The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-05-30 00:00:00

THE LOCK-OUT OF FARM LABOURERS.

The Special Reporter of The Times, in his letter from
Newmarket, Tuesday, says :
"The hopes which were aroused by the intervention of Mr.
Morley, My., have not been fulfilled. At their weekly
meeting to-day the fanners of the Newmarket district unani-
mously decided to continue the lock-out, and not to recognise
the Union in any way. Mr. Morley, accompanied by Mr.
Bullock Hall, a landowner residing at Six Mile Bottom, visited
Mr. Slater, the ehairnian of the Farmers' Defence Association,
last week at. Cheveley, and afterwards proceeded to Exiling,
where the labourers first struck for an advance of wages,
lad the farmers remain unconvinced by the arguments which
were urged and the assurances made to their representatives.
As the meeting to-slay was private, I cannot give any state-
ment of the reasons upon which the farmers who were pre-
sent resolved to stand fast. 1 lmlieve, however, there w-as
nodiseussion respecting the withdrawal of objectionable rules
or the guarantees which the Labourer's Union may be prt -
pared to give for the protection of employers against arbi-
trary, sudden, or capricious strikes. What the farmers say
in conversation simply hi that they are able to cony
on their business with the existing supply of non-Unionist
labourers, and, that being no, they are resolved to employ
only non-Unlonista in future. How the labourer difficulty
here has been got over it is hard to any, but such appears to
be the case. The farmers declare that they were never better
served by the men who remain in their employ or more com-
fortable as employers. They have found many ways of econo-
mizing labour. They are saving money by the lock-out, and
the best proof that they are nut suffering by dearth of
labour is that not a single voice was raised at to-day's meet-
ing in favour of compromise, arbitration, or even the
most indirect recognition of the Union. " I have
seven ploughs going to-day on my land," said one Exidng
farmer to me, •' and not one Unionist among my men"
"What sort are they ?" was the natural question, and the
answer Wlns that they were oldish men and lads, whom a
few months ago the farmer would never have thought of
setting to the plough. ''l do not mean to say that they
drive the furrows as they used to be driven but the work
Is stone fairly well. I am quite satisfied with it, and
want no extra lahour, except at harvest time, when I
shall get it, without any sort of doubt, at the wages
which will then be offered." Other fanners torroborated
this statement in substance, and, if one may judge from this
evidence, the 2,000 such who are now locked out in the New-
market district will become a perpetual charge on the
Union hunts unless they migrate northwards or leave the
country. One farmer told me be had been in the habit of
sowing swedea, a crop which requires an outlay of £1 or
30s all acre for artificial inanure to produce them, while
every root has to be cleaned and cut for the sheep. This
year, however, he would have a change of system.
On 150 acres of land he would save 4.300 in labour
and artificial manure by sowing white turnips and cole
seed, which would require little hoeing or other expense.
Many fanners are doing the same thing in this district. Swedes
should be sown the first or second week in June, but, as
white turnips and cote seed need be sown only in July, a
month will be saved in preparing the land. "I am quite
sure," said one termer, "that on this plan of tanning I shall
have as good a return from my sheep and barley crop after-
wards, though I shall not produce on much mutton as I used
to send to market." . . . .