The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1878-01-08 00:00:00

agricultural Enna.

THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.
I have for a long while been watching the unhappy dis-
putes between labourers and their employers, and have
been hoping to are something brought forth that would
lead to • permanent reconciliation. But very little have
I yet found that is Ballet actory. It is continually lock-out
on the one side, and strike on the other, which are the
ultimatum and completion of the ill-feeling which each
party has towards the other. This ill-feeling is • Are that
cannot burn out, it most be put out, and not by feeding
and fanning. Thanks for the few remarks in your
editorial on page 500: I wish you had pursued the subject
further. It appears very plainly to me that Mr. (I.
Mitchell has been "One from the Plough" too long to
understand the nature and requirements of the farm
labourer (to which clam I belong), or the quality of his
labour and Its value to the farmer. I regard with suspicion
! all noisy agitator., as I have watched carefully to see
! what good can be produced by • "strike" for Waged,* and
according to my lode:Dent, no real good can be the result.
I grant that some apparent good may he produced which
will satisfy the covetous and carries, thinkers, but then
we can hardly imagine an evil perpetrated, but there is
some apparent good produced, according to the mistaken
judgment of him who does the evil Even the murderer
I suppose@ it will be good for him to he rid of his victim.
But we ought to distinguish between • temporary or
epparent pod, end a permanent or reaLone. I
.contend
that tdio strike is altogether wrong in sell:torte and
mischievous in Ida working. To augment ifferenom of
opinion and ill-feeling which ahead/ exist between em-
ployers and employed by • "strike, and cause the one
who baii to submit either tacitly or expressly to cures and
threaten the other—" You shall remember this when my
turn comes —is surely one of the worst things than can
be done for the labourer. That each threats are made is
certain. When • farmer is compelled to submit to the
heavy demands of the labourer, it most indeed be galling
to him. If compulson is effected by • threatened strike
it can be no agreement, and must of necessity be disagree-
able. When the hay and cornfields are full, the labourer
n KM his advantage over his employer; he knows the
corn must be gathered without delay, he knows the
farmer cannot allow his corn to be left in the fields, even
for a short time, after it is ready to gather, he therefore
MAIM that his opportunity, and extorts an exorbitant
wage for the harvest month. Of necessity the farmers
have to submit—muse with • very good grace, some very
I reluctantly, and some with an open threat. But the
farmer does not, be cannot., forget it: and when winter
come.. ith short day. and bad weather, what does he
, care about those men to whom he was one day compelled
1 to bow? Does he like them and take an interest in their
• welfare t Dom he look over his fartu for all the Jobe he
! can And that will in any way pay to be done, that be may
keep his men at work as much as poasible, that they may
, have all accessary comforts through the winter P No, be
knows there is • great deal of work that he can leave un-
done without any great and immediate lose, he looks
askant:seat some of the men to whom his threats were
directed, and he discharges them to ga, as be probably in-
wardly chuckles, and live upon the extra money they
extorted in their harvest wage, which money however, is
almost certain to be gone, and in most cases for taproom
indulgences. I know these are the natural fruits of
strikes. Dischargiug men in the winter is in • great
measure the result of threatened strikes in the summer.
In all this there is • certain loss to the farmer, to the
1 labourer, and to the country at large. But • threatened
! strike is productive of evil, an actual strike is much more
I so. Where it takes place on a large scale what a terrible
amount of miserable destitution is the direct consequence !
It appear,' that in moat caste when a man strikes for
wages, he almost immediately strikes off from his wife and
poor helpless children the necessaries of life. I cannot
characterise • man who would thus treat his children,
I can only say that if he had • good ahem of fatherly love
for his children, their extreme destitution for • few weeks
I would came him more pain than working for what is
I called low wages for the whole term of his natural life.
But acme will say "an increase of wages is gained by the
strike." I answer, not always ; and an increase of 'r
forcibly obtained is not a permanent good to all who
receive it, but to only • very small minority; and I con-
tend further, that the.. to whom an increase of weir is
• real good could obtain it without the strike, but for
those noisy agitators and incessant peace-breakers, who
go round the country on their tuischievous errands. No
elooltt these latter pretend, and some of them may intend,
to be • friend to the worklng man, but the means they
adopt will never increase the prosperity of agriculture'
pursuits, nor elevate the agricultural labourer.
We have been visited here occationally by some of the
I itinerant spokesmen of the Labourers TJnion. but very
! little mischief have they been able to do here, as it appease
their hearers were too wise to swallow all the unwhole.
! some stuff provided for them. The first wan who visited
this part delivered himself with considerable effrontery
and volubility; and as I expected to hem more common
sense, I was surprued and vexed to beer him say nearly
verbatim as follow. :—" The labourer Is sawed of not
going to • Owe of worship on the Sunday, but whose
fault is it that he neglect' to do no! Why, the farmer',
bemires he pays bits such low wages that he is not able to
got of life; end hoer can he be expected to
go to church with an empty stomach t Alain, the
labourer in called an ignorant fool; but who ha, made him
sot Why, the farmer, because he pays him such low
wages, that he is not able to get any education for himself
nor let for lila children. The labourer is also called • thief,
but at is the fanner who has made him so, by paying him
such low wages that he is compelled to go and thieve to
get the common necesearies of life for himself and child-
ren.- I venture to say that not one of his hearers was
ewere of tbsse things till he told them I was sorry to
hear such an harangue thin; but I have no doubt that,
by going so far beyond the bounds of common sense, be
defeated his own ends. According to his account, the
forni labourers are awfully bad ; but what is found bed In
them must be laid to the charge of the farmers, because
they pay low wage.! High wages is to he the
for all the ills of the working man. This Is the doctrine
the poor have preached to them On the contrary, it
appears to me very evident that in these days of Increas-
ing liberty and educational facilities, the fulcrum Ii
provided, and the lever by which the working man is to
be elevated is placed in bin own hands; and if he
desecrtm the sabbath or remains • thief, surely the sin lies
at his own door.—A LADOCIIII CON TEM FAIII-80UTH
Years, in the Agrierliere Gesate.
A GENEROUS LANDLORD. •
Sir John ma. ey, Bart., in consideration of
the three vary bad seasons which have done so much
dammo to agriculturists has returned 10 per cent., to
his Lincolnshire tenants whose rentals are over ODD
per tionum, and 15 per cent., on those under that
amount.