The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1882-05-30 00:00:00

MAID= lIIIIIFTOII.
AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS' MEETING.

ADDING= IT K 2. 30111 11 •ICH AID NB. 010101

Under the auspices of the N. A L.U., • Male meet-
ing of agricultural lebourers WM held at Maiden
Newt ni on Tuesday evening, and, considering the
most unfavourable state of the weather, wee fairly
succenf.d. Before the meeting a tea wars held, and a
band (kindly supplied by Mr. George Mitchell)
paraded the street'.
The e setting was held in. field lent by Mr. George
Whitty.and the sp «alters delivered their addreeeet from
a wage.. On the proposition f Mr. Pike, Mr.
Mitotte,l was voted to the chair. The Chairman wee
supported by Mr. Joseph Arch (the President of the
Union.)
The Cattaiwt said if a meeting liks that had been
hold 40 years a‘o it woul I have beee said the pro-
moters deserved the r .pc. lie asked what was the
emse if their being there that *venial; I He replied,
the rascally .f the landowners and the c erg?.
(Appl wise.) That meeting might be a small one, but
it comprised the brains and the honesty of the place.
(Hear. beer.) They were kept in the po•ition they
were at present, and large numbers of them could not
road or write, and yet they were told " You be oon-
t-nted in the position in which God has placed you,
n 1 I will wire into the Iwo of mutton."

- _
(Laughter.) Let them not talk to him such
rot as that. Scripture says—" They that work
should eat, and they who do not work should not eat."
Tat they who did not work lived on the fat of the
land. They ware not goirg te shake him from the
Scriptures. He only wished the Salvation Army
would come to Malden Newton. (A Voles: I wish
they wool I.) They were jolly good helloes, aod who
were they, he salted, who opposed t hem? Why they
who Feed darkness rather than light. It we said
Mat the farm labourers in that di trict had been
nerved to death, and yet they talked about Jew
provideaos. They told them to be waist:tad, while
they got the grub." That should be altered.
(Hear, hear.) How could it be altered? Not by
shooting people nor by revolution, hut they wanted
to alter it scoordiog to law. The Union said they
wanted it altered and they would get it. About 11
years ago when he gave £lOO to the church of hit own
wish, he was the beet man out of Heaven, and when
he sewed the condition of the labourers he was the
blackest out of hell. He would now rather give Sl,OOO
to the Salvation Army than a thousand peon to the
rotten State Church. He would lay ten to one that
the parson of that pariah got more than all the
agricultural labourers there put together. He asked
them t I work shoulder to shoulder for the Union for
they ha i not robbed them. God help the man who
robbed the labourers after the farmer. and others had
done with them. lie leaked roam not to let the Union
do what they cool,' du theinselvee, for it was °mad y
to sok anyone to to what they coulddo themselves. The
el:merlins of the parish were enough to clothe, feed, aid
educates° the poor there,but what hal been donswith
the money? Had the labourers taken ikbad they stolen
it? He sad Mr. Arch bad rooms down there for the
labourers' good, not for their own. Mr. Arch would
tell them what to do—would they do it? Did they
like the idea of their little chtldrem, after spending
the beet part of their life in bard work, to spend the
latter part of their days In the workhouse. Had they
25.. a week? (4 No.'') Did they ever ask foe it.
N ..") But did they think the farmers were going
to be such fools? He knew something of the Buller-
liege of the lab orate, and knew what it was to eat
the turnips without the mutton. (Laughter.) He
referred to Mr. Glaistons—whom he °ha:motorised as
a great and good man—and the opposition he bad
received from Mr. Wartoo wiron he smiled a disgrace
to either Whig or Tory. He (Mr. Warren) was more
at to take one of Holl iway's Pills than to be •
legislator. (Laughter.) Of all the curses in the
Rouse he was the greatest, and if he put up for an
agricultural constituency, if nobody else gave him
s•nnrethiorr, he would hod somebody who would. He
cowid-red the language of Weartoo to Mr. Gladstone
was • shame to Briiiport. (Hoar, bear.) He concluded
by asit'ng the labourers to help themselves by joining
the Union.
Mr. S. Piss ( District Secretary), thee Peolreed
two roe-dation.. (1.) "That this meeting Demirel
the time bare come when the agricultural labourers of
the United Kingdom should be enfranchised as other
honest and worthr citizens ore, and is therefote of
opinion that the G 'van:meat .bould swedily bring in
• WI for the aadmilistion of tb• county with the
borough franchiae, and that the stone should become
law at the end of the preeeot Parliament." (2.) "That
In the opinion of thi• meeting, it is desirable, in order
to increese the productiveness of the land, and arrest
the decline of the rural p .polation, an I promote the
interista of the commercial indurries of the country,
provision should be made by Parliament to facilitate
the a-quiretnent by agricultural labourer., tenant
farmers, and others of pre prietary rigbto in agricultural
Isod.
Mr. Jowl' Anon support.d thanes-dollen, of which
ab .ot 90 persons claimed to be the seconders. He had
come there. he said to talk about the N.A.LU., and
he emoted them to corral ler seriously the facts be was
abut to state. Al Englishmen loved fair play and
truth. He was pleased to fin 1 in Malden Newton a
good number of the men had had the courage to start
another branch. and him only surprise em that any
sensible labourer should be outside its ranks. They
bad had many in.tito ions in this country. all of which
seemed to Indicate that the labourers ought to bear
fitted. Their persona had started coal clubs, concert.,
penny-neadings, and so on. He bad nothing to say
against them, but this—the care of their difficulties
had
, man wanted to rise, he must raise himself, sad he
maintained there was not soother institution in the
country, which bad brought so many comfort, to the
agricultural labourer as the Union. He quoted s ate-
menta made by Mr. Shaw Lorene that during the first
seven yews of its existence, the labourers throughout
the country had received in the awe of the rise of
wage 20 minium of mosey. Now be would ask than

what lastltutlea bad dome ? Age them
another Institution which had liooll so mush monetary
good for the agrioultoral I ibourer as the Union had.
le would APPeal to the common muse of the rural
trndeamen, for sometimes Me Union found its greatest
foes amongst this rises. He could not understand it.
Thel,:e'V had larilY a depression in trade, and had it
not for the Union, the tradesmen would have felt
that depres.iou to a in, greater extent The 30
millions that had been paid over their counters
In hard omh, they would have had on their hooka ite
bad debts. They bad been told that that money
would be so much lose to th• farmers, ha. d'ae,
it. Nothing had done so much to Male ••r"'"*"""
as the work of the Laborer.' Union. The Union
had done its work to ratitutionally, ai.d, although hu
did nut wish to apealt egotiadmlly, there was no
name the la ,dlords disliked more than that of Jos:plt
Arch. During the existences of the Uelon the landlords
had been obliged to save beck more than 40 millions
In order to keep the sgmauti they had, and they
would have to iota bank more yet. (Hear, heard
The day would ooze when junk* would avenge
herself upon the heads of the wrong-doers. Professor
Oaird had shown tat the value of the land within 13
years—from 1837 to 1875—hei incremed 331 mons.
What had increased it to that amount? The railways
had dons it, an I who had built the engines and had
tnale the railway, but the hand of the labourers? He
would ask the landlords of England if the, ww• not
now receiving their just deserts, for, whilst others
laboured, the wealth portrea into their (Nobles at a
eery great sacr,fice of limns. life. Not content with
that they had raised the rents of the farmers nine
• Yew. Such conduct showed that whilst
other peorde by their industry were making their
proi.orty worth more every year, they (the landlord)
were not content to let the people have a fair share in
the benefits, but they rairsed the rents and down cams
the labourer: wages. As to enolgration be salt—far
better emigrate all their dukes, earl., and bishops
than their working men. His astonishaeot was that
the labourer, had no higher inspiralon than to eat
the bread they earned to-day, and at last be content
to die in the workhou.e. He attributed much of their
preeent condition to their own supineness mid their
own miserable ealfialui.m, their love of (Ade and
clam. He wanted them to say as working men
that there should be right throughout the ranks
of labour a oombination of interest, ot feeling,
desire, and purpose, because the higher they could rains
the lowest-paid workman, the higher they would rains
the beet-naid, lid they think toe time had not ounce
when they ought to make mete great cheep in the
monopolies which existed? When they started that
Unloa In 1872 they were laughed to SOWN but he
could tell them what bad been done. They had made
the farmers pay 110 millions more than ever they meant
to pay, end they bat made the landlords give teak 40
mdi,ons they would never have sive, beck. If they
w old only combine t artificer, instead of all the profits
of their labour going to swell the rent-roll of Die land-
lord, if they were legally and well-oombined, they
would be able to claim a fair share of that wealth for
the comforts of their own homes arid families. He wee
astonished lee night when heard • very imp ,rtautaud
startling statement reads by the e hot of their paper,
the L Annoy.? °Manias, with regard to what 'ha Union
had done in supporting the sick and in burying the
dead. He itiW trial during the six years that the sick
institution had been introduced into their Union, they
had paid over t 0,000 fa slickness and death claims.
(Applause.) They bad not any rebuts from the
retortion offioer for that, and he maintained that any
institution that mold bring the mosey into
pool'es to pay into a sick society, and the institution
that could frame that sick society to meet their claims
In these of necessity, and bury them decently when
May were dead, was one that deserved the support of
every homed working man. (Applause)
Torrents of rain fell at this moment, and the
President was compelled to dose hie speech.
The resolutions were then put to the ineetins and
carried unanimously. This concluded the proceedings.
Alter Use meeting the baud *gabs played through the
streets.