The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-04-25 00:00:00

THE LOCK-OUT OF FARM LABOURERS.

The Special Reporter of The Times, writing trom Cam-
bridge, on Sunday, says

"The farmers both in this country and in Suffolk
arc making strenuous efforts to extend the area of
the lock-out. As the contributions of Unionists in
work help to support those who are out of work, the
expediency of cutting off this means of support is
clear from the farmer's point of view. Moreover,
such a policy tells in two ways on the resources of
the Union—by depriving it of income and, at the
same time, bringing upon it a serions additional ex-
penditure in the maintenance of the Unionists hands
who are thrown upon its funds. Every thousand adult
labourers thus locked-out represent a small loss in in-
come, but this is nothing to the outlay of 1;450 weekly,
which would be the amount paid to this number of
men upon the existing scale of allowance—Ps. a week
each. Seeing the importance of weakening and em-
barrassing 'the enemy,' as the farmers regard the
Central Executive, by more united measures than have
hitherto been taken, an attempt will, I believe, be
made next week to carry on the struggle in other dis-
tricts.

• - -
"As time passes, however, and the men and their
families suffer greater hardships from reduced means
of subsistence, the risk of disorder becomes greater.
These weekly demonstrations are always arranged
for the market day, when the farmers, of course,
muster in large numbers and talk with each other
upon what they think their grievances. Then
the language sometimes used by the delegates is ex-
ceedingly irritating. The farmers are accused of
being hard taskmasters and of living beyond their
station by keeping down wages and grinding their
labourers. Yet, as they say, their farms yield
them lower returns for their capital than would
satisly any other class of producers or any tradesman;
they have always paid the mtalet rate for labour; and
most of them, from benevolent motives, have kept on
elderly men whose labour was not worth the weekly
wages paid to them; the same motives have led the
farmers to keep on their able-bodied hands at season
when work was scarce; and in hard times Cr in sick-
ness repeated acts of kindness towards these men and
their families cannot justly be omitted from the re-
cord. Knowing these things, and believing that
men themselves cannot be unmindful of them,
the farmers are very angry with these strangers,
and regard them as wholly responsible for
the existing estrangement between employers
and employed. Such a feeling, whether
well or ill founded, adds to the danger of disturbance
at the Unionists demonstrations, which are now fixed
for almost every market day in the chief towns
throughout the locked-out districts. I must do the
leading delegates, to whose speeches I have listened,
the justice to say that they invariably counsel forbear-
ance and good order, and that under the circumstances
their speeches cannot fairly be charged with any de-
liberate attempt to arouse class prs•judices. But some
among the delegates are either less discreet or less
scrupulous in the latter respect, while in any case the
natural tendency of a prolonged agitation like this
must be to make bad blood." . . .

In another letter The Times' Special Reporter also
writes :
CAMBRIDGE, Tuesday.

•
Wood Ditton, the village in which a few labourers and
boys have given up their Union tickets and returned to work,
is a parish near Newmarket, in which Lord George Manners,
WF., for Cambridgeshire, has tried the experiment of co-
operative farming. The principle of co-operation laid down
by Lord George was that the farmer was entitled to 10 per
cent. interest upon his capital, and should then share any
surplus with his labourers. The surplus profits shown by the
last balance-sheet entitled each labourer to about £3 upon
the year's farming over and above the current wages
paid in the Newmarket district. The gain is not a large
one, but it is an appreciable addition to the small wages of
the peasantry ; and, of course in the language current on the
neighbouring Heath, the labourer stands only to win ; the
risk is the master's. From all I hear, the result has been to
interest the men in their work, and induce them to b more
and care more for the common good than they otherwise
would. Probably, as the farmers declare, the balance-sheet
covers an exceptionally good year, and we can hardly look to
co-operative farming on this basis for a solution of thelalmur
question. Still, the experiment deserved a kindly sympathy.
The labourers on the farm (one of about 300 acres)
talked of " our " hay our turnips do look main
well ; " "we should have a good crop if it wasn't for
them plaguy hares,' and so es; and it was something to
get them to identify the farmers' interest with their
own. But you cannot launch into co-operative farming
with impunity even though you may be the brother of a
Duke, the great landowner of the district. Lord George
Manners very fairly published his balance-sheet, the sterna in
which were, therefore, open to criticism, and I believe the
farmers and others took full advantage of the opportunity,
excepting to the balance sheet on various grounds into which
I need not enter. The men, at all events, are the better for
the experiments in testimony of which they have a trifle
standing to their credit in the Newmarket Savings Bank, in-
stead of being probably penniless. But I have found a stimng
opinion among the farmers against a system which un-
settles" labourers on other farms and makes them discon-
tented,
It is doubtless quite as uncomfortable tars labourer as for
0001140/ to run vaulter to the °platen of the dale Main

the present struggle. Though the arts of picketing" and
intimidation have not yet travelled into the rural districts
from the towns, labourers who have not joined the Union
and are still at work within the Lock-out district have a bad
time of it. As one of them put it to his master the other day,
with, perhaps, an extreme vivacity of metaphor, " We might
as well have a live cat in our belly as live with Union Men
and not join the Union." The misfortune is that there
is no distinction of persons in the exercise of this kind
of pressure. I was told the other day of a man
75 years old, kept In constant employment by his
master at its, a week, mainly out of charity. This man,
yielding to persuasion, had joined the Union, and was now
locked out, refusing to avail himself of the tome pmnitentire
offered to him. .• What do you mean to do when this busi-
ness is over?" said the master, and the old man meekly
answered that he thought he might emigrate and do a little
gardening in America." It is painful to hear of cases like
these, and of the rupture of intimate relations between em-
ployer and employed, which have hitherto been maintained
without a break between sire and son on both sides, and
often go back still further. "That old fellow," said a
fernier, pointing to a grey-haired man who was
standing disconsolately in a group of locked - out
labourers, "helped to carry my father and mother to the
grave We have supported him and his in illness, and ens-
ployed him winter and summer, when we had to go out of
our way to invent something for him to do ; yet this is our
reward !" Here, again, there was no strike. It was a simple
case of lock-out and the complaint was that the old man
had refused to give up the ticket of membership, preferring
to give up his old employer, and to court what seemed
certain ruin rather than desert his fellow-workers.
Such a preference seems monstrous to the farmer.
and the hardness and apparent ingratitude excite
In him a bitter resentment, not against the labourer,
but against the Delegates who have led the labourer
astray. You can go into no parish without finding
plenty of similar instances. It is of little use to urge
that, in dictating to such men that they must not com-
Vine for mutual support, and in locking them out because
they would combine, the farmers were the first to strain the
old relations. It seems to the average employer altogether
against nature that his old hands should thus acknowledge
any other duty than the duty they owe to an old master who
has been kind and considerate to them, who has paid them
the fair market wage, and never started them off the farm
when work was slack. It is not pleasant to witness this
shock on all sides to the old, kindly, paternal relations; and
on whichever side victory finally declares itself, these rela-
tions, I fear, can now never be restored.

In this district the coprolite diggings give employment to
a considerable number of labourers. I have heard the num-
ber estimated at 3,000, but, assuming that half these will be
available during harvest time, the farmers say that they will
be able to get in their crops with little difficulty. Of course
a higher rate of wages than is usual must be paid for
labour, but the farmers call afford to pay more as they
will have bees saving upon their wage account form long a
time previously. The Newmarket Farmers' Associa-
tion extends into 42 parishes, some of them very large
ones. The parish of Mildenhall, for instance, covers
17,000 acres; Soham, 12,700 acres ; and I hear little
doubt expressed by the farmers throughout this dis-
trict that, if need be, they can tide over the harvest
crops with the help of such outside labour as will be at-
tracted by the pay. Reaping machines are in general use
here, and so far labour is economized already. Then it seems
likely that such crops will be chosen as will further dispense
with labour. I have already indicated some methods aug-
gested with this view. Others are spoken of. At present
heavy root crops are grown in many parts of the district, and
sheep and beasts are fattened upon these roots for the London
market. A good deal of labour is required in " clamping "
up the roots and in cleaning and cutting them for the stock.
But, instead of mangold arid Swedes, which require plenty of
manure, the farmers, will grow white turnips, which will
need less manure, and they will keep on their ewes and feed
them off the ground. "Consumers will feel the pinch quite
as much as we shall," said a farmer to sic, "perhaps more.
We shall send less fat mutton to market—a good deal less.
The manure merchants will feel the pinch too. Lithe men
do not give way, I shall spend £5O upon manure during the
year, instead of probably s:300. The seed-merchants will
cry out too, you may depend upon it. Our cultivation will
not be as ' high ' as it used to be ; but I am not at all sure
It will not be noire profitable." I have already stated in
these letters that fat mutton does not now yield a
remunerative price, and that the farmers hereabouts
who have bought both sheep and beasts to fatten have lately
lost money by doing so. Twelve months have made a great
difference in this respect, for fattening stock has heretofore
been very profitable. On the other hand, barley, a favourite
crop here, fetches a good price. An agent from one of the
Burton breweries (Mr. Bass's, I believe) was said to be spend-
ing £3,000 a week in the district in buying barley ; and
I have known barley sell at Ins." said a farmer ; "now it
fetches 545." " Neyer," he added,with s beautiful enthusiasm
which made him forget for the moment the stubborn in-
gratitude of labour, "never did I think to see the
day when I should sell wheat at Ws. again!" He was a fer-
nier who had declared to sic that he would rather give up his
holding than employ Unionist hands Probably he may have
used the same language when Protection was taken away
rom the British farmer. But I cannot help hoping and be-
lieving that the labour problem will get itself solved, even
without suppressing Agricultural Trade Unions, and that my
excellent friends will nevertheless still go on farming and
will still prosper.