I said in 1870 that the source from which the ultimate improvement of the agricultural labourer was to be looked for was a permanent and sub- stantial rise in wages, which the then prosperity of the agricultural class seemed to render not improbable. I had even allowed myself to hope that the day might not be far distant when the average weekly wage of an ordinary day labourer might be as high as a pound a week. To any such hope as that we must be prepared, I fear, to say farewell ; and the bulk of the new matter xvi Introduction. imported into this volume will be found to relate to other theories and experiments which are in fashion at the present moment ; though whether they will answer all the expectations that are based on them is perhaps a doubtful question. It will be seen that for the tables of wages and perquisites added to the second edition, I have gone to w^hat maybe considered representative counties, herein following the example of the Poor Law Commissioners of 1834 (Supplement 1, p. 2), who, to illustrate the condition of the labourers, took the answers which they had received from seven representative counties, than which they thought '* a fairer average of the whole country " could not be taken. I hope my own selec- tions will be accepted as an equally fair one, and at all events the information contained in it has the merit of being completely fresh. In conclusion, I will only express my thanks to those friends who have so kindly assisted me in obtaining the information I required : Earl Stanhope, Mr. E. Stan- hope, Sir Mathew White Ridley, Mr. Clare Sewell Read, Mr. Albert Pell, and, above all, Major Craigie, Secretary to the Central Chamber of Agriculture, without whose valuable advice and opportune suggestions I should hardly have succeeded in bringing out the present volume. T. E. KEBBEL. May 13, 1887. THE AGEICULTUML LABOURER. CHAPTER I. CORBIGENDA. Introduction, p. xvi. — Among the names of those to whom I am indebted for information the name of Lord Stanley of Alderley should be included. Page 99, line 8. — For "is now" read ' was when the Report was published." field labour it was necessary to ascertain to what causes their employment was assignable, and to con- sider with great care how far it was desirable to abolish it altogether, or only to curtail and place it under certain restrictions. It was clear that to arrive at any satisfactory solution of these questions the whole sys- tem of agricultural labour would have to be reviewed in detail. Wages, allotment grounds, cottage accommo- dation, the size of farms, the nature of the work B xvi Introduction. imported into this volume will be found to relate to other theories and experiments which are in fashion at the present moment ; though whether they will answer all the expectations that are based on them is perhaps a doubtful question. It will be seen that for the tables of wages and perquisites added to the second edition, I have gone to what maybe considered representative counties, herein following the example of the Poor Law Commissioners ^'iincf.vflf.p, the IhTofmation 1 required : Jiiari btannope, ivir. jh. oiau- hope. Sir Mathew White Eidley, Mr. Clare Sewell Kead, Mr. Albert Pell, and, above all. Major Craigie, Secretary to the Central Chamber of Agriculture, without whose valuable advice and opportune suggestions I should hardly have succeeded in bringing out the present volume. T. E. KEBBEL. Ma2/ 13, 1887. OF THE OF J^ALiFOB;^ THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. CHAPTER I. FOOD AND WAGES, 1867-1870. The Commissioners appointed in 1867 to inquire into " the employment of children, young persons, and women in agriculture ' ' have now completed their Report. This Commission, though ostensibly issued for the purpose described upon the title-page, is, in fact, nothing less than an inquiry into the whole con- dition of the agricultural peasantry. It was found, of course, that before offering any opinion upon the em- ployment of women, children, and young persons in field labour it was necessary to ascertain to what causes their employment was assignable, and to con- sider with great care how far it was desirable to abolish it altogether, or only to curtail and place it under certain restrictions. It was clear that to arrive at any satisfactory solution of these questions the whole sys- tem of agricultural labour would have to be reviewed in detail. Wages, allotment grounds, cottage accommo- dation, the size of farms, the nature of the work B The Aginculiural Labourer required, and the influence of local manufuctures upon the position of the peasant, all have a direct bearing upon juvenile and female labour; and we find, accordingly, that the Commissioners have insti- tuted searching inquiries into most of them. The result of those inquiries forms the staple material of the earlier of these Essays. [As the gang system which was one of the great blots on our agricultural industry twenty years ago is now practically at an end, I may proceed at once to the question of food and wages, leaving out the chapter which treated of agri- cultural gangs. — 1887.] In point of physical well-being the Northumbrian peasantry seem to bear away the palm from all the rest. It is difficult to believe, however, that some- thing of this superiority is not due to the race, since their actual food and wages do not seem sufficiently removed from those of more Southerly districts to account for the whole difference. Still, in their system of hiring, they possess this advantage* over agricul- tural labourers in general, being hired by the year, and certain of payment during the whole year, both in health and sickness. This arrangement, however, is peculiar to North Northumberland. The other pecu- liarity of the system is that they are here chiefly paid in kind. The labourer recsives a cottage, keep for a cow and a pig, so much potato ground, and a fixed allow- ance of wheat, barley, oats, and peas. His coals are drawn for him, and he receives besides SL^ or ^6 in cash. It is computed that the whole value of his re- ceipts represents about 14s. ^d. a week.f But, in * Cf. Cap. X. t According to Talks pp. 21-2, they are much higher now — 1887. Food and Wages. addition to this, he has the earnings of his children and unmarried daughters, at an average rate of 10^. a day for one, and Is. 6(Z. a day for the other, so that on the whole the general rate of incomes may be taken to be a pound a week.* According to Mr. Henley's Report, the dietary of a Northumbrian peasant would make a poor man's mouth water in many other parts of England, though we are bound to add that in many he would turn up his nose at it. That, indeed, which is stated by Mr. Henley to be by far the more in- vigorating diet of the two which are in use in North- umberland would furnish a very undesirable banquet in the eyes of a Leicestershire or Northamptonshire ploughman : porridge, barley cakes, brown bread, milk, cheese, butter, and bacon. Oddly enough, there seems an irresistible amount of evidence to show that where this diet has been superseded by tea, coffee, and butcher's meat there is a marked deterioration in the physical energies of the people. The midland counties man's ideal of a dinner, " a piece of beef as big as a brick, "f is evidently the growth of a grazing country unacquainted with the virtue of oatmeal. But, never- theless, this same ideal is beginning to pertneate the dales and make itself manifest, as aforesaid, in de- generated thews and sinews. The abundance of fuel enables every cottager to keep a glorious fire burning, and, what is most important to health, he always has a hot dinner. There are certain drawbacks to the system of payment in kind, which are these : — The * A higher class of servants, ploughmen, shepherds, &c., get a good deal more. t Very seldom realized at this date. B 2 The Ag7'uttltural Labou7^er. labourer is, to some extent, at the mercy of his em- ployer ; in a bad season he may get bad wheat and bad potatoes ; he has little ready money for clothes and other necessaries, so that he is often driven to sell his allowances, doubtless at considerable disadvantage ; and he is obliged to take any cottage that is offered to him, however miserable it may be. Payment in kind seems to operate very differently in different parts of England. In the Northern Counties it appears to suit the habits of the people, and, in the opinion both of the farmers and the Commissioners, to produce more good than harm. In the west and south- west, on the contrary, it is generally considered to work badly.* One reason for this distinction is, that whereas in the Northern Counties the system extends to articles of food in general, in the south it is limited to drink. And one evil of the last-mentioned practice is most glaring ; and that is, that wherever it prevails it is generally compulsory, f that is to say, it is Farmer A or Farmer B's custom to pay so much to his labourers in cash and so much in beer or cider. The labourer has no option. He may be a teetotaller, and want no cider ; or an abstemious man, and not want so much ; but he can't get money instead of it. This is a crying grievance, which we trust, however, is gradually ceasing to exist without legislative interference. The effects of this system on the morality of the population are both good and bad. It may implant a taste for drink where none existed before. On the other hand, the man having had all he wants during his work is less likely to go out to the public-house when he returns home. From an economical point of view the preponderance of * But see page 54. f Not now — 1887. Food and Wa^es. opinion seems to be decidedly against it. The proportion of wages absorbed by the allowance of drink is too large, and deducts too much from the general household fund. Many farmers, however, object to the whole system upon principle, and not merely as regards the particu- lar item of liquor. "If paid altogether in money," says one of the correspondents I have already quoted, ** a saving, careful man and his wife can, without doubt, do more with it than they can with mixed wages." Of course, he adds, there may be here and there a careless couple, " who, the more money they have, the worse muddle they get into." But this is not confined to any rank in life. Before quitting the subject of wages we may notice one vicious custom of which there cannot well be two opinions. We mean the system of payment at long intervals, and often irregularly. Even a large income is less useful when received in such a manner. From the labourer's income it deducts a heavy percentage. It drives him into debt ; debt keeps him under the thumb of the village shopkeeper ; and any attempt at a more economical disposition of his earnings is made impossible. Upon the whole, the average rate of wages through- out the counties visited by the Commissioners seems to vary from about 15s. to lis. These, in each case, are supplemented by the earnings of the women and children ; for where these last do not work in the field they work at some in-door employment. The average weekly cash earnings of an average English labourer and his family may be set down probably at 18s. a week, exclusive of " allowances," and, if harvest money The Agricultural Labourer, is added, at ^1 ; but when the wife works at the stocking-frame and the younger children at " seam- ing," it is probably, one year with another, a good deal more. A clergyman near Doncaster says it is the rule, and not the exception, for a labourer to leave at his death from iG50 to d6150. In Wiltshire they reckon that a man in regular employment makes his 12s. a week on the average. Mr. Norman, indeed, treats this merely as a farmer's statement ; but the present writer has received the same assurance from labourers who had certainly no interest in exaggerating the rate of wages. The peasantry, however, do not seem to be sa well fed or clothed as in the Northern and Midland Counties. We have seen how they live in Northum- berland. Mr. Stanhope says that a Lincolnshire labourer has meat three times a' day, and a Leicester- shire labourer once.* We rather doubt both these statements, unless by meat is meant bacon. But, after all deductions are made, we still have a much more satisfactory scale of diet than where meat once a month is a good deal nearer the mark than meat once a day. In Dorsetshire, vegetables flavoured with bacon fat, or bread and cheese ; in Somersetshire, bread and butter, or bread dipped in cider ; in Cheshire, potatoes, or gruel thickened with treacle, were found to be the commonest articles of food. In Stafi'ordshire, Mr. Stanhope found a village where even bacon was un- known. But what the poor feel most is the dearness of milk, and, of course, where milk is dear, cheese and butter are the same ; and at St. Giles's, in Dorsetshire, ** a parish cow " has been established, by the advice of * This was certainly not true in 1867, though it is now — 1887. Food and Wages, Lord Shaftesbury, to supply the cottagers with milk. But even in Wiltshire and Dorsetshire the poor have money in the savings-banks, and if they choose to deny themselves in point of diet, it is rather to their credit than otherwise. One thing, indeed, seems beyond dispute — that a steady labourer with three or four boys, between the age of leaving school and going to service, may earn upon the whole a yearly income which ought to place him not only far above want, but in a condition of affluence. In support of this assertion, which many of our readers will doubtless receive with incredulity, we subjoin evidence extracted direct from the Eeport, and also some that we have obtained from private sources. The first is a table of earnings supplied to Mr. Norman by a farmer near Market Harborough ; and this is not the highest rate upon his farm. Head of Family, John Lee, about 48 years of age. Father's Earnings. £ s. d. £ s. d. 46 weeks at 12s 27 12 4 weeks, harvest 6 2 weeks, hay 1 15 Extra 10 weeks' piecework 3 „ 20 days' threshing and chaff cutting by steam! 10 — 38 17 Manning Lkb, eldest son, 19 years. 52 weeks at 10s. 26 Extra for harvest 4 tay 9 „ piecework, 10 weeks 1 „ overtime 5 * 81 14 The Agricultural Labourer £ s. d. Brought forward ... 70 11 Tom Lee, second son, 16 years. 52 weeks at 8s 20 16 Extra for harvest ... 10 „ hay 9 ,, overtime ... ... ... ... 5 22 10 Job Lee, third son, 14 years. 52 weeks at 4s 10 8 Total earnings of family £l03 9 My waggoner and his two sons, engaged with horses, earn more ; shepherd and two Sons, ditto ; and another ordinary labourer nearly £90. The following table was furnished to the present writer by a farmer in Hampshire, on the borders of Wiltshire, a district not hitherto associated with the most favourable ideas of the condition of the agricul- tural labourer : — Michaelmas 1866 to 1867. Man, 3 weeks at lis. „ 26 „ 12s „ 23 „ 13s 1st boy, 3 weeks at 5s. 6d. ... „ 49 „ &s 2nd boy, 52 „ 4s 3rd „ 29 „ 2s. Qd „ » 23 „ 3^ 4th „ 35 „ 2s. Qd Wife at Harvest Work Money instead of beer, for all House and garden free, worth Wood or Coal... ... Id. each for all lambs wear ed Man, Michaelmas money ... Ist boy, ,, 2nd „ „ 3rd „ „ £ s. d. 1 13 15 12 14 19 16 6 14 14 10 8 3 12 6 3 9 4 7 6 2 3 4i 1 6 H 4 1 4 1 7 4 2 16 10 £SQ 17 Food and Wages. Michaelmas 1867 to 1868. £ s. d. 33 16 18 4 10 8 7 16 5 9 2 8 5 4 6 6 5 ^91 17 1 Man, 52 weeks at 13s. Istboy, 52 „ 7s. 2nd „ ,, 4». 3rd „ „ 3s. 4th „ 43 „ 25. ^d. ... Money instead of beer, for all House Wood or coal... \d. each for lambs weaned ... Man, Michaelmas money Istboy „ 2nd „ „ 3rd „ The man here was shepherd, and therefore making rather more than the ordinary day labourer, who, with an equal number of children in employ, would get probably between £70 and ii*80 a year. But it is not easy to calculate how much these last may earn by piece-work. The same gentleman says : — *' I think there can be no doubt but that agricul- tural labourers and country mechanics are in much better circumstances than they were twenty or twenty- five years ago in every way : better wages, better dwellings, better food and clothing, and more comforts. The bricklayers and carpenters had then about 15s. a week, now from 18s. to 21s., and upwards." Yet it is curious that in the subjoined table of weekly wages in this part of England, there seems to have been no rise during the last quarter of a cen- tury to account for this improvement. lo The Agricultural Labourer. Labourer's Whekly Wages. 1845 9 1846 9s., and part of year . 10 1847 10s., „ 9 1848 9 1849 9«., and part of year . 8 1850 8s., 7 185175., „ 8 1852 7s., „ 8 1853 9s., „ . 10 1854 105., „ . 11 1855 . 10 1856 . 10 1857 . 9 1858 9 1859 . 9 1860 9s., and part of year . 10 1861 . 10 1862 10s., and part of year . 9 1863 . 9 1864 . 9 1865 . 9 1866 9s., and part of year . 10 1867 10s., „ . 11 1868 lis., „ . 10 1869 10s., „ 9 " This statement," says the writer, ** only relates to weekly wages, and not to piece-work at all; but I think that the average for the year would be about 4s. or 4s. ^d, a week above the weekly wages." A communication I have received from Suffolk is to the same effect. ** You will, I know, excuse my not writing before, as I have been very busy. I shall give the account of Food and Wages. II wages yeai' by year without including the corn or hay harvest. Corn Laws Repealed, 1849. Average of wages in 1846 lis. per week. 1847 10s. 1848 10s. 1850 9s. 1851 8«. 6d 1852 ^&. 1853 10s. 1869 lis. Now, 1870, only 10*. per week. " N.B. — The wages in this, the eastern part of Suf- folk, rise or fall according to the price of wheat, and now we have an abundant supply of labour. In 1848 and 1849 the harvest wages were i£4 10s. per month ; and in 1869 last I gave eight men ^50 for a month and three days. During the hay harvest the men would get 3s. per day for cutting grass or clover. In the corn harvest the men have five pints of ale and an unlimited supply of table-beer per day. In the hay harvest, three pints and table-beer as above." From Leicestershire* the following note has been sent me by an old friend : — "March 4, 1870. " To the best of my recollection, labourers' wages did not fall after the repeal of the Corn Laws. Wages are now higher than they were at that time : at the present time, the wages of a good labourer, fit to send to any work upon a farm, are at least 12s. per week, * Througli the greater part of this county the women and children earn a great deal by the stocking manufacture. 12 The Agricultural Labourer. with ale ; lower class of men, only fit for rough work, are having 12s. without beer. In fact, you can't get an able-bodied man under 2s. a day. For ten weeks in harvest time, for the last year or two, good men have had 15s. per week, with lots of beer, or 18s. or 19s. per week without beer, except on carrying days, when they usually expect some drink. Extra hands during harvest time want 2s. ^d. per day and some beer. To the best of my belief, this information is correct as far as this neighbourhood is concerned." But, from the present writer's own recollection, he would be disposed to doubt whether the rise here re- ferred to can exceed a shilling a week at the outside. It is remarkable that the farmers complain, in many places, that they cannot get the same amount of work out of their men as their fathers used to get ;* and they add that they must have machinery to compensate for the falling off in human thews and sinews. If this complaint be only one other note of the regular agri- cultural growl, we may dismiss it from consideration ; but if there be any element of truth in it, the asser- tion becomes extremely interesting ; for to what does it point ? It must point to one of two things : either that the labourer will not work as he used, or that he cannot. But that sudden rebellion against toil — that determination not to " slave to death," which is at the bottom of the " won't " — is generally found only in men whose hearts have waxed fat with plenty, and not in men situated as many of our peasantry are.f We cannot imagine, then, that the inferiority complained * Cf. Cap. iv., pp. 63-65. t See p. 15. Food and Wages. 13 of is the wilful and deliberate doing of the workmen themselves in the majority of our rural districts, though it may be so in some. If, then, we fall back upon the other alternative, and suppose that their strength is really less, how are we to account for that ? That the present generation of English peasantry are worse off than the last — that they get, that is, smaller supplies of nourishing food, less warmth, and worse clothing — is a proposition abundantly refuted by the evidence above giyen. For the last two or three years meat has been extremely dear, but the dearness has not lasted long enough to have permanently affected any large class of the community, while at the same time it has been to a large extent neutralised by the cheapness of other articles of food. Many people think that the quantity of tea which they now drink is hurtful to them. And they certainly do get a very inferior quality of beer to what they could obtain for- merly. Others throw the blame upon allotments. On the whole, however, we are disposed to doubt the fact, or to xjonsider it, at all events, a specimen of agricul- tural exaggeration. That there was a time when the peasantry were better off we do believe. That, how- ever, was not the time of our fathers, nor scarcely of our grandfathers. If the condition of the labourer has declined during the last hundred years, it has risen during the last fifty. Before the American war it was better than it is at present. About the beginning of the French war it was much the same. After the peace it was a great deal worse.* When we are told, * On the condition of the labourers between 1790 and 1820 a good deal of light is thrown bj Crabbe's Poems. 14 The Agricultural Labourer, as the present writer has been told, that no traditions still survive among the poor of a time when they were better off, the only explanation of it is, that material prosperity is not one of those things which affect the imagination. At the accession of George III. meat was Z\d. a pound, cheese the same, butter 6fZ., wheat under 30s. a quarter, cottage rent from 20s. to 25s., and the cottager had his share of the common for cow, pig, poultry, and fuel. In 1792 the commons had mostly disappeared; meat was 6f.6d to 3s., and for harvest, 4s. Is. Zd. in Winter. Is. 6rf. in Summer. 3«. for twenty days in harvest. %d. to 2s. per day. 1 1 Shepherd Carter Day Labourer Women Bo.s 22 The Agricultural Labourer. CO 00 00 o Q o 1^ g w g «^ P H O t— I o <1 1 a '-' rvj*^ « . ^ A ^ s ^- eo 1— t o ^ S 55 '3 -»3 8£? H ^ O tS > m «s ^ © 00 oo *; 1^ o ^ T-l o O I— 1 1— 1 1— 1 >» <»' •g' PQ Ui "*< 1 : u : : a> 1 si 1 : ^ ^ E;. i ^ 1 5 ^ ^ ^ «rt Wages. 27 P^ ES H M PQ W :^ ^^ K iJ § ^ 1 Agricultural labou- rer far better off tl;an he has been before in the living memory, both as to time and sever- ity of labour. Young men especi- ally will not work their best, even at piece-work. Men in former days, say 20 or 30 years ago, would mow ] \ acres in a day. They will not mow 1 acre now. Farmers dishearten- ed by the compara- tively poor quality of the labour, and think it much too highlypaid in com- parison with the results. Eflfectof Edu- cation Act. 3 About £44. Do. £32. i 1 Hou-e and garden* and pota toe ground, rent free. Ton of coal at Christmas and faggots ; other sraall perquisites ; small beer. House and garden rent free ; faggots & coal; Is. or is. 6rf. for load of corn ta- ken out and sohJ ; beer or beer money. i u £4 (Michael, mas money). £4 (Micbael- luas). Included in piece work, as estim- ated before. £1 to £3. \d. or Id. each lamb weaned, amounting to about 50s. At least half as much as his weekly wages, in some cases more None. -^ f ^ Shepherd Carter ... Day Labourer Women... Boys ... 28 The Agricultural Labourer. I subjoin an extract from a letter from a Wiltshire clergyman whom I have known for five- and- twenty years as a strong Liberal, and who has always sympa- thized with the labourers : — " It is even harder to get these facts from labourers than from farmers. If you were to ask my gardener what he got a week you would find him fence with the question, or probably leave you under a wrong im- pression. The best wages are earned by those who undertake a dairy and making cheese — a man and a woman like this getting from 25s. to 30s. a week. There can be no doubt at all as to the vast improve- ment in the material condition of the Wiltshire farm labourer, and it is equally certain that never was he so thoroughly discontented or so averse to work — never willing to do the smallest thing to oblige his master at a pinch without extra pay. We had a fire here lately, and the first question the men asked was what they were to ' get for their additional work — several would not do a stroke of work hardly, and looked on with their hands in their pockets. Things were very diffe- rent — much better — years ago. Compulsory education has worked badly — here the compulsion practically is dropped." Making a detour into the cider counties we get the following statements from Somersetshire, Worcester, Herefordshire, and Gloucestershire : — Wages. 29 cc o o 2 §^ (D ^ O . .2 S-^ III' O G js o S * C8 VO -i o L 1-s-sf a s- o << *- ft ^ S o © > o r3 fe: ?g ?^ o «4 c a O > rt (33 s ^ A ^ o ^ 9 w 2 «• 4 <=> c3 »» ? c] • ^ "^ «2 CiC « c3 tS OS 00 cS»e'^^o=5d;:oH^:ti25 ■■ ||S.-e"li|3s8r III SIS. S'.-SsS^-S t^s.^ : « p o "^ ^ -a .5 — ■'5 u O 2 r4;i^, ^ ft o a 1 -S-^ «"*"'«'^ o § s ?§ § g § =« -^ w c8 •• ^ e ,, ftS'f a <» ■T3 .- a ^ _® ^ o ft'S. *• cT'^ § « ~ ^^ 5 >, :S^a2 53i§:g^ce.2a 9'? 30 The Agricultural Labourer. Ed M ^ w w CO » A ^ % w H o o w o o *S g^^^^- r^-Ts.a • fcfl C CS orj ■s P c8 ft . 1 i 2 ^ 03 TO Irii __; -e^- '«*^' ^ S)-«* 'ts '^" -^ TO o ?o o o O »s* <«• oi oo* 1 2i : ■^ ^ "^ ^ > CO T-H 00 CO I-H =3 ,-1 =3 c8 ■<1 »-t I— 1 a ^^ ^^- •g ^.S M ' — ■ — ' r3 O ilhi "^ CO ^ u a 1 1 ^ ...2 i,:2 lo- ut b^-S 00 o e8 -i(0» 05 C^ (N ,-t ^— — ^— ^ 1 4^ t *5 1— ( es o « »o «5 . >> > S i2 -S i « OS ^ '"' t3 ^ 41 ►? »5 5 J? eg °o' 00 af ^ ■«*< -^ l-H O t^O ^ T-H T-l J-H I— 1 : : »i< : ^^ S . "m -^ J J ^ 1 a, 0) «^ 1 & ^ ^ ^a Wages. 31 P W '2 • - w a c3 ^.^ * «*!? M 6 -a fl "3" s 1^ 1 ^ 8 «2 <=> o< p^ , © .+0 t> 3 P 03^ 1^ ^.1 S"' or> -»o ^ cJ 1 J 09 : §1 »-4 i-t a-S >.^ Si s- — d c -^ rt > .If Ph to s^ -(J qj &i '^ , ' •-3 CIS &^ _ii u 00 « »5 3 eS t« ITS ICi s ;:: P<'> K *-• r-l CI C ii:: ^ rH «2 ->r i» "*^ -S T^ a — v:; v-'2 i P s 2 > .a m C3 a ^ w 32 The Agricultural Labourer, o P O P3 O P I CO <1 P ►^ P O I— I S . <» >» 1 1—1 3 o3 a 1* r^-O o o O ^ 1 ^•<=' o ■Tj* : O - . ■* CO t>. ■^ <^^ ■«:*< CO j-t oo" .'• ^g 2 W ■pi C^ (N > pq 00 &£ 6 •S > 1 . 15 : i : : fq 1 % oa 09 as «o ^ »o lO ^ ^ i>» CO :4 P ^ a Wages. 33 Eeturning to the South Coast, I have the two follow- ing tables from Kent, one from West Kent kindly supplied to me by Lord Stanhope. Here it will be seen that almost everything is paid in hard cash. I ^ ^ ** « fl ^ _. ^ +3 ^ n3 'p.ti; 'p -2-g - O ^a A ^ M II © A o OS 02 -»J O a The Agricultural Labourer. The East Kent wages appear to bo somewhat lower. CD OO CO P3 o o XJl P^ t) ^^ O h— ( P^ P^ M P5 M o w Q g IN «- ^ w .'f^ cS Sh fcn c^-^-g ,£3 > o r4 ^ 3 ^ ^ li : • s"^" rs .15^ 3 1^ ^ : : : Ph S) c; e§ p wl •; : eo : : >.> »o • K d 1 : ;§■ : : ^ ^ 4ii o rH ►? eo CO 00 «o o ^ O !» (N 1— t rH S t ^ 1 : •■ '2 : Z ,£3 u s g ^ -S >» S DO ^ a (3 ^ ^ Wages. 35 P5 P 1 This man has sole charge of 350 acres, all grass, and grazed, has a boy to help him at 9s. a week. Shearing done by men who take the job. These men's wages were all 2s. per week more before last Michaelmas. The boys' or mates', so here called, have not lowered. The day labourers were lowered ?>d. per day at Michaelmas, 1885, when wages were 2s. Qd. per day, and at Michaelmas, 1886, per day 2>d. again lower, were in proportion. Stock- men lowered 2s. per week. Effect of the Educa- tion Act. H 1 1 *House ; keep him a cow ; keeps what poultry he likes ; half the geese ; all the fat in dead sheep ; keep him a horse to ride. Nothing. Do. Do. Nothing. Nothing. Do. Do. les harvest. 7. 3s. 15s. 18s. 10s. 2s. s ^ Nothing. -Nothing. )o. Do. This includ £1 £19 £12 £14 £15 £5 i P. Shepherd. Carter No. 1, and his boy No. 2... No. 3... Day Labourers. Best man,! do. 2 do. 3 do. 4 do. 5 do. 6 «rt D 2 36 The Agricultural Labourer, XJl A lot of the piece work is in hop land. All piece work lowered about 2d. in the shilling. Hop tying lowered about 2s. per acre. This is rather a difficult case, as children, perhaps, do half or more of the work. I see two pickers at a bin last year earn as below :— £ s. d. £ s. d. 5 19 6 6 8 6 5 18 8 14 7 14 6 8 5 9 6 2 7 6 5 10 5 12 6 8 6 3 6 13 for about 4 weeks. Effect of the Educa- tion Act. 1 ^ bD ^ nary work, ladder tyin Hop picking £1 15s. Nothing. Hop picking Hop picking 1 to per day Is. for ordi Is. 3rf. for lis. to 14s. Week. 7s. 5s. 3«. Women ... Do., hop tying by the acre. Hop pick- ing Boys. No. 1 ... No. 2 ... No. 3 ... No. 4 ... Wages. Z7 If now we turn northwards again, and cross the Eiver Thames, we shall find that in the three typical East Anglian . counties, Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, the rise and fall in wages has been very marked. They rose from 10s. a week to 12s. after 1870, and have now fallen back again to 10s., minus the shilling a week for beer, which was given down to the end of last winter.* The following comes from a farm some few miles north of Bishop S tort ford. AGRICULTURAL WAGES— DEC, 1885, TO DEC, 1886. Essex. By Perqui- By Week. By Hece. By Harvest sites, Beer, TaU Com, Faggots, &c. Total Remarks. Shepherd ... About 125. and house. ... £5 to £6 ... This is, I believe, about the wages ; some are allowed to keep a few sheep ; I have no sheep. Carter ... Horsekeeper Is. instead Comes 4,30 a.m. to feed his whogenerally ■ 12*. £6 to of small horses ; also on Sundays ; ploughs from 5 or table other men at 6 a.m. 6 till 2 P.M. J beer. Day Labourer 10«. lis. to 12s. £5 to £7 Is. Now 10s., without beer — wages having been re- duced Is. the last winter. Women ...) M. a day. ... Gleanings 4 Not many women or girls Girls Y U. to %d. or 5 bushels go to field labour, and 13 to 16) a day. of corn. only in fine weather. Boya 2s. Qd. to 6s. or 7s. ... In some small villages Is. to Is. Qd. per week more. A large farmer living 5 or 6 miles from here told me last week he could only get one boy about twelve, at 4s. per week, and had to set men lead- ing his horses, at dung- cart, &c. * The fall, however, can only be regarded as temporary. 38 The Agricultural Labourer, The farmer who sent me the above table accom- panied it with a very interesting letter on the condition of the labourers in general, the substance of which will be given hereafter. From another village in the same neighbourhood I have received the enclosed, which shows a slightly higher scale, but not much. I think wages in general are Is. per week, on the average, more than in 1870. I think wages rose Is. per week on account of Arch and the Union. On ac- count of the great depression in agri- culture now the labourers are tak- ing Is. per week less. H Perquisites, Beer, Coals, Faggots, Tail- corn, &c., &c. s 1 ^ yx £8 per man. 2s. per day. S ^ Principally all threshed by machin- ery. i i i ^ i 11 Shepherd Carter Day Labourer... Women Boys Wages, 39 From South Suffolk comes the following : — AGRICULTURAL WAGES— DEC, 1885, TO DEC, 1886. South Suffolk. ,ByWeek. By Piece. By Harvest. Perquisites. Total. Remarks. Shepherd 12s. House&garden free; malt* and firing free ; Qd. for each lamb. 2Cs. And certain other advan- tages. Carter... Day Labourer 12s. and lis. lis. and 10s. Many kinds of work too £8 10s. for about 1 month. £8 10s. Malt free ; house rent, Is. 6dt Rough firing in harvest. 17s. 6d and 16s.6d 17s. & 16s. Firing for heating oven for baking bread, &c. Women . 8dtol0d a day. numerous to specify. Boys ... 4s. to 7s. a week, according to age. In the following return from the same county the reader will see that faggots figure largely among the perquisites. Cobbett remarks on the superior comforts of the peasantry in a woodland district; and where- ever there is much wood-felling going on the wood- cutters always get a nice lot of brushwood to carry home. Here, too, they are allowed firewood when fen- cing, that is, hedging. The reader must note this where he sees so much put down for piecework, it * The Suffolk labourers brew at home. + The cottages and gardens in this part of England are particularly good. See Clifford's "Agricultural Lookout," cap. viii. He reckons cottages let at Is. Qd. as well worth 3s. 6d. But the average rent is only £4 Is. Qd. 40 The Agrictdtural Labourer. means that for so many weeks out of the fifty-two the man receives this extra amount. Piecework, i.e., turnip hoeing, pulling, draining, and hedging, varies very greatly in different districts. Here it seems to be worth about 4s. a week extra for eleven weeks in the year. This table is drawn up for 1885, and a shilling a week must be deducted from weekly wages for 1886. -e^ o o t-i 5S 1 . vn Oi CO o 00 « r-* r-t I-H "« 00 H Oi 1— • ^:3: 00 00 CO ef *« dS itc d3 «J3 -12 o tb c Ha O 1 to 1 1 em fco 1 to a 0^ 1^ % 6 a .s a 5 1 o J 00 — L. 00 1— < -x^o o o ^-S. J i H a 1:^ li •C a o o El 7 t3 •rl a 1 m 'S to s" -XJ M a (3 >2 s .s^ m % s g 59 i «0 CO a I— ( o o s >A «o o tn Q<3 o^ ACS < s_- 'e ^ i CO CO 00 a s «O00 So a " I— 1 fH a Q 1 £s . »i4 (— ( ; £ , P5 • 3 • '• O 1 ^ < f 1 1- a» OS M «rt Wages, 41 The following account has been sent to me in a letter by an eminent agriculturist in Norfolk : — " Our carters are generally paid from 2s. to 2s. ^d, a week above day labourers. Sometimes a cottage, rent free, and less wages ; all take their share in harvest, which may range from £6 to £8. The time is usually under a month, sometimes less than three weeks. Shepherds have the usual pay of stockmen, whose Sundays are employed ; that is. Is, or Is. 6^. above day labourers, and 6tZ. a head for all lambs weaned. Day labourers are paid from 10s. to 12s. a week. They have extra harvest wages and extra pay in hay-time, with piecework all through the summer. At turnip- hoeing a man should always earn half-a-crown a day ; and task work is generally put out so that he may be able to earn that sum. "Wages rose with the leaps and bounds of our prosperity among the agricultural labourers ; and were no doubt also put up by the Union and the strikes. They had been as high as 12s. previously, but the Agricultural Union could not keep up wages when agricultural distress set in." With a few more figures from the Midland Counties our inquiry into the existing rate of wages may be brought to a conclusion. I may take this opportunity of point- ing out that wherever it is stated that wages have fallen a shilling during the past winter we must remember that they will not remain at that level all through the current year, and that many of the tables which I have given represent only the sums paid during the three or four darkest and least busy months in the whole calendar. 42 The Agricultural Labourer. From North Northamptonshire Mr. Albert Pell, of Haslebeach, late M.P. for South Leicestershh-e, sends me the following statement of the rate of wages in his own district. He says that skilled labour has not fallen at all in the last five years, and is now perhaps rising, but that common unskilled labour is lower than it was. Wages, 43 f^ w pq 5?^ m ^ S H a o m w f4 p o o o s .a rt o & o o 1 M •8 09 ^ 1 P4 8) >> tb -g & >>-tj ^•s ji ^ ^ 1! 11 1 ^ Cl, o 5 ^ eo CO OO O H ll 11 n J S c^ fMO ^ 3 r-t "1" So pq CO i (M r _^ „•> > . O *5 CO CQ O) ':o > ^^ CO o © • S CM ': ^ 1 '^ «0 CO 00 CO ^ OO CO CO CO ^ i>. : i : : 1 1 i i a o 1 «rt 44 The Agricultural Labourer, From central Oxfordshire I have been supplied with the following table : — CO 00 00 00 00 O Q I < P5 O I— I C <1 ^ Q 135. week, ottage irden; extras piece - hay- and St. r em- omen, sip so. « Cowme per withc andg also for work, time, harve I neve ploy w they gos t^ eo 13 ^ 3 "'? 1— 1 «o •si H 5 -a O erqiiisites, , Faggots, Jorn, Coal, &c. a « g Cottage; £1 for beer in harvest ; Sd. per day extra in haytime. : : : i %l% 1- « eS 'e M P £ ■g ^ '^ "O «5 &: 1 "2 -5 - Zi o o I— ' ■ 15 h) «rt w^ year; at 4s. —can a day. year; cart c, at . 6d. CO « i^k^ -2^1^^ • 5* . n t ear] SCO asc .2 ^-M oZ. f ■ ja o ICas-^S. us M CS-S co^ c8 c8 «rt «rt «rt s-i si ;e-^ S^ 1 . ^ ri != ^5 : . i i ^ : 1 i ! .s u J § a. 9J S 09 a> O ^ S V ^ 1 ;§ Wages, 45 Mr. Jonathan Glover, of Kilby Lodge, agent to Sir Henry Halford, of Wistow Hall, Leicestershire, and President of the Leicestershire Chamber of Agriculture, is my next informant. « » w 04 m W 1^ "^ H ^ o M s &3 9 l-H k; 1 Reckoning the garden and cot- tage as worth £6 a year. Allowing four weeks' draining, and four weeks' hedging in the 19s. summer wages ; turnip tioeing by the piece is included. ^ ■^ 1 1 £55 16s. About £53 16s. About £44 16s. siery. ft House and garden free = £6 ayear. House and garden free. Beer after 6 o'clock when carrying. at seaming ho None. ! No harvest work for this man. None. 9s. a week Is. Qd. a week extra fori week 8. i besides shearing, when 30s. aweek is earned, and lambing time 20s. extra for the job. None. The best men earn 20s. a week at draining in win- ter, and hedge- cutting ]8s. a week, and in summer 24s. to 30s. aweek har- vesting, but only the best men. cd. Get 6«. to None. 1 18s. winter. 21s. for 10 weeks in summer. 18s. winter. 21s. summer. 14s. winter. 19s. summer. None employ 4s. to 6s. Shepherd Carter... Day Labourer Women... Boys ... 46 The Agricultural Labourer. The following letter will explain the ahove state- ment : — " Deab Me. Kebbel, — Our year of labour is divided into two sections — ten weeks (summer wages) and forty-two weeks winter. During the former the best men get 19s. a week when not cutting harvest, which lasts, say, a month. During this month they are on by the piece ; their 19s., of course, ceases, and they get from 30s. to 35s. a week during the month, which makes, say, 25s. per week average for ten weeks summer. Then, as to winter, they have 14s. a week for a week of six days (Is. extra for Sunday men). During this time the best men get three months' piece work — draining, hedging, &c. — for which they get 18s. a week, averaging, for forty-two weeks, ^15s. a week." The account given of the Lincolnshire labourers by Mr. Little for the year 1877* represents the culminat- ing point in the fortunes of the agricultural labourer between 1867 and 1887. One man in the Fen districts in the above-mentioned year cleared d622 lis. 3^(i. by harvest work alone ; and his total receipts for the year amounted to £62 8s. 3Jd. This is clearly an excep- tional district. But Mr. Little declares that " even in the lower wage districts a good working man at the present day takes his fair share of the produce of the soil ; and I can scarcely imagine that without capital he could in any other capacity turn his labour to more profitable account in the tillage of the land." If ho * Royal Agricultural Society's Journal, 1878, p. 509. Wages, 47 gets a smaller return now the farmer gets a smaller one still ; and, in proportion to the gain of the other agricultural classes, the labourer gets his " fair share " now as truly as he did ten years ago, if he does not indeed get more. But what I want particularly to call attention to in this paper is the account of the young single men on a Lincolnshire farm. " The young men in question lodge with the steward of the farm, and pay him the sum of 2s. a week for the uses, say, accommodation, and for flour for puddings, pepper, salt, mustard, and the cooking of their food. They are hired by the year, and draw weekly wages of about 12s. each, a considerable sum being retained until the end of their term. Lodging, cooking, salt, &c. 2\ 4-lb. loaves at Id. ... 21b. sugar at 3|cZ. 2 oz. tea at 2d ^Ib. butter at Is. 6d. ... 6 lb. meat at 8c?. Herrings... 2oz. tobacco s. d. 2 1 5i 7 4 9 4 6 6 10 n It will be seen at once that these men live not only well, but extravagantly, allowing themselves nearly a pound of butcher's meat a day, and also the extra in- dulgence of a considerable allowance of tobacco." The same class draw rather less wages now, but the differ- ence is more than made up by the fall in the price of provisions. Tea, sugar, butter, and butcher's meat, are from 20 to 50 per cent, cheaper at the present day than they are in the above table. I don't think it can 48 The Agricultural Labourer. very well be said, then, that the young men among the peasantry are driven out of the villages by the hard- ships and privations they would have to endure as labourers. I have received the accompanying statement of Lincolnshire wages from the neighbourhood of Louth, from which it will be seen how greatly wages vary in different parts of the county, for the fall since 1877 would not account for the whole difference between Mr. Little's table and my informants. Wages, 49 1 Lincolnshire system of payment of yearly men is to give them in lieu of wages so many stones (141b.) of pork. As a rule, in Lincolnshire, the carters, known here as wag- goners, are single men, and have so much per annum, and their board and lodgings found. The last two years the daily la- bourer has been in receipt of 2s. for winter six months, and 2s. Zd. summer do. per day. £45 12s. £41 18s. £40 14s. y are 1 is 1 House & garden,* Is. 6(i. ; 30 stone porkat 6s., £9; 1 rood potatoes, 10s. ; 60 faggots, 12s. House and garden; 30 stone bacon Have coals fetched for them when required. om towns, and the s. 2d. per day. 1 1 >> For harvest, £3 Is able to earn by task work about £3 Os. 6rf. Can earn for a month in har- vest about £8. cept in gangs, fr and earn about 1 Have their wages doubled in har- vest for a month, in lieu of task work, generally. 1 17s. 6J. or 18s. ployed, ex fly Irish, -^ ^ ^ lis. 10s. 123. to 13s. Qd. None em chie 3s. to 8s. Shepherd ... Carter Day Labourer Women Boys 50 The Agricultural Labourer, From South Lincolnshire, near Stamford : — CO p^ 3 D3 Q ^ ^ W H O ^^ bees >»^ ^ ^ 3^ o 2 C O Q> "^ J ^ '-I Q) f-i p: :3 c3 O O ;^ .a 1 -s I g a a •S-S 1.2 ^ c3 -+a O M Y a o r2 o 5 S Ol ^•3 >>rt •- i^ -^ ft ^ I S" f^ I s ??-§ .-^ a I ri - o '^ a &= a : ^-c a §)a ^ >>2 tUB «. r" fl cS J' -a 00 t- ..9 CI -tJ S 2 I ^ 3 o a ftS • <» c« > ■ft^-^ ftl^ «2 -^ O -»3 +H o • a "H -^ ■ft f^'5 rH t3 cS 2 .2 2 -^ ^ a iS o o M --; a ■^ »0 w « s -►^ a -"3 g w 2 ^^s^ a =* - !>»g 3 T3 g) u ■!-■ I l2 u Wages. 51 The next estimate with which I shall trouble the reader is from the neighbourhood of Stratford-on-Avon. Another, which I have received from the neighbourhood of Leamington, does not differ very materially. n3 '+H (U r3 S ° ° fl « ^ c« =* S ^ o U fi «rt o S § 5 2^ Ph S rt rt ^ a -^ E 00 "^ a: '^ — I C ^3 ^ fcJO O ^^ O c« S pi s 0° CO •rg « a c3 CO s a 5 >'^ ja a o ^ o o -^5 S .2 c ^ o ^' ** ' ^^ a s s 2 «i ■;: 52 The Agricultural Labourer. The last I have received, at the eleventh hour, is from Cambridge, but apparently incomplete. CO 00 00 pq o p o 30 CO 00 W O Q I H Q <1 •> rt p O fl O) 02 -t^ TS O ■ CD i ^ 'III rii-i •^ o 05 S If III 0) -rn ri3 .2 .2 ^ i 1- o o -§1 M a> d c! 1'^ s| EH > > ZL s\ tA xn 1 Cut ^ >!■ © ^ -O 13 : PP a j3 •-' l2j IP aj ^ m «« y • © :=2 ^ 1 s^ ^ I. 3*- ^ ^ trt«rt O : IZ %l i r oo -id M 1 1 § : «2 S : : ^ •p. i-i -1 i-t i-t ^ ^* ^ii '• h '^ : ^ : : S- 53 • H 5S -^ ^ o fl J ^ : CO Koc«^ ^ 1 The above tables will, I think, present the reader with a tolerably accurate bird's-eye view of the pecuniary position of the labourer at the present moment. On the whole I should say that the yearly earnings of shepherds, waggoners, stockmen, and superior servants of this class average about £50 a- year, and those of day-labourers nearly d640. It is clear that in spite of the Education Act a good deal of juvenile labour is still employed, so that boys still con- tribute something, though not what they used to do, to the common purse. When women do not work in the fields they often earn money by some indoor in- dustry at home. But as the number of boys at work for the same family must necessarily vary very greatly, and as neither women nor children are employed regu- larly, we have no data on which to base any general estimate of what they add to the weekly wages re- ceived by the head of the family.* Before quitting the subject of wages I may add a few words to what I have already said in a previous chapter on the subject of payment in kind. As, except in a very few counties, payment in kind means practi- cally payment in drink, it is to this that I shall confine my remarks. To compel the labourers to accept their wages in this form, whether they like it or not, is a practice which cannot be condemned too strongly. I see no harm, however, but on the contrary a great deal of good, in a custom which enables the workman to get a better article for his money than he could other- * But see above, pages 7-9. Here we see the maximum that could be earned by children before the passing of the Education Act. The average addition to the family wages by juvenile labour may even now, I think, be reckoned at £15 to £20 a year — perhaps more. 54 The Agricultural Labourer. wise procure. In some parts of the country, for in- stance, every man at harvest may, if he likes, have an eighteen-gallon cask of heer provided for him by the farmer at his own cottage, which is accounted for at the harvest settlement. By this plan the man obtains much better beer for Is. a gallon than he could get from the public-house at 2s. He has it at his own cottage, where his wife and family can share in it, and he is spared the temptation of going to the " Pig and Whistle," and drinking the well-doctored stuff which is sold there at 6fL a quart. If the labouring men are to drink beer at all I really do not see under v/hat better conditions they can drink it. And as I am my- self a great believer in the virtue of malt and hops I trust it will be a very long time before they do cease to drink it. Of the effect of the Education Act upon the general position and prospects of the agricultural labourer I shall speak more at length presently. That the labourer must experience some loss by the with- drawal of his children from field work up to twelve or thirteen years of age is undeniable. But to judge from the Keports of the Assistant Commissioners in 1880, it is only a small minority of the labourers who complain of it. The loss, whatever it may be, has been more than made up to them by the greater in- creased purchasing power of their own wages, and they may not therefore m\8S the children's earnings as much as they might have done formerly. The farmer suffers because he has to pay men for doing children's work. But the great point for my present argument is, that the labourers, as a rule, do not seem to grumble at the Education Act. If it has affected their wages either, owing to the causes I have mentioned, they do not feel it, or they think that the education of their children is worth the loss which it involves. From the farmer's point of view, and I may add from a pub- lic point of view, the operation of the Education Act is of all the influences which have begun to tell on the condition of the agricultural peasantry within the last seventeen years the one most pregnant with matter for grave and anxious consideration. On the receivers of wages it appears to have fallen lightly. But on the payers of wages its effect has certainly been in- jurious. It is asserted, indeed, by some among the farmers, that the only reason why the Education Act is hurtful either to employer or employed, is that it is administered too laxly; were it rigidly enforced they say, the great majority of children would be free from school by eleven years of age. They are wanted, how- ever, for some kinds of work even younger than that. The farmers having an influential voice in the District School Boards, should be able to pass bye-laws w^hich would mitigate to some extent the inconvenience to which they are exposed. But that remedy would be only partial : and it is clear that in many parts ol England the Act, however carried out, must inflict more or less loss on the employer. 56 CHAPTEK III. GENEEAL PROSPERITY. Notwithstanding all that has heen said of the fluctu- ation of wages, and the different opinions entertained among the farmers on a variety of questions affecting- the agricultural labourer, there is but one opinion on this point, namely, that he was never so well off as he is now. From Northumberland to Wiltshire, from Essex to Yorkshire, this is the uniform report. Take all the Keports of the Assistant Commissioners in 1880, and all the Returns, some thirty in number, which I have col- lected for myself in this year 1887, and the tale is still the same — never so well off as he is now. Nor is this only the farmers' version of the story; labourers in the Mid- lands will tell you that from a diet of "turnip stodge" (boiled turnips thickened with bread and flavoured with herring fat), on which many of them lived twenty years ago, they have now advanced to butchers' meat nearly every day in the week. A joint of meat weigh- ing six or seven pounds, with a Yorkshire pudding of goodly dimensions underneath it, goes from the cottage to the bakehouse every Sunday ; and more than once during the week the larder is replenished. Broiled ham, which can be bought for 6d. a pound, figures on General Prosperity, 57 the breakfast table, and reappears at supper. "When the labourer's tea is taken out to him in the hayfield by his wife she often carries with it a tin of preserved salmon. The labourer's clothes are different. He wears broadcloth instead of fustian, and would as soon think of wrapping himself in a cow's hide as of putting on a smock frock. His hours of labour are shorter; machinery has made it lighter; and every- thing around him speaks of a change in his tastes and habits, which, if not in all respects for the better, bears witness at least to the improvement in his physical condition. The fact is that the fall in the price of commodities within the last fifteen or twenty years, accompanied as it has been by a rise, however slight, in the rate of wages, has brought within his reach an altogether different style of living; and has converted into articles of daily consumption what were formerly but occasional luxuries. Perhaps some of my readers may be surprised to hear the extent to which the labourers have benefited by the abolition of toll- gates. Large vans now travel through the country villages laden with grocery and chandlery, which are brought to the cottager's door at a much lower price than he would pay for them at the village shop. In the days of turnpikes it would not have remunerated the shopkeepers in the large towns to carry on this traffic. Now it does ; and though the smaller local dealers may suffer from it, the labourers are immense gainers. Where, however, the village shops still flourish they too bear witness to the change I have described. Among their wares are now to be seen tinned meats, soups. 58 The Agriculhiral Labour ei^. sardines, and other delicacies of the same description, of which seventeen years ago the labourer had not heard the name. I will here quote from one or two letters w^hich I have received illustrative of the great strides which he has made in material well-being within the last seventeen years. In Essex, where the labourers are not so well off as they are in the Midland Counties, their condition still contrasts most favourably with what it was a few years ago. ** The labourers, from the cheap food, are much better off than they were fifteen to twenty years back. Pigs could not be too fat, and shopkeepers had a diffi- culty to get rid of the lean ; now some have their tubs full of fat, which they have a trouble to get rid of.* Many will have beef or mutton in the summer and harvest. (A farmer occupying over 60 acres told me some months back he had not had a piece of butchers' meat in his house for six months. Very few labourers could say that.) They also dress very differently; the old smock frock is a rarity ; but they do not work as well by one-third ; they used to do half as much again on lower wages." (Clavering, Essex.) ** The ^Leicestershire labourer," writes Mr. Glover, "with his cottage, garden, and pig-stye at Is. a week, his allotment at 12s. a rood, and the purchasing power of a sovereign nearly 33j per cent, more than it was fifteen years ago, is better off than any class. I have known," he adds, " a family making ^£5 a week, and living in a house at Is. a week." * The meaning of which is, that the labourers will not eat fat bacon as they used to do, when it served to relish their potatoes and cabbages, which was all they got for dinner. General Prosperity. 59 A Norfolk farmer; "who gives his men potato ground in his own field, besides their allotment, says that many of them will not take the trouble to keep the land clean ; and one man last autumn left a good crop of potatoes to rot in the ground, " rather than lose half a day to get them up." From Hampshire the report is that ** the labourers are better off than ever they were." JFrom Suffolk: ''In my opinion the labourers are better off now than they were five years ago, when wages were a shilling a week more.'' From another part of Essex: *' Labourers were never so well off as they are at the present time." I need scarcely refer my readers to the Eeports of Mr. Coleman, Mr. Doj^e, Mr. Druce, and the other Assistant Commissioners in 1880, who all produce evidence to the same effect, because here I have it under the hand of equally competent wit- nesses seven years later. Much of my information, I repeat, has been derived from labourers, and some of it directly from one who has worked as a day labourer him- self in the Midland Counties within the last three years. What confirms me more than anything else in the belief that this picture of the peasantry is a correct one, is the fact already mentioned, that they have acquiesced so quietly in the effects of the Education Act. Had they during the last six or seven or eight years been feeling the pinch of poverty they would not have accepted the loss of their children's earnings as cheerfully as they do. Among all the labouring men examined by the Assistant Commissioners on the Duke of Kichmond's Commission only a very few said anything against the Act ; and from what I know of the English peasantry myself, I am inclined to believe 6o The Agricultural Labourer, that no better proof could be required of the truth of what has here been stated. Some, no doubt, complain. But in the Eeports of 1880 I can only find two in- stances in which labourers, personally interrogated on the subject, gave unfavourable answers. One is at p. 179 in the Appendix to Mr. Coleman's Report : " George Cook, general labourer . . . considers that compulsory school attendance has lessened his means of living." The other is at p. 203, iUd : *' Robert Clarke, shepherd, says that compulsory education has lessened his income by 6s. a week." But on the whole Mr. Doyle probably hits the nail on the head when he says that the parents look for something better for their children than farm" labour; and for the sake of this endure a diminution of income, which otherwise they would bitterly resent. As so much has been said of the fall in the price of commodities I subjoin a short list of articles, with the difference between the cost of them in 1870 and 1886. The estimate is only a rough one, but I think it will be sufficient for the purpose. It is taken from a Mid- land county about ninety miles from London. But when farmers in Norfolk, Essex, Hampshire, Shrop- shire, and Leicestershire all alike dilate on the greater cheapness of provisions, we may fairly presume that they are referring to some similar reductions. Breast of Mutton 1870. «. d. ... about 7 lb. ... about 1S86. s. d. 441b. Leg of Mutton Bacon Cheese Tea Sugar 10 ,, 9 „ ,, 9 „ „ 2 6 „ 34 „ 8 „ 2 0,, 2 „ General Prosperity, 6i 1870. 1886. s. d. s. d. Batter ... ... about 1 9 1b. ... about 9 1b. *Boots ... ... „ 17 ... „ 14 Coals ... ... ... ... ... is. a ton cheaper. Bread, of course a great deal cheaper, but the price varies very greatly. On the subject of the fall in prices I have found but one dissentient voice. Curiously enough, a Devon- shire labourer told Mr. Little that the labourers were not so well off as they used to be when wages were lower, because " meat, tools, clothing, and boots" were all dearer — " remembered when mutton was Sd, a pound, and bacon from 4d. to 6(Z." f I must leave this solitary exception to take care of itself ; if it has any real significance in connection with our present inquiry I have been unable to discover it. It is to be observed that some of the witnesses, while admitting that the labourers are paid more, work less, and get their necessaries cheaper than they used to do, end by saying that they are still not much better off. This, of course, only means that they have in some cases lost their old habits of thrift and industry, and spend more money at the public. The fact that they are none the better for being better off is only one of those seeming paradoxes which do not confront us only among the agricultural labourers. * Good nailed boots that will turn the wet, and last out the twelve months. t Appendix to Report, 429. 62 CHAPTER IV. LABOUR. " Squalent abductis arva colonis." The following sentence, from a letter already quoted, only strikes the key-note of the general chorus of complaint which rises up from all quarters, runs through all the Reports of the last Agricultural Com- mission, and is repeated with more or less emphasis by the majority of my own correspondents. " The labourer's chief aim is to obtain the greatest wage for the least possible amount of the worst possible work."* These are melancholy words, but I am sorry to say they are confirmed by an overwhelming weight of evi- dence, which leaves no room for doubt. The evil may be more pronounced in one county than in another. Of the several causes which contribute to it one may preponderate here and another there. Discontent and ill-will towards the farmers may mingle more largely with indolence and incompetence in the eastern coun- ties than in the western. But the result is the same all round. The fact stares us in the face, and as Mr * Letter from Norfolk, March, 1887. Labour. 63 Druce well says : *' Is one of the least satisfactory features in the farmer's prospects." Skilled labour is growing more and more scarce, and the younger class of skilled labourers are growing less and less skilful. The rising generation of the peasantry take no interest in agricultural work. In many villages the men who can cut a hedge, drain a field, or thatch a rick may be counted on the fingers of one hand; and they are old men. Many whom the farmer is obliged to employ cannot even hoe turnips. The best boys from the schools all set their faces towards the town, and scorn the plough. Those who remain get higher wages, but they neither know their work nor care to know it. They refuse, in fact, to learn it. They cannot be trusted with horses as they could be formerly. They treat them roughly or neglect them. Slowly but surely the old breed of labourers is dying out, and those who should supply their place are leaving the land. In another genera- tion, if English arable farming is not extinguished by competition, it is likely to perish for want of men to till the soil. . Every one of my own correspondents, and every one of the Duke of Richmond's Assistant Commissioners, say the same on this point. Mr. Coleman, in his Report on Yorkshire, quotes the following evidence : — At page 192 : " The labourer, though much better ofi*, is not so industrious or so clever at his work ; he can- not hedge, or drain, or turn his hand to any farm work as his father could, though he knows more about stock.'* This last, however, is a very exceptional exception. At page 198 : " Work not so well done." Page 199 : 64 The Agricultural Labourer. ** Deficient in quality." Page 257 — from Westmore- land : ** Men receive 50 per cent, more wages, and do 30 per cent, less work than they did twenty-five years ago." From Staffordshire — page 270 — Mr. Doyle re- ports among the causes of agricultural depression : " The inferior workmanship of the present class of labourers.'* From Oxfordshire — page 273 : " Less efficient labour." From Warwickshire — page 318: "Plenty of men, but quality very inferior;" ** when the old men die off we shall be quite without men able to cut a hedge properly, thatch a rick, shear a sheep, or any such work." From G-loucestershire — page 319 : " Quality middling ; " <* quality bad ; " " quantity per diem not what it was ten years ago." Shropshire — ihidj : " Quality fast deteriorating; " " difficult to find young men who are good hedgers, stackers, or thatchers." Herefordshire — page 320: " Quality very bad." Mr. Druce reports from Buckinghamshire (Supplementary Eeport, page 11) that " There are few really good workmen." From Cambridge — page 17 : *' All my informants complain of the quality of the labour." From Hertfordshire — page 35 : " The quality of the labour is not so good as formerly." From Hunting- donshire — page 42 : "It takes five men now to do the work that four did formerly." From Leicestershire — page 48 : " Quality of labour most indifferent, and depreciating." From Lincolnshire — page 54 : " Gene- ral opinion throughout the county that the labourers do not work so hard or do their work so well as for- merly." Sr'roi^ Norfolk — page 67 : " Universal com- plaint thatV'^® quality of the labour had deteriorated and was dek^^^^^^^^^^*" -^^^"^ Northamptonshire — Labour. 65 page 73 : "Labourer does less work than formerly." From Nottinghamshire — page 81 : " Plenty of labour, but inferior quality." From Suffolk — page 94 : " Work not done so well as it used to be." Mr. Little reports from Devonshire — page 428 : " Quality of labour has much deteriorated." From Berkshire and Wiltshire — ^page 444 : *' Supply of labour bad in quality." *' Labourers sufficient in number, but their efficiency is not what it used to be." From Sussex — page 453 : ** Labourers receive more money, but are morally worse than ten or fifteen years ago." " Good men are scarce." I need not prolong these references. Of course the evidence is not all on one side. There are a certain number of witnesses who assert that labour in their own districts is not below the average. But the over- whelming mass of testimony is the other way. And I find it completely confirmed by the accounts which I have received from many of the same counties in the present year 1887, from Hampshire, Wiltshire, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Kutland, and Lincolnshire. At the same time it is important to remember that although the deterioration of labour has now assumed such serious dimensions, and forms so prominent a feature in the agricultural question of the day, the complaint is no new one. We have only to turn to the Eeport of the Poor Law Com- missioners in 1834 to find sentences that might have been taken word for word from the Keport of 1880 — '' much degenerated," " not such good work- men as formerly," " twelve men now only do the work that nine did," "■ workmen are generally not equal to F 66 The Agricultural Labourer. their fathers." And when I had occasion to make enquiries on the same subject in 1870 I found the farmers saying much the same.* The difference, however, between the three periods is this, that in 1834 and 1870 the inferior work complained of was due rather to want of will than to want of skill on the labourer's part. Now it is due to both. Then the skilled workmen were still there, now they are not. Then there was no exodus from the soil. Now there is. This it is which makes the phenomena in question so much more serious now than they were either seven- teen years ago or fifty-three years ago. It is further to be noted that the complaint is not confined to England. In Mr. Jenkins' '* Eeport on Belgium," p. 789, we find several of his informants speaking in just the same terms of the Belgian agricultural labourer. * Vide sv/pra, p. 12. 67 CHAPTEK lY. EDUCATION. The farmers protest most veliemeiitly, though here, too, there are a few scattered exceptions, against the working of the Education Act. The labourers, as I have already stated, seem to accept it more contentedly; though the farmers say that they, too, are dissatisfied with the loss of their children's earnings. The truth seems to be, that the labourer's feeling on the subject is that of the man who wants to eat his cake and have it ; that they wish their children to enjoy the higher education, while grumbling at their detention in school when they might be earning money in the field. The farmers find fault with the Education Act on two grounds. In the first place, it deprives them of juve- nile labour ; in the second place, it inspires the rising generation with a distaste for agricultural work, and sends all the most intelligent youths of the village, the stuff out of which the old class of skilled labourers were made, to seek their fortunes elsewhere. A few survive, and are highly paid and much respected ; but the less intelligent and industrious of the younger men — those, that is, who remain at home — form the class of day-labourers of whom such general complaints are F 2 68 The Agricultural Labourer. heard, and whom, in default of better, the farmers are driven to employ, in spite of the slovenly and imperfect fashion in which their work is executed. It is difficult to say which of the two Tvants the farmers seem to think the more injurious, the want of skilled adults, or the want of boys and girls, making it necessary to employ men to do children's work ; the increase in the cost of labour which is thus created being assigned as one of the principal causes of agricultural distress by nineteen farmers out of twenty. A farmer in Lincoln- shire told Mr. Druce that he had suffered nearly as much by the working of the Education Act as by all the bad seasons put together.* The farmers still say what they said in the Report of 1867—8, that unless children begin to learn farm-work and the manage- ment of animals before they are fourteen they never learn it at all. But the chief grievance is that boys are kept at school when they could do useful work in the field at boy's wages, and that when they leave school they do not care to turn to farm-work at any price. Thus the farmers are obliged to use adult labour when juvenile labour at half the moneyf would do just as well, and are at the same time deprived of their former supply of good, serviceable men fit for all kinds of farm-work the whole year round. One re- markable symptom is pointed out by Mr. Read, who says that among the present class of labourers there is a growing dislike of piecework. They all desire to be paid alike ; the worst the same as the best. This is a doctrine which has crept into the country from the towns, and I never remember hearing of it among the * Supplementary Report, p. 55. + Cf. supra, p. 54. Edticalion. 69 agricultural labourers till the present time. The notion, of course, is a serious impediment to the development of skilled labour, and there is some justice in the farmers' complaint of sic vos non vohis. While they pay the education rate, the improved labour in which they were to find an equivalent for it eludes their grasp, and the intelligence developed at their expense goes to benefit the adjoining towns. The references w4iich I have given to the Reports of the Commissioners on the subject of the deterioration of labour will serve to illustrate the farmer's views on education. The two are so closely connected together that they are generally named together. But I should advise the reader to look more particularly to the answers returned to Mr. Doyle's circular* in the coun- ties of Oxford, Warwick, Stafford, Gloucester, Here- ford, and Monmouth. The questions asked were these : — " Are children regularly and frequently em- ployed, and if so, at w^hat work and wages ? Have the Education Acts made any difference in this respect, and if so, how has such difference affected (a) the farmer ; (b) the labourer ; (c) the children ? " In the answers given he will find every one of the statements here made supported by a long succession of witnesses, and illustrated in every possible way which a practical knowledge of farming can suggest.f Boys cannot be procured for picking stones, minding pigs, scaring birds, tenting or weeding, and the crops suffer in con- sequence. J Men instead of boys must be employed to drive the horses at plough, and when the best boys * P. 330. t Cf., particularly evidence at pp. 333, 334. i Report, p. 306. The Acrriculticral Labourer, leave scliool they turn up their noses at agriculture, and leave only the refuse for the farmer. These partly from dulness, partly from sharing the discontent of the cleverer ones, whom, however, they are not sharp enough to emulate, are wholly uninterested in field work and refuse to be instructed. '' Only the lowest drones are left," says a Warwickshire farmer, *' and there are no young men left who care to learn the skilled work at the farm. This is a very serious question for the future." * It is fair to the farmers to say that they are not hostile to education as such. They allow that where the best boys do by any chance take to field work they make far better servants than the others. The other boys who stay at home " are stronger, and seem happier and more intelligent, but not so useful with horses and cattle." The evidence is always given in a very fair spirit. But the general tendency of the answers is all one way. I might give in detail the results to be gathered on the same sub- ject from Mr. Coleman, Mr. Druce, and Mr. Little, in the Northern counties, and in Bedfordshire, Bucks, Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Northampton, Notts, Rutland, Suffolk, Kent, Sussex, Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Somer- setshire, and Devonshire. But I can assure my readers that they are all alike, nor has the lapse of seven years apparently made any difi'erence. It will be asked, no doubt, how it is that if the la- bourers have lost so much by the exclusion of their children from field work since the passing of the Edu- • Doyle, p. 332. Education. 71 cation Act they are so mucli better off than they were before the Act was passed. The rise in wages and the cheapness of necessaries may have made up the differ- ence, but would, one would suppose, have done no more. Yet, they certainly live in a very much better style, and with many more comforts round them than they were formerly accustomed to. The explanation I suppose is that the pinch is only for a short time ; that their children are not all at school at once, and that when the older ones leave the village they cease also to live at home, where their earnings, except for a brief period, would do no more than keep them, if they did that. If we turn back to the Keport of 1867-8, which was specially directed to the employ- ment of children in agriculture, we shall find some reason to doubt whether children's labour — however valuable to the farmer — is quite so profitable to the parents as at first sight it might appear. It was con- stantly stated in that report that the earnings of children under ten years of age barely equalled the difference between the expense of keeping them at home and the expense of keeping them at work, with the extra food and clothes which they then require. Still, there are three years at least during which their labour is remunerative, which are now in great part lost to the parents and lost to the farmers; and though I am assured that a remedy is to be found in the more stringent administration of the Act, it seems strange that the farmers should for so many years have either failed to discover it or made no effort to apply it. According to the bye-laws which are very generally adopted in the rural districts " (a) A child between ten The Agricultural Labourer. and thirteen years of age shall not be required to attend school if such child has received a certificate from one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools that it has reached the Fourth Standard prescribed by the Code of 1876. (b) A child between ten and thirteen years of age shown to the satisfaction of the Local Authority to be beneficially and necessarily employed shall not be required to attend school for more than 150 attendances in each year if such child has received a certificate from one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools that it has reached the Third Standard pre- scribed by the Code of 1876. '^ It is asserted by one of my correspondents, a clergyman in the South- West, that wherever these bye-laws are in force, 99 per cent, of the boys could be free from school at eleven years of age, or sooner, if the Act were only properly carried out. Mr. Pell is of the same opinion, and a few of the farmers who replied to the Commissioners of 1880 thought so too. But as I have already stated, more than once, the majority who either ignore this view of the case, or hold it to be un- founded, are in the proportion of fifty to one. The question of course turns entirely on the ability of children under eleven years of age to pass the Fourth Standard, which will necessarily vary with the amount of skill, patience and perseverance exhibited by the master. Assuming, however, that 99 per cent. — surely a rather large allowance — are capable of passing it by the age specified, the question does not end there. Several of my own correspondents point out that the smarter boys are kept back by the stupid ones ; that two or three stupid boys in a class compel the whole Education, number to proceed at their own pace and prevent them from passing the necessary standard as soon as they otherwise might have done. Practically, therefore, even if attendances were enforced with greater regu- larity, it is doubtful if anything approaching to 99 per cent, of the children would be ready to pass the standard at the time specified. And how to remove this obstruction out of the way of the more intelligent pupils is a question which it is difficult to answer. A clergyman from Cambridgeshire says that there is a class of boys whose presence in the school is felt after a time to be a farce, and that the master's labour is entirely thrown away upon them. But he adds '' if their attendance were excused, it would not be possible to enforce the general attendance of other boys who are getting on well, but whom their parents would withdraw at once if permission were given them to do so." Here, then, we see that the desire on the part of parents for the wages which their children could earn is stronger than their desire to procure them a superior education. It is evident indeed, in spite of what I have written elsewhere, that a great many parents do dislike the Act, and that the lapse of seven years has not reconciled them to it, or made them understand it better. Some have suggested that agricultural classes formed for the purpose of teaching elementary natural history, and the rudiments of farm work might have a good effect, and that boys who cannot master the history of the Plantagenets might be induced to take some interest in lectures upon grass and corn, bees and birds, and the management of pigs, sheep and cattle. 74 The Agricultural Labourer, This would be an excellent thing no doubt. But it has been asked very pertinently who is to teach them. On the whole I am inclined to think that the best solution of the difficulty would be the dismissal of the unteachable boys to farm work as soon as their in- capacity became manifest ; and the retention of the others by such prizes awarded for early proficiency as would reconcile the parents to the continuance of their children at school. Another difficulty in the way of such rapid progress as might perhaps otherwise be achieved is created by the " half-timers," who are allowed to make their 150 attendances at their own time, so that the master never knows when to expect them. " They drop in for a few days, or perhaps weeks, and then disappear for a time, learning therefore little or nothing that is of use, but giving much trouble to the master on account of the increased attention they require," and contri- buting doubtless to the general delays which help to prolong the school time of bad and good alike. Among those who are in favour of natural history and agricultural classes are Professor Buckman and Mr. Bailey Denton. The former complains that in Dorsetshire the children know nothing of these things. They believe that three dragon-flies will sting a horse to death ; that a cow sickens at once if a mouse creeps over her, and have other superstitions of an equally absurd kind. The daily dose of reading, writing and arithmetic might be beneficially varied in his opinion with an occasional lesson on birds, beasts, and fishes, which would possess the inestimable advantage of con- stant practical illustration.. Mr. Bailey Denton {^Agri- OF THE UNIVERSITY Education, ^p, adefiKTTOSf d why should not some regular and respectable entertainment be pro- vided for the youngsters, and the evening dance be held under the auspices of the parish clergyman ? Another generation would soon grow up to whom the rough romping and swinish merriment of the present system would seem as abominable as the spectacle of half-a-dozen gentlemen of birth under the dining-room table would seem to us. Lastly, although the condi- tions of agricultural service make it less the interest of the farmer to inquire into the character of his ser- vants, yet to do so to a certain extent is manifestly to his own advantage ; while he ought not to object to being told that of the young people living under his own roof he is bound by every tie which binds society together to consult both the moral and religious wel- fare. If he regards his servants only as so many " hands," like the workpeople in a factory, he is vio- lating, certainly, no law of political economy, but he ii^ throwing away the advantages of the situation in which Providence has placed him, and neglecting to do the good which he can do, and which the majority of mill- owners cannot. •83 CHAPTER XI. INJUBIOUS INFLUENCES. — THE PUBLIC-HOUSE. — POACHING. A VICE which is condemned by public opinion, and exposed, whenever it shows itself, to either unfeigned ridicule or unfeigned indignation, is, we may be sure, a doomed vice ; for very few natures are really callous to the opinion of the world, and still fewer are strong enough to maintain a course of steady hypocrisy, so as to conceal their defiance of it. But, unhappily, there are two kinds of public opinion, one of which is the result of a deep moral conviction, while the other is only, as it were, an opinion de convenance — a kind of general understanding in the interest of social decorum. The influence of the latter is of course only superficial, and confined to those circles whose comfort it is found to promote. The influence of the former is felt every- where, and extends to the abstract evil of vicious habits as well as to the public inconvenience of them. The one kind of opinion, however, is frequently mistaken for the other ; and we are not sure that this is not sometimes the case when the vice of drunkenness is discussed. Drinking to excess is now discountenanced in good society, and to enter a drawing-room drunk 184 The Agricultural 'Labourer. would be as bad as to enter it naked. Yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we shall confess it is very doubt- ful if this general unanimity on the subject springs from any deeper disapproval of sensuality in the ab- stract than was entertained by our forefathers. It is simply a matter of good taste. The spectacle of in- toxication has become unpleasant; a better educated and more accomplished generation has other resources than the bottle ; health is thought a great deal more of. But it would be rash to assert, dogmatically, that, if less coarse in our lives than was the generation which preceded us, we are not at least equally volup- tuous. Now those classes in society who have not made the like progress in refinement have an instinc- tive perception of this truth. They are not to be taken in. Sobriety, they see, is the fashion ; and those who aspire to be fashionable endeavour to be sober. But we greatly doubt if the feeling goes deeper than this. And as soon as we come down to a class wliich is wholly unaffected by such considerations we see the vice as rampant as ever. If it is a little on the decline in some places, it has gained ground in others. And the difficulty of dealing with it by any other means alone makes the improved education of the poor a matter of paramount importance. But we hope we shall give nO offence by saying that, even with an im- proved system of education, the labouring classes will scarcely be weaned from this habit as long as the class just above them continues to indulge it. With a cer- tain class of farmers and tradesmen the brandy-bottle is still in daily requisition, and they are seldom seen absolutely sober after dinner. Their men overhear Injurious Influe7ices. 185 them joking each other on the subject ; and if one of them has tumbled into the ditch coming home from market, or met with any other humorous incident of the same kind under the influence of Bacchus, he is the hero of the hour. The labouring man may see that drinking is a bad game — that it impoverishes his family and impairs his strength ; but he will never entertain that rooted aversion to it which is necessary to any real reformation while he sees his betters either continue to practise it themselves, or to regard it only as an amiable weakness in their neighbours. And here it may be as well to state that there is much in the private lives, as well as in the business, of both farmers and tradespeople, which Commissioners and clergymen do not very readily get at. The former, as a rule, come in contact with only the better class of farmers. From the latter, of course, excesses are to some extent concealed. It would be absurd to deny that there is a very numerous and growing class of tenant-farmers who might be trusted to drink with a bishop, and are as much alive to the grossness of the vice of intoxication as the greatest gentleman in St. James's. But it is equally undeniable that between these and the labourers there is another very large class of whom as much cannot certainly be said, who continue to look upon drunkenness as a way that men have, and one of those ambiguous habits which, as they cannot be suppressed, ought to be made to yield as much fun as possible. A great allowance, therefore, should be made for the English labourer. Everything is against him : tradition, example, the proximity of ■ the beer-shop, the custom of the country, all drag him 1 86 The Agricullural Labourer. one way, and conduct him with very little resistance to the bright hearth and social circle which await him at the *' Dragon." Mr. Fraser attributes a great increase in drunk- enness to the new Excise Licences, which were introduced in 1863. Before that time, every keeper of a beershop, as distinct from a public-house, was under some restraint — not much, perhaps, but some. Before obtaining his licence from the Com- missioners of Excise, he was bound to produce a certificate of good conduct signed by six respect- able inhabitants of the parish. That the law was often practically evaded may be true, but it was better than no law at all. Now, in 1863 it was enacted that whoever took out a wholesale beer licence — that is, a licence to sell not less than four and a half gallons not to be drunk on the premises — was also entitled, if he chose, to a retail licence to sell beer not to be drunk on the premises, with- out any certificate or other guarantee of his fitness. The upshot of this has been an immense increase in the number of beer-shops, kept often by the worst characters, who easily evade the restriction as to drinking on the premises, and whose locality is the haunt of all the bad characters in the neigh- bourhood. We have no doubt of the truth of this view. And the mischief which these houses generate spreads beyond intoxication. These are the haunts of poachers and other wild characters of the district, who '^ corrupt the youth," and sometimes familiarize them with costlier game than hares, and more Iiijtmotis Influences. 187 dangerous implements than nets. But these are not the places to which the married man in good employment is drawn after his day's work, instead of going home to his cottage. They are very demoral- izing agencies in a country neighbourhood, but they don't do the particular kind of harm we are con- cerned with at the present moment. To effect this, the public-house must be in the village, and houses such as the above usually stand on the outskirts. The respectable paterfamilias desires to meet his coevals, and to discuss the news of the village, and perhaps a bit of politics, in quite a decent arrti quiet fashion. But even in doing this he spends more than he can afford, and drinks more than he can bear. Little by little he gets behindhand in the world, runs in debt at the chandler's, injures his health, and at last falls an easy prey to the first illness that attacks him ; whereas the money spent at the public-house, laid out upon warm clothes and more substantial food, would have enabled him, with an unimpaired con- stitution, to w^eather any ordinary disease. No doubt these habits of tippling are encouraged by the multiplication of public-houses, for the more competition there is, the more important a per- sonage does each customer become. But it would probably be impossible at the present day to effect any such reduction in the number of beer-shops as. would make an appreciable impression upon the vice of drunkenness. Mr. Stanhope calls attention ** to the feeling which everywhere exists as to the necessity of limiting the number of beer-houses. i88 The Agricultural Labourer. obtaining more control over them, and of trans- ferring their supervision to some more competent authority; " but adds — 'Tor my own part, I look with far more confidence to the effect which will be produced by an improvement in the condition of the cottages, in enabling them to compete in attractiveness with the warm and well-lighted public- house. I say their condition, because some believe that this object can best be achieved by a change in their situation ; that is by placing them on the farms, where the man is further removed from temptation. In the same way other landowners have endeavoured to check the evil by not permitting any pliblic-house to be opened in the village of which they are sole pro- prietors. I cannot speak very highly of the success of these attempts. A drunkard will drink in spite of the trifling obstacle of distance ; and considerable injustice is caused to others, who are charged an exorbitant price for the poisonous liquor which is sold to them as beer." We quite agree with this opinion ; but at the same time we think some reduction might be made in the number of public-houses, and that shops for the sale of beer, in any quantity, not to be drunk on the premises, might advantageously be substituted for them, if the law were strictly carried out, as we see no reason why it should not be. It is not an uncommon thing nowa- days to see two public-houses, or veritable inns, in a village of four hundred people. They cannot both be wanted. They never could have been in villages which lie among the lanes remote from the chief lines of traffic ; while even in those which lie on turnpike roads Injurious Influences. 189 they cannot be required now, whatever they might have been once. Before the introduction of railways, when goods were still conveyed by waggon, and still earlier, when journeys were performed on horseback, the village inn, with the great elm-tree and horse - trough in front of it, and the rambling old stables in the rear, was not merely a picturesque antiquity, but one of the necessaries of life. Nowadays, the only useful purpose which it serves is to accommodate the village club at its annual dinner and its monthly meetings, or to pick up a stray guest when the parson- age happens to be full. At all events, if it does more than this, two such houses are not wanted in any one rural parish. Accordingly, if in each village there was only one place where people could meet and drink together, while, for the sake of competition, shops were licensed to sell beer exclusively for home consumption, and vigilantly watched by the police to see that this condition was observed, one great step would have been taken towards the diminution of drunkenness. The next is the improvement of cottages. But, as this point has been discussed already, we shall pass on to the third — the quality of beer sold. The only one of the Commissioners who has made a point of this is Mr. Norman, but it yields in importance to none of the influences by which the sobriety of the labourer is affected. The abominable mixtures which are sold for beer in many village inns not only stimulate instead of quenching thirst, but are so concocted as to produce immediate stupefaction. The peasant who goes in for his half- pint of beer on his way home — no very heinous crime surely — feels, when he has 190 The Agrictdhiral Labourer. swallowed it, just as if lie had been drugged, sits down helplessly in a corner, and continues to drink almost mechanically — with what result may be imagined ; or even if he does not do that, the small quantity he has taken has such an effect upon him, that if his master or the clergyman meets him between the public -house and his cottage, he fancies him intoxicated, and forth- with registers him as drunkard. The natural result of giving the dog a bad name ensues, and one more character is gone. The keepers of these houses have been known to lament the necessity which compelled them to vend such stuff. But they have no choice. The house is a close house ; that is to say, it belongs to some small brewer in the neighbouring market town, and the publican is little more than his agent. In London we believe the adulteration of beer mostly begins in the public-house ; elsewhere it is completed in the brewery. Mr. Norman says that any new Act of Parliament, of which the object is to check intemperance, should deal with the article sold as well as with the person selling it. And even now it is difficult to understand why the adulteration of beer cannot be detected and punished as easily as the adulteration of bread. The fact, however, remains that little or no effort ever is made to bring home this offence to the perpetrator. And in default of any enactment to facilitate the punishment of the criminal, we should say the only way to help the poor is to destroy the profits of the crime. To save them from drinking bad beer we must provide them with the means of getting better. Such was the opinion of Mr. Culley (Rep. II., 93) :—*' I do OF THE Iftjurious Influences. \lSb5j/ ^' m not for a moment desire that the labourer should be denied every facility for quenching his thirst in beer ; on the contrary, I should like to see beer sold across every counter with as little restriction as bread and butter, save only that it should not be drunk on the premises. I would confine the licence to sell beer to be drunk on the premises to that class of houses which are also licensed to sell spirits. Under such a system a man would probably take home to his family only so much beer as he could conveniently pay for, and as they could consume without injury, and he would be robbed of the temptations to excess which it is the business of the beer-house keeper to provide." A fourth suggestion is, that the poor should be encouraged to brew at home. But to waive all questions of economy, and all questions of Excise, we, in common with most persons who know the poor well, are convinced they would never take the trouble.* They have got used to the beer- shop, and they will never go back to the brew-house. We have no doubt that if they could be persuaded to do it, it would be attended with the most beneficial consequences, as plenty of middle-aged men, who remember the system in operation, are ready to demonstrate. A farmer in the South, not more than five-and-forty years of age, assured the present writer that when he was a lad of seventeen there was not a public-house in his native village, or within some miles of it ; that every family down the village street brewed their barrel of beer periodically ; and that the • Since this was written I have seen some reason to modify this opinion.— T. E. K., 1887. 192 The Agincultural Labourer. inhabitants used to meet at each cottage in turn, from six to eight o'clock in the evening, and play at cards for apples till the cask was emptied, when they went on to the next house. Drunkenness, he said, was unknown on these occasions ; and, from an intimate knowledge of the man, I am sure that he was not romancing. But this Arcadian state of innocence has passed away never to return. The knowledge of good and evil has come in the form of a public-house ; and Eden cannot be recovered. We don't believe, then, that even if the malt-tax were repealed the poor could be induced to brew at home, and we dismiss the suggestion as impracticable. The four suggestions then, by compliance with which intoxication, it is hoped, might be diminished, are as follows : — The requisition of a certificate for all licences; the reduction of the number of houses where liquor is drunk on the premises ; the encouragement of others where it is not, under strict securities for the observance of the law ; the improvement of cottages, so as to give the peasant all his comforts at home ; and, finally, if possible, the rigorous enforcement of the penalties laid down by law against all adulteration of beer. The other encouragements to drunkenness which are independent of the public-house are chiefly urged by Mr. Fraser, though none of his colleagues contradict him. The harvest-home and the largesse are parti- cularly obnoxious to this charge. At the former the farmer's hospitality is impeached if the men do not get *' well on." He admits, however, that even the farmers are in many places endeavouring to correct the abuse ; and in various parts of England we fancy the harvest- Injurious Influences. 193 home is now carried on with much decorum. Some attempts which have been made to conduct it on a new system, we are aware, have been failures, but not all. Mr. Eraser mentions particularly the failure of Lord Albemarle at Banham, who tried to substitute a monster tea-meeting, attended by two or three thousand people, to whom suitable speeches were addressed. But the experiment was never repeated; and of the attempt Mr. Fraser says very sensibly — " A monster meeting is not the remedy for a social evil. The mere conflux of a crowd is what Eoman Catholic divines call fomes peccati.^* But he admits that in his own parish general harvest-homes have been conducted without drunken- ness, and apparently to the satisfaction of everybody. Many employers, we are told, have substituted a fixed money payment for the old harvest supper. But Mr. Eraser does not approve of this. *' These old English customs, however degraded, point to a time when the relation between master and man was ennobled by a higher sentiment than the greed of gain ; and in this nineteenth century anything that breaks down the distinctions of caste, and gives an opportunity for the effusion of the feelings of good fellowship and true hospitality, is a link in our social system not lightly to be snapped in twain." This gentleman evidently believes that the harvest-home is capable of being brought into harmony with modern ideas, and that there is no necessity for abolishing it. We ourselves have no doubt that a master who really took pains could, in a very short time, make his own men ashamed of getting drunk in his presence. And this step gained, the rest would gradually follow. Not so, how- 194 ^^^ Agrictdtural Labourer. ever, with another custom, which seems thoroughly bad, and happily is far from universal, and that is *' largesse," a sort of supplement to the harvest-home, which licks up whatever crumbs of sobriety were left by the preceding entertainment. The custom, as de- scribed by a Norfolk rector, is as follows : — *' The harvest ended, the master sometimes gives his men a supper at his own house, but that is the excep- tion ; he more generally gives a sum to be spent by them in supper at a public-house. After this supper, which is sometimes attended by persons of both sexes, and at which the language, the songs, the utter absence of decorum, the drunkenness and riot, surpass, I believe, all and more than we can conceive to be possible amongst a society calling themselves Christians, the harvest party, half stupefied by the debauch of the previous night, start ' begging largesse.' This largesse gathering is not confined to their own parish, but is extended from house to house throughout the district, wherever a friend or tradesman of their employer is to be found. At some places they get beer, at others they collect money, stopping at all the public-houses on their way ; and the sum so collected, if sufficient, is spent in another supper, but more often expended wholly in beer. Eespectable men, who at other times never enter a public-house, are frequently thus seen dis- gracing themselves, and speak with bitterness of the tyrant custom." The present writer is not aware that any custom of the same kind prevails in either the midland, the southern, or the western counties ; and it must be admitted that, for some reason or other, the Injurious Influences. 195 peasantry of the eastern counties do seem a grosser race than is to be met with in other parts of England. All the Commissioners alike, however, comment on the well-known fact that no business can be transacted in the country without beer. Every bargain must be wetted, and all sorts of odd jobs are just as often re- munerated in liquor as in cash. If you want a lad to run an errand, ** Tom or Jack '11 do it, sir, for a pint o* beer, I dare say," is the answer to your inquiry. And so strong is the tradition that, even if he didn't spend the threepence in liquor, he would still call it "a pint o' beer." Generally speaking, however, he would scorn to spend it on anything else, whether he was thirsty or not. It is this general belief in drink as the TO apto-TOj/which it is so exceedingly difficult to eradicate from the working class. A holiday with them means drink ; a legacy with them means more and better drink. A gentleman is one who can always get the best to drink ; a lady is one who gracefully asks you if you want drink. All festivals are failures without drink. When a groom has carried a message, or a keeper delivered some game, he is instantly asked, on his return, did he drink ? In fact, the idea of drink is interwoven with every action of their lives, and follows them from their cradle to their grave like a religion. This genial superstition is not to be uprooted in a day ; nor will it even be shaken among the peasantry until it has disappeared among the farmers. As long as it meets with any kind of recognition, either at their hands or at the hands of a class yet above them, it will continue to flourish like an evergreen. 2 196 The Agricultural Labourer. From public-houses to poaching the transition is a very simple one. The exact amount of demoralization among the English peasantry with which poaching is chargeable it is not very easy to calculate ; but the most demoralizing form of it is directly encouraged by the beer-shop. Roughly speaking, poachers may be divided into three kinds : the starving peasant, who steals a rabbit to provide his family with a meal ; the professional gang, who supply the poulterer and fish- monger, and who, in the great lottery of crime, have simply drawn hares and pheasants, instead of bank- notes and jewels ; and, thirdly, the idle scamp, who is to be found in all villages, who snares and shoots on the sly, and drinks out his booty at the public-house. Now, the first of these is a simple myth, notwithstand- ing the sympathy which has been showered upon him by philanthropists whose zeal outruns their knowledge. The second are not peculiar to the country ; and, in- deed, the larger and more formidable gangs are usually Tecruited from the towns. But of course they use the country public-houses of the worst sort, such as have thriven since 1863, which frequently combine together to form a kind of fund from which the poachers' ex- penses, in the way of fines, loss of implements, &c., are defrayed. Here, of course, they come in contact with the village population, and naturally with the worst effects. But, after all, we have reason to believe it is the facilities for disposing of a single hare or pheasant afforded by these houses, which are the greatest incen- tives to poaching among the agricultural poor, and teach many a lad to poach who would never have thought of it otherwise. Excessive preservation is not essential Injurious Influences, 197 to this kind of poaching, and yet of all kinds it is the most demoralizing. Egg-stealing is one form of poach- ing which has, no doubt, a bad effect on rustic morals, but we doubt if it be so wide-spread an evil as the pur- suit of game. On carefully-preserved estates every nest is watched, and if the eggs are taken, the theft is sure to be known, and the thief is sure to be suspected. Labourers may steal eggs on outlying or non-preserved farms ; but if they do it where the farmer himself shoots they run a greater risk than they do even from the gamekeeper. So that, after all, the field of operations open to the egg- stealer is considerably narrowed, and the demoralization which attends him must be very partial. As to the general effects of excessive preservation, we cordially agree with Mr. Fraser in thinking it a grievous blunder. But it is a farmer's question, not a labourer's. As for saying that game is a temptation to the pea- santry, the fallacy involved in the assertion is so obvious, and yet so generally accepted, that it may be worth while to examine it with some care. The thesis is that the Game Laws are injurious to the morals of the people ; therefore they ought to be abolished. This bare statement, however, implies the existence of a syllogism of which the major premiss is this — that all things which are injurious to the morals of the people ought to be abolished. It is plain either that this can- not be the case, or that the principle of property is a vicious one. For all property is a temptation, and all temptations are injurious to the morals of the people. By the common consent of mankind, therefore, we may assume that our major premiss is to be negatived. We 198 The Agricultu7^al Labourer. then descend to a particular affirmative — some things which are injurious to the morals of the people ought to be abolished. Very good ; but what things ? Generally we may say that all things which are both immoral in themselves, and exist only for the sake of immorality, ought to be abolished. In this list would come gambling- houses and brothels. Then we come to things which are immoral in themselves, but of which the object or final cause is not immoral, such as bribery at elections ; for there is no immorality in being a Member of Par- liament. And, thirdly, we may come to things which, though not immoral in themselves, do nevertheless con- duce to immorality, such as public-houses. Now it is clear that Game Laws come under neither of the first two heads. They are not immoral in the abstract. We have to consider them, then, as they come under the third — things which, in themselves innocent, conduce in their efi"ects to vice. But we now find ourselves face to face with a very simple formula which it is common to apply to such cases ; we mean the use and the abuse of things. And we set the one against the other. As De Quincey points out, the much-maligned science of casuistry is never- theless in universal operation in the affairs of the world. We are always obliged to make cases. Now, in this instance, we can lay down no principle. We can only say that, wherever the abuse exceeds the use, palpably, grossly, and to such an extent as almost to override and extinguish it, then such things should be abolished. Common sense is the only tribunal by which this point can be determined. We consider that in this respect the public-house question is closely analogous to the Injurious Influences. 199 Game-Law question. Both are temptations to vice. But, on the other hand, it is contended that both serve other purposes, which are not only innocent, but in the one case necessary, and in the other salutary ; of which the evil they do by the temptations they hold out is not great enough to justify the stoppage. On broad grounds it may added that, as all classes of mankind are exposed to their particular temptations in the path of life, the poor must expect to have theirs ; and that this system of removing all temptations because they are temptations is inconsistent with the theory of moral discipline, and the formation of virtuous habits. It is pretty clear that no such effectual extinguisher could be placed upon poaching as a legislative enact- ment which should cut away his market from the poacher. At present it is beyond dispute that the source and root of all the evil is in the fishmonger's back parlour. It is obvious that for more than a century and a half this truth has been apparent to Government, and that they have been fruitlessly endea- vouring to act upon it. But hitherto every attempt to check unlawful traffic in game has been a practical failure. The twenty-eighth clause of the 1st and 2nd William IV., which we have already cited, has remained a dead letter. Poulterers and fishmongers continue their dealings with the poacher in almost absolute security, and have been known to joke even a county Member about the pheasants which they had from his preserves. The difficulty of detection seems almost in- superable. Yet, until the "fence" can be got at, we shall do very little with the thief. The Act of 1862, which empowered the police to stop and search carts or 20O The Agricultural Labourer, suspicious-looking jacket-pockets, and apprehend the owners if they were found to contain game, has worked well. But, after all, it has hut thrown one additional difficulty in the poacher's path : it has caused more poachers to he caught, but it hasn't diminished poach- ing. Neither will anything have that effect till a blow can be struck at the trade ; till the poacher's profits are affected ; till the springs which feed the stream begin to fail. Till that can be done we may throw obstacles in the poacher's way, but they will no more kill poaching than dams will dry up a river. If all game- preservers were forced to take out a separate licence for selling game, it would have one of two effects : either they would pay the licence, and in that case sell a great deal more game, or they would not pay it, and in that case would preserve a good deal less. Either alternative would be attended by other good results. In the first place, the more game the dealers got from gentlemen, the less they would re- quire from poachers. In the second place, the payment of this sum would form an additional contribution to the revenue, and would 'pro tanto diminish the odium of preserving, and proportionably the sympathy with poaching. On the second hypothesis, excessive pre- serving would be got rid of, the complaints of the farmer would be stopped, and the profits of poaching much reduced. We cannot help thinking that if this suggestion were adopted, means might still be found of bringing home offences to the game-dealers, and of making their trade with poachers much more dangerous and precarious than it is at present. Moreover, there is no reason why gentlemen should not make a trade Injurious Influences. 201 of rearing and selling game as of rearing and selling sheep. And if the system were regularly established and recognized, it is possible that a feeling would gradually spring up among the dealers adverse to buy- ing from the poacher. There is many a butcher now who wouldn't buy stolen sheep, though he knew he shouldn't be detected. And we sincerely believe that, if poaching were more generally exhibited in its true light, and robbed of that mystery and romance which at present shroud it, such a feeling would become very common. A word or two, in conclusion, of what is called " Justices' justice " in its relation to poaching. We constantly see convictions which have been obtained before country magistrates made the subject of very severe animadversion in the London press, and there are two observations which we desire to make upon the subject. One is this — that there is a border-land between the professional poacher and the honest labourer, if not so wide as it used to be, still much wider than skirts any other criminal profession ; and that the existence of this border-land is a source of great perplexity to magistrates. If a man is caught picking a pocket, or breaking into a house, or swindling by an assumed name, or anything of that kind, he is pretty sure to be a regular professional criminal. But the man who snares a rabbit is not equally sure to be a professional poacher. He is on the high road to become one ; that is certain. But he may have done it for the fun of the thing ; or from an idea of its cleverness ; or merely from a lawless disposition in 202 The Agricidtu7^al Labourer, general. But there is very great difficulty in distin- guishing between a man of this class and a confirmed offender ; and probably hardly any one can do it but those who live upon the spot, and have constant oppor- tunities of observing him. This is one reason why the evidence of gamekeepers and the decision of local magistrates have often more in them than meets the eye of the general public. This is a point in their favour. There is, secondly, one that tells against them in just about an equal degree. Between gamekeepers and poachers, and especially such poachers as oftenest come before the magistrates, there is a much more bitter feeling than exists between officers of justice in general and criminals in general. They are pitted against each other in a much more personal way ; and the game which the poacher takes is what the keeper regards almost as his own. He has reared it and tended it early and late, and has an interest in it which it is quite impossible a policeman should feel for the stock-in-trade of a goldsmith or a watchmaker. Then, again, the policeman is one of a numerous and disci- plined force, the lustre of whose exploits is reflected upon each member of it, whether he has done anything himself or not. But a keeper has his own reputation either to make or to maintain. What keepers in general may do affects not him. He would be thought none the better of, though a keeper in the next county had taken twenty poachers single-handed. Consequently, there is generally a tendency, kept in check, or de- veloped, according to the character of the master, on the part of keepers to make business, and to demon- Injurious Influences, strate their own activity. Gentlemen should always be upon their guard against this very natural weakness of human nature ; for sure we are that in the feuds upon the subject of game which agitate most rural districts it plays a most important part, and is at the bottom of many of the crimes which are mostly charged against the Game Laws. 204 CHAPTER XII. AIDS TO THE LABOURER. — BENEFIT SOCIETIES. — CO-OPERATIVE FARMS. STORES. That benefit societies are frequently the reverse of beneficial to the unfortunate labourers who belong to them is what every one is now aware of. But still the principle itself seems sound enough, and, if the machinery were amended, they would be properly in- cluded among the ameliorating circumstances of agri- cultural life. At the present time they seem to have gone altogether wrong. They do that which they ought not to do, and leave undone that which they ought to do ; they squander their money upon beer, and repudiate their just debts ; they lead a jolly life for a few years, and as soon as the necessity of meeting their original engagements begins to threaten them, they are dissolved, and the funds evenly divided. The young members join another club. But what becomes of the old men, who had pinched themselves for many years to secure a provision for their old age ? This selfish and dis- honest practice is so general throughout the country as to have caused the Commissioners to report most unfavourably of the operation of benefit societies. Aids to the Labourer. 205 The Commissioners differ, however, a good deal in regard to the details of these institutions. Some think that the annual celebration, with its procession, its banners, its sermon, and its dinner, simply entails drunkenness and waste of funds, and that it ought to be abolished. Mr. Stanhope thinks, on the contrary, that these things are so great an attraction, and form so strong an inducement to the labourer to join a club, that, if we think it good for him to do so, we ought not to discourage them. We must say we think it doubtful how far the advocates of the opposite view come into court with clean hands. The intimate connection which exists in England between charity and conviviality is so old a joke that we can now refer to it without joking; and if rich people, whose life is one long holiday, or men of business, whose evenings are devoted to enjoy- ment, find it necessary to keep up the system of public dinners, and so forth, we scarcely know what to say to the clubbists of a country village. Their annual dinners are not very expensive, and are usually tolerably de- corous. And when we consider that to the majority of the members roast veal and batter pudding are viands too delicious almost to be realized, which they only taste once a year, and which they are actually paying for with their own money, we may easily forgive them a little boisterousness of animal spirits. And surely, if such dinners must be eaten, it is better that the clergyman of the parish should preside at them than that he shouldn't. Mr. Stanhope, while allowing the good policy of the dinner, apparently condemns the practice of its being preceded by a sermon, and being shared in by the preacher. He says that the club 2o6 The Agricultural Labourer, threaten the clergyman that they will go to the Dissent- ing chapel if he won't give them a service in the church, and that very few can *' resist this pressure." But why should they resist it ? If the whole ceremonial of which the sermon is a part meets with Mr. Stan- hope's approval, why should the clergy require any pressure? He is, however, perhaps right in saying that before lending their countenance to the meeting of the club, they ought to know something of its circum- stances, and not to give the prestige of their attendance to a rotten or fraudulent concern. At the same time, this is easier said than done. Such bodies are very jealous of interference ; and unless the club has been founded by the clergyman or the squire in person, it would be difficult to obtain the necessary information. The connection between clubs and public-houses is not, however, confined to the annual dinner, which usually takes place on Whit-Monday ; it is kept up throughout the year by monthly meetings, in favour of which nothing can be said. These meetings are held for the purpose of receiving subscriptions ; and every member, on payment of his monthly Is. 6d., is entitled to a pint of beer out of the club funds. But, in some cases, the practice goes much beyond this — as many pints of beer being drawn as there are members of the club, and the members present being entitled to con- sume it all. At a club in Bedfordshire, conducted upon this system, it was stated to Mr. Culley that the average monthly expenditure on beer alone was £1 7s, Sd, One rule of this club was attended by a comic result. A considerable sum of club money was always left in charge of the landlord for the purpose of Aids to the Labourer, 207 paying the sick members, &c. On one occasion the box was missings and, after a search, was found in one of the landlord's fields, with all the money gone, but the papers all safe, and among them the guarantee given by the landlord for the safety of the cash. Whether he was obliged to make it good or not doesn't appear. At the same club the proceedings at club funerals were so scandalous that it became necessary at last to limit the attendance to the stewards. Several causes, however, seem combining to ex- tinguish this system. Young men are beginning to find out the superior advantages of larger societies — such as Odd Fellows, Foresters, &c. — and the old public-house club is growing daily less popular. Landowners, too, are beginning to take them into their own hands, and to compel the observance of better rules; while, "as the present Government have undertaken to bring in a Bill to enable the Post Office to grant insurances on life for £5, there is now, I think, no need of a burial fund, or, still better, of burial societies ; and as the Post Office Savings Bank and Oovernment annuities are everywhere at hand to give a good account of the investment of a labourer's savings, there remains only the need of a sickness club." (Culley, Eep. II., p. 92.) But wherever clubs are still kept up it seems most desirable that they should supply the labourer with the means of making provision for his family after his own death. At present, as a rule, they secure him a w^eekly allowance during sickness, and after he is past work; they cheapen his doctor's bill, and they pay for his funeral. But there they stop. And, as Mr. 2o8 The Agriculhiral Labourer. Portman well puts it, " Take the case of a man who never had a day's illness in his life ; he makes the monthly payment to his club for many years, and at his death there is a sum given for his funeral, but all the hard-earned savings of his life, having been paid into the club, are lost to his family." Of course it is these men who pay for the others, and all take their chance alike when they join the club. But this does not make it any better for the particular sufferers ; and several associations are now in existence whose object it is to meet this objection, and to secure a fund for the benefit of widows and children of deceased members. Some of these have been started by private individuals — as the Wiltshire Friendly Society, started by Mr. Sotheron Estcourt; the North War- wickshire, by Sir C. Adderley ; and a society in Oxfordshire, by Captain Dash wood. Besides these, the Commissioners mention many other societies, in various parts of England, which carry out the same principle by grafting on to the ordinary business of benefit societies the system of deposits — e.g., the Hampshire Friendly Society, whose rules about deposits are as follows : — "1. The members receive back annually to their own private account or deposit, also called their Rest, whatever sums remain over from the common sick fund, after providing for the above objects, of sick, old age, and medical allowance ; and they thus have all the advantages of a sharing club, without its risks. ** 2. They may pay in to their own deposit or Rest any further sum they please, as into a savings-bank. Aids to the Labourer, 209 "3. They may withdraw any sum they please from their deposit, as from a savings-bank. " 4. Deposits receive interest, as in the Post Office Savings Bank. " 5. The balance of the deposit remaining at a member's death is paid to whomsoever he appoints." The mere fact that labouring men are able to belong to these clubs and at the same time to pay ^d. or 4<^. a week to the village Clothing Club, shows that after all they cannot be in that condition of abject poverty which is too commonly supposed to be their lot. Several of the Commissioners appear to think that they would use these clubs even more than they do if it were not for the influence of the Poor Law. Many deserving and industrious labourers, says Mr. Stan- hope, appear to be discouraged from making the efibrb to secure independence by self-help from the fear of losing their presumed right to relief from the poor-rate ; and the guardians have no fixed rule by which to deter- mine such cases. Sometimes they do consider the receipt of club allowances a bar to parochial relief, and some- times they don't. Uniformity of custom should surely be established upon this point. Mr. Norman wonders that the poor ever do practise self-denial for the sake of a maintenance in old age, when the Poor Law will give it them without, and feels sure that *' this has a direct tendency to weaken those feelings of self- reliance and independence among the labouring classes, on the development of which qualities the amelioration of that class must necessarily depend." Mr. Portman (p. 165) writes to the same effect. But the problem which is raised by all three seems almost insoluble, 2IO The Agricultural Labou7'er, except by abolishing the system of out-door relief alto- gether. As for going into the " House," the poor have not grown indifferent to that humiliation, and would still make sacrifices to avert it. But we don't see how it is possible to disconnect parish relief and improvidence. To tell a man to starve in the streets because he has not had sufficient self-denial to provide for his old age is to defeat the very object of the Poor Law. To say you will relieve none but those who have been provident is simply to say that you will relieve none except those who don't want it. Our own experience goes to show that by a very large class of our English peasantry the shame of " coming on the parish," in any shape, is still felt. With the better education, better wages, and the better position altogether, which w^e trust are in store for them, this feeling may be trusted to increase. But we fear that for those who are capable of looking forward to parish relief with equanimity, and of making it an excuse for doing nothing to assist themselves, there is no help. As they make their bed they must lie upon it. Several interesting experiments have been tried of late years in various parts of England, in the shape of Co-operative Farms, which are said to be a great success. Mr. Gurdon, of Assington Hall, in Suffolk, was the bold innovator who first conceived this idea ; and finding ourselves recently within a few miles of his estate, we resolved to pay it a \isit and judge of the system for ourselves. The farm was visited by Mr. Eraser in the course of his official investigations three years ago, and to him we are indebted for our first knowledge of the establishment. But the part of his Aids to the Labourer. 211 Report which relates to it has not been generally noticed, and even if it had been, it does not exhaust the subject. It must be premised that, as it is no easy matter to extort from any ordinary farmer a truthful account of his gains and losses, so in this case we found a similar indisposition to come to close quarters on the subject. And here, too, the reticence of the farmer is aggravated by the suspiciousness of the peasant ; nor could we help being amused at the obvious struggle which was going on in the mind of our chief informant between his eagerness to represent the institution in as favourable a light as possible, and his reluctance to admit that the members made a great deal by it. However, the collation of different statements, and of hostile with friendly criticism, en- abled us to make a pretty good guess at the financial merits of the system. But, before proceeding to dis- cuss them, it will be better to explain to our readers exactly what the system is. It is wholly unconnected either with the smaU farm system or the allotment sys- tem. The members form an agricultural company, but the land is not divided among them so as to give each one a piece to himself, and, in fact, they have no more to do with its cultivation than the shareholders in a railway company have to do with its traffic. The profits are divided among them every year, and are supposed to be paid partly in money and partly in kind ; but for all they have to do with the actual tillage of the land they might as well live a hundred miles off, or have their money in the Crystal Palace. Here at once is a highly important distinction between this method of improving the position of the labourer, p 2 212 The Agricultural Labourer, and all those whicli depend upon making him an actual cultivator on his own account. This, then, is the first point to be borne in mind. The " co-operative farm is not intended to be a means of turning the labourer into a farmer ; nor is it, except in point of money, any substitute for the allotment. The members continue what they ever were, ordinary day labourers, who work for the farmers of the parish at the ordinary w^eekly wages ; as, indeed, they may work under their own manager on the same terms if they choose, and if out of employment they have a pre- ferential claim upon him. But that is all. The only farmer in the case is the paid manager, and he is little, if at all, above the rank of an ordinary peasant. He receives twelve shillings a week, and he is assisted by two other officials, elected annually, who play the part of directors. The manager occupies what corresponds to the farmhouse upon the farm, and he and his col- leagues are supposed to meet in council once a week, when questions of cropping, manuring, and w^hat not, are, if necessary, put to the vote ; but, practically, the whole working of the machine is in the hands of the one man, who stands in the place of the ordinary tenant-farmer. All the members are obliged to be agricultural labourers, except, as we were told, three — but, as Mr. Fraser was informed, six — these being, according to one account, a blacksmith, a wheelwright, and a miller ; according to the other, a shoemaker and two carpenters besides ; so that the little settlement, aided as it is by a co-operative store, is complete within itself. No member is allowed to live more than three miles from the parish, to accept parish relief, or Aids to the Labourer, 213 to retain his share if convicted of a felonious offence. All are obliged to belong to an approved benefit club, and the widow of a member may retain her husband's share during her own lifetime. Assington is a pretty little retired village some distance from any railway, and lying in a thickly- wooded but rather flat country between Colchester and Sudbury. Mr. Gurdon, the representative of an old family and owner of nearly all the parish, died last November,* but he had not been resident for many years ; and, as Mr. Fraser very truly says, the success of his scheme is due to no artificial petting or coddling. He began it as long ago as 1830, and at the present time there are two farms on the property, cultivated by two different companies — one of 133 acres and 21 members, the other of 213 acres and 36 members. The latter farm, which is the one we saw most of, lies rather exposed, and a good deal of the land was till quite recently wood. As this company, which started in 1854 with only 70 acres, has been continually taking in new land, and as the expense of grubbing up the rough land has been considerable, we were not surprised to learn that the dividend at present was a small one. It was explained to us, moreover, that the roots which remained embedded in the soil made it impossible to use the steam-plough in fields which, from their size and flatness, were otherwise admirably adapted to it, and that it would not be till the stumps had rotted that the soil could be cultivated to the greatest advantage. But the land looked very clean, and the crops healthy, nor was there anything at all * 1870. 214 ^'^^ Agricultural Labourer. of a poverty-stricken air about the whole place. The older farm, which is now fairly on its legs, is of course doing much better. In each case the company was formed by means of a loan from the landlord, supplementing the sub- scriptions of the members. In each case the loan was the same — namely, ^6400 ; but in the first company the subscriptions were i63 apiece, and in the second ^63 10s. Both the size of the farms and the number of members have gone on increasing till they have reached the figures above given. The value of each share in the larger farm is estimated by the sum which the holder would receive if the whole stock were sold off, and that is calculated at about dB30. The shares on the smaller farm, as they yield a larger income, are worth nearly £50. When a labourer buys a share he has to pay not less than £5 down, and he surrenders his proportion of the profits till the balance is dis- charged. The rent paid is about 30s. an acre, which is something below the average rental of the neighbour- hood. These societies started, on the whole, then, under favourable circumstances. It is true that the original capital in each case was rather below the amount which is thought desirable for farming in general ; but still it seems to have been about £7 an acre ; and no interest was charged them for the money advanced. In the next place, their expenses were and are limited entirely to the necessary expenses of cultivation. There is no establishment to keep up. There is no "black- coated man," as the local phrase runs, who has a station to maintain or luxuries to purchase. The farmer or manager lives like a peasant, and nothing Aids to the Labourer. 215 goes on unproductive expenditure. Under these cir- cumstances one is naturally very curious to know what the profits are, and how much each member really re- ceives per annum. But this is just the point on which a good deal of secrecy is preserved. Every member gets a ton of coals, a certain number of sacks of pota- toes, and one, if not two fat pigs every year. But how much money is divided between them we could not discover with exactness. The manager of the newer and larger farm, which has not yet paid its debts, gave us to understand that the money dividend from that farm was at present something inappreciable. But, on being pressed, he seemed willing to allow us to suppose that as soon as encumbrances were cleared off, and the land got into good condition, each member's receipts would go near to constitute a livelihood. We found, too, that the general opinion in the village among non- members was that a share in the old farm was worth, in money and goods, from £20 to £30 a year. These accounts, therefore, correspond pretty closely, and the inference would be that the system returns nearly three times the profits which are ordinarily assigned to agri- culture. For instance, it is commonly supposed that a farmer ought to make three rents. The rent of the farm in question is £200, so that the gross receipts ought to amount to .1O6OO. But if twenty-one members receive £25 apiece, they divide no less a sum than £525, and the gross receipts ought to be £1,575, or nearly eight rents instead of three. Nor does the absence of carriages and hunters explain this difference ; for these cannot affect the actual produce of the soil. Nor would farmers, generally speaking, who had only 2i6 The Agricultural Labouixr. 130 acres, ever indulge in such luxuries if they had not private property besides. Now, by all we could learn, the land, though well enough cultivated, was not culti- vated above the average standard, so as to yield a higher profit than ordinary; while, of course, many of the farmers would say it was rather below it than above it. On the whole, therefore, we should be disposed to think that the profits of the concern have been rather magni- fied than diminished by the admiring peasantry of the neighbourhood, and to doubt whether, after all, the benefits of the system do more than counteract its dis- advantages. Its pecuniary benefits are not, perhaps, greatly in excess of what a judicious development of the allotment system is calculated to confer. It promotes integrity by the rule already mentioned, according to which a conviction before a magistrate entails forfeiture of the share. But the allotment system is capable of being worked in this way too. It keeps down the rates. But then, under the present system, that is only a modified boon to the ratepayers, who are assessed, not by parishes, but districts. And were it generally car- ried out so as to equalize the rates, it would tend to the extinction of a class of men who, with all their faults, fill a place in our rural economy which we should find it very difficult to fill up — namely, the tenant- farmers. The peasantry, of course, are enraptured with the system. But it was commenced at a time when probably the allotment system was unknown in this part of England ; and they contend that the dis- like of it entertained by the farmer proceeds wholly from the greater independence with which it imbues the labourer. Those who participate in its benefits Aids to the Labourer. 217 ** won't stand being swore at, like those who don't," said one of our informants, an intelligent young fellow, who doubtless had grounds for what he said. But it is probable that the main cause of their hostility lies much deeper than this — in the instinct, namely, of self-preservation, which tells them that any general adoption of the principle would be fatal to their own class. Our own conclusion, accordingly, is much the same as Mr. Eraser's. Within moderate limits, on a scale which shall not interfere with the general system of the country, it may safely be commended. If it lacks some of the advantages of the allotment or the garden which the labourer tills with his own hands,* it may be true that it gives him a more permanent interest in the soil; while, if this be desirable, " it no doubt promotes the reappearance of small farms without the reappearance of small farmers." There is likewise at Assington a Co-operative Store, which is found to answer very well. It has at present about seventy members ; and we did not find that any one spoke ill of this, except, of course, the small tradespeople in the place. The innkeeper complained that it interfered with his trade ; so, doubtless, would the shopkeeper who is licensed to sell "tea, coffee, pepper, snuff, vinegar, and tobacco ; " so, also, would the modern class of shops which have sprung up in villages of late, and sell clothes, boots, brushes, sta- tionery, and so forth. But still, while vested interests should be respected — and the system should, if pos- sible, be so gradually introduced as to avoid becoming the ruin of honest and industrious tradespeople — still * Tide supra, p. 107. 2i8 The Agricultural Labourer, there is no objection to these stores founded on any- inherent evil tendency belonging to them ; and if they can provide either better or cheaper, or better and cheaper, goods for the poor, than the ordinary village shop, the latter must be allowed to die out. Besides, there is one great evil connected with these shops, and that is the facilities which they offer for running into debt, to the great injury of both buyer and seller. One of the Commissioners, Mr. Fraser, has noticed this point, and one only ; but it is an evil which lies at the root of much domestic misery, even when it leads to nothing worse. The peasant's wife runs in debt without the knowledge of her husband, as if she was a fashionable lady ; and the scenes which ensue upon discovery may easily be imagined. Now, by these co-operative stores, which of course are not peculiar to Assington, non-members are not trusted at all, and members are only trusted to the value of their shares ; so that it is placed beyond their power to mortgage their weekly wages. On the other hand, as the village shopkeeper is exactly in the same position as the West-end tradesman, obliged to make his good debts pay for his bad ones, the prices which he is obliged to charge are exorbitant, and the consequence is that the poor man's wages do not go half so far as they might easily be made to go under a better system. Besides the actual profit on the business, the money dividend is no inconsiderable addition to the poor man's income. On the whole, therefore, we believe that the extension of co-operative stores throughout the rural districts cannot be too highly recommended. Mr. Stanhope alone mentions the occurrence of Aids to the Labourer. 219 "strikes" among the agricultural labourers. One that he heard of was in Lincolnshire, for the purpose of obtaining a reduction in the hours of labour on account of the long distance which men had to walk to and fro. This was a failure. The other was in Kent, which achieved a temporary success, and may be de- scribed in Mr. Stanhope's own words : — " In May, 1866, the Kent Agricultural Labourers' Protection Association was formed in order * to orga- nize the agricultural labourers with the view to the amelioration of their social condition and moral eleva- tion, and to endeavour to mitigate the evils of their serfdom.' At that time labour was scarce, and the first effort of the association was directed to obtaining an increase of wages ; and, in fact, it was mainly by means of this organization that a general rise was shortly afterwards effected. As labour again became more abundant, the employers obtained more control over their men, and the result has been that the asso- ciation has ceased to have any influence whatever. It is difficult to ascertain what were regarded by it as the principal steps in the amelioration of their condition. But, curiously enough, the one thing especially desired for them by every one who takes an interest in them — that is, the improvement of their cottages — was not an object of this association, because they all felt that im- proved cottages enabled the employer to obtain more control over his men." To these instances may be added one that took place in Leicestershire some five or six years ago, when the men on strike got seven shillings a week from their club for a considerable time, and used to be seen hang- 2 20 The Agricultural Labourer, ing about the fields with their hands in their pockets, or sitting upon gates smoking, in the enjoyment of a delicious idleness. How it ended I have forgotten, but the materials for such combinations do not as yet exist in the rural districts, where labour by itself cannot cope successfully with capital. [Eight years afterwards the attempt was made — with what success has been already stated.] 221 CHAPTER XIII. SUMMARY. 1870. On a general retrospect of the ground we have now travelled over, the conclusion seems to be that the con- dition of the agricultural labourer is slowly but surely on the rise.* If we look first to the conditions under which his labour is performed, we see that during the last few years the public gang system has received its death-blow, and that women have been gradually emancipating themselves from the more injurious and debasing kinds of work, while an Act of Parliament has been passed which will have the effect, in the long run, of restoring the homes of the peasantry to the villages in which they are employed. We see, too, that the nation has been awakened to a sense of its duties towards the children of the country as well as towards the children of the town, and that protective legislation will not long be wanted where the necessity for it can be shown to exist, though it is gratifying to learn that the children stand in much less need of it than it has recently been the fashion to suppose. The * This prophecy, it is needless to sav, has been abundantly- confirmed. — T. E. K., 1887. 2 22 The Agricultural Labourer. greatest limitations upon juvenile labour which any of the Commissioners recommend are comparatively slight ; one of the ablest of them recommends the least of all ; and the general impression seems to be, that were it not for the sake of education, the labour of young boys might safely be left to itself. The labour of girls is different. On this subject the preponderance of opinion seems to be, that they should be kept from work till sixteen years of age. For reasons already given I consider this age a mistake. On the score of morality it is too young. On the score of health and education it is unnecessarily old. Wages. — On the subject of wages it is more difficult to ascertain the exact truth than in any other branch of the inquiry. The practice of payment in kind, with all its perplexing ramifications, opposes an obstacle to the inquirer which it is impossible to overcome without a patient and minutei nvestigation of the system in all its phases — a task, it is needless to add, which the con- stant work of several years would be no more than sufficient to execute. But one or two facts which it seems impossible to dispute evolve themselves out of all this entanglement. There is a large class of labourers who, including the earnings of their families, are receiving, in cash and kind, upwards of ^100 a year.* There is a very large class who are receiving from ^70 to ^80. Secondly, in all parts of England the pea- santry have money in the savings-banks. Thirdly, their personal appearance is not that of half-starved, down- trodden men. One is told this is all on the surface, and that though a life in the open -air gives them a * Cf. cap. I. ^ \ \ P «^ '^ T y -^ OF THE OF Stimmary. healthy look, they succumb to the first serious illness. But is this so? I greatly doubt it. I have seen numerous cases of ordinary day labourers recovering from very serious illness. Fourthly, there is a better test than all — their longevity. But if we have some reason for suspecting that the present remuneration of the agricultural labourer has been underrated, we have likewise ground to hope that his future remuneration is likely to be much higher. The large majority of competent witnesses appear to be of opinion that as the extension of scientific agriculture, combined with the use of machinery, extorts a larger produce from the soil, the labourer will, by a natural law, get his share of it in the form of increased wages. I would here call par- ticular attention to the evidence given by Mr. Tremen- heere before the Enclosure Committee last year, and to Mr. Denton's Letters on Agricultural Labour which appeared originally in the Daily Neivs. The first thinks that under a higher state of cultivation the land will support many more labourers.* The second contends that nothing is required to insure them higher wages but to make them better workmen ; f and to this end he recommends that after a course of that more practical instruction in the schoolroom which has been already referred to (p. 82), each boy, on going to farm work, should be placed under some special instructor, such as the shepherd, the carter, or the thatcher, and serve a term of apprenticeship to some particular department of labour. A system of exami- nation and prizes might be instituted, he thinks, to ♦ Cf. p. 146. + They have got worse and worse. See chapter III. 2 24 The Agricultural Labourer, stimulate both master and pupil; and he makes no doubt that the result of it would soon be seen in the higher wages which farmers would gladly pay in return for the savings they would effect by the employment of skilled labour.* Cottages. — On the subject of cottages it seems only necessary to add that the Union Chargeability Bill has destroyed the principal motive which prompted the vil- lage ratepayer to destroy them ; and that it seems to be admitted that the cottage accommodation of the poor, partly, perhaps, owing to this cause, partly to the Ke- port of Dr. Hunter, has greatly improved throughout the country during the last few years. (^Vide evidence before the Enclosure Committee, 1025—1027.) Allot- ments and cottage gardens, though not yet everywhere provided, are almost everywhere acknowledged to be necessary ; while the legislation promised to us on the subject of future "Enclosures," which with proper reservations will be highly beneficial in itself, is pretty sure at the same time to encourage the extension of the system by private individuals. [All these expec- tations have now been more than realized. — 1887.] Education. — The education of the agricultural labourer is a question which has not yet run itself entirely clear of all perplexities, as it still seems a moot point among persons interested in the subject whether we are to look to higher wages as a condition of better education, or to better education as a condition of higher wages. According to the one view we have no right to expect the agricultural labourer to be an exception to general rules. Our physical necessities have a primary claim • Cf. pp. 73^ 76. Summary. 225 ■apon us, and it is not until these are satisfied that higher wants hegin even to be felt. The next stage is the desire of decency and comfort ; and after this comes the craving for mental cultivation. According to others it is only education which can produce the desire for education, and it must be forced upon the agricultural labourer, whether he wishes it or not. The common- sense view of the question lies, probably, between the two. The peasant appreciates education for his children as a means of bettering their condition even now. And if it can be brought home to him, as it might be by Mr. Denton's plan, that a different education would better their condition still more, he would not shrink from the cost of it. By taking advantage of this feel- ing the next generation might be brought to value it for its own sake. But there is little necessity to dwell upon this branch of the subject in the present chapter ; for whatever else may be said of the condition oi the English labourer, it cannot at all events be denied that his educational prospects are brightening, and that, if he has anything to fear on this head, it is rather from excess of zeal than from defect. [This expectation also has been completely realized. 1887.] The pre- ponderating opinion at present is, that his children should be sent to school regularly up to ten years of age, and intermittently up to twelve or thirteen. Hiring. — The existing systems of hiring seem produc- tive of great dissatisfaction, but hitherto all attempts at substitutes have been failures. The statute fair seems to be on the decline. But there is no reason to suppose that as yet it is moribund ; and it is worth considera- tion whether it is not susceptible of being brought Q 226 The Agricultural Labourer, under Lumanizing influences, and converted into a harmless festival, seeing that the labouring classes do not certainly have too many holidays in their lives. The Register Office * for agricultural labourers has not been found to answer; and though, in some parts of England, servants are hired through the medium of newspaper advertisements, the system does not seem likely to become general. Yearly hiring can, of course, be managed without the statute fair. But the objec- tion to it is that it encourages constant change, and creates a vagrant population. A man hired by the week cannot change every week, and so very often does not change at all. But the man hired for a year feels himself bound, somehow or other, to change at the end of it. The disadvantages of the weekly system are that the labourers are less certain of employment, and always liable to be thrown out of their incomes by sickness. This last objection must always, to some extent, remain in force. But the former need not, for the best. workman will always be secure against the caprice or stinginess of the farmer ; and if a classifica- tion could be organized, by which inferior ones got less wages, they might feel almost equally safe. The Public House. — Of all the evils with which the agricultural labourer is called on to contend, the public- house is not only the worst, but infinitely the most diffi- cult to deal with ; a powerful trading interest is enlisted in support of it ; a powerful political party is jealous of the local influences by which alone it can be moderated; while a third would be sure to use all its influence against that substitute, without which reforms would * "The schoolmaster" system {vide page 184) might, perhaps, be worth ft further trial. Summary, 227 be impossible. The country brewers, in the first place; the enemies of local self-government, and especially of aristocratic or clerical self-government, in the second ; and those who wage a general war against all alcoholic drink, in the third place, would probably join together against the only feasible plan for the removal of this nuisance. Free beer- sellers, to be licensed by the local magistrates, and effectually prevented from allowing it to be drunk on the premises, would interpose between the cottager and the temptations of the public-house ; while un- restricted competition would relieve from the necessity of dosing himself with poisoned beer. But they would be doing for one indulgence very much what the Contagious Diseases Act has done for another. They would be undermining a lucrative monopoly. And they would bring additional influence into the hands of a class whose power it is thought desirable in some quarters rather to curtail than to augment. It is, however, to be remembered at the same time, that the vice of drinking, which we are apt to flatter ourselves survives only among the poorer classes of society, is not yet extinct among the upper. Among many of the outward conformers to a better creed the pagan worship still lingers. The rites are different, but the idol is the same. And here we would quote a curious testimony to the truth of this opinion from the pen of a great novelist, whose acquaintance with English society will not be disputed, which I met with after writing the above. "And then there are the shades of black which come from conviviality, — which we may call table q2 2 28 The Agricultural Labourer. blackness, — as to which there is an opinion constantly disseminated by the moral newspapers of the day, that there has come to be altogether an end of any such blackness among sheep who are gentlemen. To make up for this, indeed, there has been expressed by the piquant newspapers of the day an opinion that ladies are taking up the game which gentlemen no longer care to play. It may be doubted whether either expression has in it much of truth. We do not see ladies drunk, certainly, and we do not see gentle- men tumbling about as they used to do, because their fashion of drinking is not that of their grandfathers. But the love of wine has not gone out from among men ; and men now are as prone as ever to indulge their loves. Our black sheep was very fond of wine, — and also of brandy, though he was wolf enough to hide his taste when occasion required it." — (Mr. A. Trollope, Macmillan's Magazine for June.) There is no doubt that, although habitual intem- perance is now a vice rather for derision than imitation, and that to get drunk before women would be visited with social ostracism, yet that among men an occasional transgression is still regarded as a joke, and that as we descend in the scale of society we shall find it less occasional. The influence of this fact upon the working class is seen far and wide ; and the example in a country neighbourhood of a single farmer or gentleman who is occasionally seen in what Baron Bradwardine calls the *' predicament of intoxication,'* to say nothing of the many others who show, by their jests upon the failing, that they regard it with a lenient eye, will neutralize all the efforts of those who exert themselves to reclaim the labourer to sobrietv. In Summary, 229 fact, the whole tone of society at large must change on this subject before any very great improvement can be looked for. At present there is a sort of tacit under- standing, an ingenuous hypocrisy, as it were, among men of the world in relation to this particular infirmity which permeates the whole community, opposing that kind of yielding resistance to the rebukes of the moralist which is the most difficult of all to be over- come. Game. — Among the peculiar sources of demoralization to which the English peasant is exposed, the preserva- tion of game is often cited as the worst. This is a very great mistake. Nobody knows better than the poacher the real character of game. If his apologists like to shelter him behind a wholly mistaken conception of it, of course he will avail himself of their kindness. But as for supposing that the poacher himself is led away by the delusion that pheasants are wild animals in which nobody has any right of property, it is one of those fond inventions which only personal acquaintance with a single member of the profession is required to dispel. Game is no more a temptation to dishonesty than other luxuries ; and whatever is to be said against the Game Laws is to be said against them rather as a farmer's grievance than a labourer's. Benefit Societies. — The chief evils which vitiate a cer- tain class of Benefit Societies are, first, the unrestricted power which they enjoy of squandering the club funds at public-houses ; secondly, the facilities which the younger members possess for repudiating their obli- gations to the elder ; and thirdly, the absence of any machinery by which the benefit of a man's savings may be secured to his widow and children, should he 230 The Agricultural Labourer. die without having had any occasion to draw upon the club funds. We are told, however, that the class of societies which are chiefly afi'ected by these evils are gradually on the wane ; that the peasantry themselves are fully alive to the disadvantages of them ; and that leading men in various counties are exerting themselves either to extend or to introduce a better system. In regard to this subject, we are sometimes encountered by the assertion that the agricultural labourer will never derive all the advantages which he might derive from such institutions as long as he has the parish to fall back upon. That this prospect may weaken his motive for self-denial is not to be disputed ; but it seems impossible to banish it. The receipt even of out- door relief is not, upon the whole, a boon to which the poor look forward with complacency. Seclusion in the " Bastile " itself they contemplate with horror. In the next generation these feelings, we may hope will be still stronger than they are now ; and to these we must trust for counteracting the bad effects of a system which, wholly to dispense with, would be almost to abolish the Poor Law. Co-operative Farming. — A novelty which some people recommend with great confidence as a mode of mending the condition of the labourer is the plan which has been described in operation on Mr. Gurdon's estate in Suffolk — the plan of co-operative farming. The system has much to recommend it. It betters the condition of the labourer, and gives him an interest in the land. And as it is capable of being conducted on a large scale, it is free from some of the objections which attach to small farms. But though it gives the peasantry an interest in the soil, it does not giYe them that kind of interest Summary, 231 which it is most desirable to encourage — the interest inspired by the allotment or the garden which they cultivate with their own hands. And secondly, one of the main points on which its prosperity is repre- sented as depending, avoidance, namely, of all the expenses which are incidental to the position of an ordinary tenant-farmer, by the employment of a paid manager at twelve shillings a week, means, of course, the supercession of a very valuable element in our rural system by one which, for every other purpose than that, is confessedly inferior. No such objections, how- ever, attach to the establishment of co-operative stores, which seem an unmitigated benefit to country villages, and cannot, in our opinion, be too widely spread throughout the kingdom. Allotments. — The three points of controversy in con- nection with allotments are : whether the letting of them should be entrusted by statute to parish authori- ties ; whether these should be empowered to sieze land for the purpose when the owners are not willing to let it ; and whether the occupiers should be placed under the conditions of the Agricultural Holdings Act. My own inclination is to answer all three questions in the negative (1887). Small Farms. — The question of small farms versus large seems to turn on three considerations ; namely, which is the better for the labourer, which is the better for the land, and which is the better for the interests of the nation at large. And these three questions do not necessarily run into each other, as it is conceivable that some sacrifice of material produce might be worth making for the sake of ulterior advantages.* As regards ♦ Cf. cap. VII. 164, 5. 232 The Agricultural Labourer. the individual, it is clear that what he cannot do as a small proprietor he will not he able to do as a small farmer. Now, as to the prosperity of even small pro- prietors, the evidence collected by the Commission of 1867, is very unsatisfactory,* and we might, therefore, be justified in reasoning a fortiori against that of small farmers. But, independently of this argument, there is abundance of evidence to show that the advantages of small farming and large are at least evenly balanced ; that much depends upon the character of the population, the construction of society, the existence of rival indus- tries, and finally, on the nature of the soil, by which also must be determined their comparative effects upon the land. If, with these conditions before us, we ask ourselves which of the two is, on the whole, the better suited to England, we shall find the balance incline perceptibly in favour of our present system. We say on the whole, because we readily admit that it is desirable to keep in hand a certain proportion of small farms to serve particular purposes. But all things considered — the future as well as the present of agricultural labour, the soil and climatef of England, the existence of our im- mense commercial industry — the conclusion seems to stand out quite clearly that a general exchange of large farms for small would not, in the long run, either im- prove the condition of the peasantry or increase the produce of our agriculture. Is there any other reason, then, which should weigh with us in favour of a general redistribution of farms and properties ? On the con- * The evidence in the Duke of Richmond's Reports, 1880, is all against it. + Medium character of the one, variable character of the other. Summary, trary, the evidence on non-material grounds is all against it. We might sacrifice our rural system for the sake of small farming, were this proved to he of paramount importance. But to introduce small farm- ing for the sake of destroying our rural system would seem to he simple infatuation, except on political grounds. The conclusion is, then, that other con- siderations heing assumed to he equal, social considera- tions turn the scale in favour of our own method as a general national principle. Having thus hriefly recapitulated the several topics on which I have tried to throw some light in the foregoing chapters, I have only to repeat that I lay no claim to any merit heyond that of bringing within a narrow compass the chief questions which arise out of the condition of the agricultural labourer, and of calling attention to the salient points in each. I have stated a certain number of conclusions to which a great mass of evidence appears to tend ; but I have always done my best to give their full weight to all modifying considerations. I know of no question, if we except religious ones, which requires to be approached with a mind so attuned to impartiality as this one of the agri- cultural labourer. On the one hand is his life of silent, secluded, uncomplaining toil, always suggestive of the qui laborat orat; his undeniable privations, his honesty, his simplicity, his helplessness, so unlike the self-asser- tion and pugnacity of the city artisan ; all prepossess- ing us in his favour, all imbuing us with the idea that a system which does not do more for him must be radically indefensible.* On the other hand we see in him but * Since this was written mucli of his primitive simplicity has departed from him, and a great deal more has been done for him. — T. E. K., 1887. 234 ^^^ Agricultural Labourer, one link in a great social chain which has endured for centuries, the origin of which was noble and generous, and the continuation of which has been secured from age to age by the accumulative force of kindly traditions and immemorial sympathies. If we fail to give its full value to every reflection which is suggested by either side of the shield we shall infallibly draw wrong con- clusions ; and it is the certainty of this which should make us so cautious of dogmatizing. But I am happy in believing that the more the question is studied, the more it will be seen that the highest interests of the landlord, the tenant, and the labourer harmonize with each other, and that in a logical development of, rather than a total departure from, the ancient social system of England, lies our best hope for the future. It seemed to me unnecessary to re-write the above chapter, though in some respects it has ceased to be applicable to the present condition of the labourer. His fortunes have improved so greatly within the last few years, that much as he may deserve our sympathy and assistance, he no longer stands in need of our com- passion. But many of his habits and customs, his temptations and his difficulties, still remain the same ; nor does the public know more of them now, if I can trust my own observation, than it knew when the book was first written. I am in hopes, therefore, that even those parts of it which, to such as have studied the question, shall seem out of date, may still be useful to others who are comparatively unacquainted with it ; and help them to judge for themselves during the important agrarian discussions of which we are now upon the threshold. 235 I s CO o o §8 -+^ rH p a P^ ■+3 H ci PP r^ ^ ri4 W J o • w ^ © p « rd w -^3 o o EH M2 M rfe* ^ p:^ X ^ 00 00 1— I o hH . « « p =a o ^ w 1 o o 1 p; W -f-l o <1 1 B 02 ^ ^ g o e4H o h^l fa □3 <1 O O rt p H Va o o P^ ^ (-1 Remarks. G. B. is a very hard- working man, he will be at his sheepfold when corn cutting is in progress at 4 o'clock in the morning, and, having finished his shepherd's work, is ready to start fagging by 9 or 10 o'clock, and earn 5s. or 10s. a day extra. i ill Cottage and garden, rent free. "So >> % Extra lambs reared above the number of ewes, Is. per head = 50s. 1 r-i Age. Shepherds : — G. B. 45 236 Appendix, 6 CQ P5 P o w w CQ o P3 O o 4!. a 8 g ^ S ^ n ; all ex- chasstack- . each hour rtime paid 1 3 % a 0) a rfij 05 •^ :3 -^ d p* ■^ rt ^ 00 I— 1 > m ^ > « 03 ^ 2 aj '2 "•a%-:° to cS .« -»^ »-i =« h4 ;si >> a 1 W ->^ -i^ e3^ PL. -»3 ^^-13 % S > eo 03 OS a « «• JS ?^ g •" 2 t> ;3 i i-s > tab bo .9 1 bO .9 bO C3 s" ~ a ,3 § a w ^ S "w • u -tJ bO o3 a Lh CQ bn .£3 ^^ 3 S 00 I-H ^ .?. fe •^^' •gs^.s m « w ISsS ,M (>>>»>>>» 8 ^ 00 CO 09 -WMHt-Wwt* ^ »o XO ^ V4 h (4 i-i rH r-t r-t _p ^ t^H «M «+-( ««-l PQ ■5 OT ^5 <» rH I-I rH rH a> 1 CO »o »o g ** "* M) 1 CO W5 CO <1 » 1 1^ p4 '2 P5 ^ cc c> p Appendix, 237 -s g*-^- 'e h Q> ^^"^ >> § i-c"g a " s-ES 1 > 1 OS 1 s T-K •M J3 bOt>-Oo23 rS for at 3(1.+ per hour, corn is paid per hour. III! §'.2 " EH 2 fc a -? •[: s^^ 2^ !2 a.2'^ Sfi.p ps ^o-s -e ^ -«a 000 . CO i-l !3 Oi CO t>. i-H «o r-l ^ r-l I—! '^ % % ■< »o o» »0 WJ rH I-t rH >>>>.>> . «*H ^ s i as 03 «9* >» fc «-' ^ fc! «« CO »o 00 ^^.2^ ^* a ^ I— t «g of oS 00 1 '* CN ■* (M 1^ tH >— 1 I— 1 rH ^ S d^— r-'^-v-' 13 a CO »o t^ * *i i r-t rH rH and in those elementary questions connected with the * " The Law of Allotments ; Being a Treatise on the Law Relating to the Allotment of Land for the Labouring Poor. "With the Statutes and Notes and a Collection of Forms and Precedents. " By T. Hall Hall> M.A. (London : LongmaDg, Green, and Co. 1886.) 268 Appendix, whole system whicli every one must be presumed capable of understanding who has given any serious thought to it. In the first place, then, what is an " allotment " ? It may mean, of course, any piece of land allotted to any- body ; and technically, says Mr. Hall, it applies only to pieces of land appropriated under an enclosure award ; but he uses it throughout in its popular sense, namely, *' as a small piece of land let to a person to be cultivated by him as an aid to his sustenance, but not in substitution for his labour for wages." The allotment proper is such a plot of ground as the agricultural labourer can cultivate at his spare moments, with such help as his own family may be able to afford him, and in no way trenching on the Saturday night's wages. " When the land," says Mr. Hall, " is large enough to become the main object of the tenant's labour, it is, in the phrase of the day, called a small holding rather than an allotment." It is important, he adds, to distinguish the two things, " as their political and social import differ widely, though in point of law there is not much difference." He also reminds us of another distinction which it is perhaps equally necessary to bear in mind ; and that is, that an allotment is a piece of land detached from the labourer's cottage, and that when it is close to it it is a cottage-garden. The latter, he says truly, is usually considered a much better thing for the tenant ; and the allotment is only a substitute for it. There is, however, another term in use which is perhaps the best description of an allotment, as some- thing which is neither a cottage-garden nor a small hold- ing, and that is " field-garden," which exactly expresses what an allotment is intended to be — namely, a small plot to be cultivated as a garden, but lying in the fields at a little distance from the village. When people talk of the necessity of having allotments close to the labourer's cottage they are confounding two different Appendix. 269 things — an allotment and a cottage-garden. In the En- closure Acts what we call an allotment is always, if we understand Mr. Hall, called a field-garden. With regard to the size of allotments, the different opinions which exist are due solely to the different agri- cultural conditions which prevail in different parts of the country ; but on an average it will be found that half an acre is quite large enough. Evidence to this effect may be found in the Report of the Commission for In- quiry into the Employment of Women and Children in Agriculture, which is mentioned by Mr. Hall as a store- house of valuable information, and also in the Report of the Poor Law Commissioners of 1834. Both of these reports embrace the whole of England and Wales, and are free from the slightest suspicion of bias one way or the other. Mr. Hall would have done well to quote the concluding paragraph of this part of their Report : " Since it appears that land may be let to labourers on profitable terms, the necessity for any public inquiry on these points seems to be at an end. A practice which is beneficial to both parties, and is known to be so, may be left to the care of their own self-interest. The evidence shows that it is rapidly extending ; and we have no doubt that as its utility is perceived it will spread still more rapidly, and that experience will show, if it has not already shown, on what mutual stipulations it can best be effected." Experience has abundantly fulfilled this prophecy. With regard to the comparative advantages of the voluntary and compulsory systems Mr. Hall himself speaks strongly : — The allotments let voluntarily by private landowDers are probably twenty times as numerous as those let under special Acts of Parliament. Moreover, the voluntary system is capable of indefinite expansion in the mode most calculated to suit local convenience ; while a statutory 2 70 Appendix, system must always be cramped in practice by the ponderous machinery and restrictive provisions required to fit it for general use, even if its success be not altogether marred by the characteristic apathy of the public bodies which have to work it without feeling the personal interest of a landlord in the welfare of his tenants, and it may be without that willing assent and co-operation which alone give vigour to the law. On tlie subject of tlie relations wHcli onglit to exist between the tenants of allotments and their landlords some diversity of opinion, though only what might have been expected, showed itself in the debates on the Agri- cultural Holdings Act of 1883. The Act of 1875 con- tained a clause which excluded allotments from the operation of it, and a similar clause was originally con- tained in the Bill of 1883. It was struck out, however, after a smart struggle ; and the tenant of an allotment now stands on precisely the same footing as the tenant of 500 acres.* On some grounds this is certainly to be regretted. For one advantage of the allotment system is the opportunity which it affords to the landowners in every parish of rewarding good conduct and discouraging bad. And the knowledge that he is liable to lose his allotment for drunkenness, dishonesty, or systematic mis- conduct supplies a powerful motive for the agricultural labourer to take heed unto his ways. But if the landlord, before he can turn him out, is to be worried by all the complicated provisions of the Agricultural Holdings Act, nine men out of ten will leave the tenant to his own de- vices : and thus the good moral influence of the system is entirely destroyed. Mr. Hall, however, is of opinion that an allotment, when devoted to the cultivation of vegetables and fruit only for the labourer's own use (even though some might be occasionally sold), and not sown with corn or turned into a regular martet-garden, is exempt from the operation of the Act. Such, no doubt, * This is a doubtful point. Appendix. 271 was tlie original intention with whidi allotments were introduced ; but corn is now so generally grown upon tliem that the prohibition of it would be regarded as a hard- ship. The meal keeps the pig, and the pig pays the rent ; and a garden in which he could not grow his bit of barley would lose more than half its value in the eyes of any ordinary labourer. But we have always thought it a great mistake to place allotments on the same foot- ing as farms, and, from what he says at page 71, Mr. Hall seems to think so too. Woodfall & Kinder, Printers, Miliord Lane, Strand, London, W.C. c RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH^^RROWED This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed, books are subject to immediate recall. mm. Ml/t \ ■ LD21— 32m — 1/75 (S3845L)4970 ■:^ General Library University of California Berkeley m!iJT^1376 LD21-96m-7.'37 U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES C0067373flfl 106508