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

LADY STRADBROKE AND THE BISHOP
OF MANCHESTER.
Th Times, on Wednesday, published the following let
tens:—

Bishop of Manchester has requested me
to send to you for publication his answer to my letter,
which you have done me the honour to publish in The
Times of Thursday, and I trust you will allow me the
privilege of adding these few remarks to confirm my
former statement, which the Bishop appears to
doubt :-
1. That 17s, per week, paid regularly all the year
round, has been declined, is not a fable, but a fact, and
in not one but many instances.
2. That the men are not striking for 14s. a week,
but are locked out because they have joined a Union
whose demands are illimitable.
3. The general condition of the agricultural popula-
tion in Suffolk and Norfolk is what I have ventured to
describe the " idyllic " picture is drawn from life, 1
which can be seen in a hundred parishes, apart from
our estate and Lord Leicester s. Exning and the be-
nighted places visited by the Bishop in his official
search after abuses during 1867 are the exceptional
black spots which exist in every class and country.
4. The rental of land is not necessarily increased
by its selling value; land must be scarcer in England
as gold becomes more plentiful and population in-
creases ; but in purely agricultural districts it cannot
be made to produce higher interest ; 24 is now con-
sidered a fair return for investment in land, while in
trade 12 or even 20 per cent, is thought moderate.
5. The labourers have never made any just demand
for increase of wages that has not been complied with.
If combination of masses is necessary to compel justice
there is an end at once to all personal freedom and
that independence of action of which Englishmen are

so proud.
6. Farmers and landowners are not at war with
their labourers, but are opposed to their men joining
the Trades Unions; because the only benefit these
Unions offer is to enable them to strike—not to come
forward and ask for a fair day's work and a fair day's
wage, but to refuse to work unless the wage decreed
by men at .a distance, of different interests and callings,
is immediately given ! I have carefully read through
the rules of their UniollB, and cannot find a single
benefit the subscriber will receive either in sickness,
distress, or old age ; 2.4 d. is drawn weekly out of the
poor man's pocket to &fray the expenses of manage-
ment and delegates, who receive £4 a week, and to give
Ps. a week to those on strike.
Is it not fair and just that farmers should be allowed
the same principles of free trade in labour as in pro-
duce? They have to compete with free trade in the
food market; all they ask is free trade and no
coercion in the labour market.
I have the honour to remain, Sir, your obedient
servant, AUGUSTA STRAIMBUKE.
Ilenham, April 18.

" Bishop's-court, Manchester, April 15.
Madam,—l do not see, in spite of your reproof, that I
have stepped out of my province as a Bishop because I ven-
tured to ask, in plain and even earnest language, the farmers
of East Anglia to consider whether, even in their own in-
terests, they are pursuing a wise course in locking out their
labourers, or because I expressed feelings of sympathy with
men who are not immodestly asking that their wages aught
be raised from las. to 145. a week. I was not dealing with
matters of which I had no knowledge, In 1667, acting as an
assistant-commissioner under the Commission for inquiring
into the employment of women and children in agriculture,
I was sent into Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Sussex, and Clout
center to report upon the condition of the agricultura,
labourers there.
,s •

"I confess that I did not often meet with the idyllic pic-
ture of a perfectly well-cared for agricultural population,
contented, sober, lodged in three-chambered cot-ages, with a
quarter of an acre of garden ground at is. 94. a week, the
children ' rosy,' happy, and well educated, such as your
ladyship describes. I have no doubt such a state of things
may be found here and there on a well-ordered estate such as
Lord Stradbroke's probably is, where the landowner is
resident and takes a real Christian interest in the well-
being of the people. I saw one or two such estates myself,
but the general condition of things in the counties referred
to was as nearly the opposite of this as anything could be,
and I would only refer you to The Times' Special Re-
porter's account of the state of Exiling, where this un-
happy strike first began, in The Tillitd of April 13, or,
again to his remarks yesterday, for an illustration of what I
mean.
"Speaking of the efforts of the clergy to improve the con-
dition of the people in the Cambridgeshire and Suffolk
villages round Newmarket, the Reporter says,—. Their work
would be much easier and the prospects of improvement,
both in the mind and morals, of the poor about them would
be much greater if they had better wages, fewer temptations
to drink, and more decent and comfortable dwedings!
"I do not wish to reply to your Ladyship's comparison of
the condition of the labouring man in the north and his
fellow in the east and south. lam not blind to the vices and
faults of the Lancashire artisan, but I must beg leave to say
the colours of your picture of his general conduct and con-
dition are strongly overcharged.
I cannot understand your statement that the men locked
out have been offered and refused Ns. and los, a week. They
are only asking for 145. ; and Mr. Purcell Fitzgerald, of
Boulge-hall, near Woodbridge, who approves my letter
which your Ladyship thinks so mischievous, tells me that in
his opinion, if the farmers had granted their men 148. a
week two years ago, the present confusion would never have
occurred.
" I have no sympathy with extravagant pretensions on the
part of the labourers, hut if no attention is paid to their
reasonable demands, I do not know how they are to assert
their claims except by a strike, and, of course, this implies and
requires combination. The farmers have an equal right to
resist this by a lock-out or any other lawful expedient, but in
each case the outside public will judge of the conduct of
either party whether it is wise or not—equitable or in-
equitable.
"Mr Fitzgerald, writing to me yesterday, says.—' I
grieve to say that war to the knife seems the present mind
of our farmers, and I also fear that many of our landlords
are turning poor men out of their cottages, and even out of
their allotments of land, which latter pay their cottage rent
and provide them with vegetables.'
"This is the course of conduct which I deprecate as likely
to lead to what I called a peasants' war.
"You are angry with me for saying that if farmers cannot
pay better wages and at the same time make a reasonable
Profit on their capital, rents niust come down, and you add
that rents have not risen for 20 years. In reply to the latter
statement, I enclose a letter lately received from is War-
wickshire farmer which tells a different tale ; and all I can
say of my out knowledge is that I never hear of an estate
being.sold except at an increased value, which of course im
pliei an increasing rental ; and I beg to ask your Ladyship
what other source there is for better wages to the labourer
but either from the profits of the farmer or the rent of the
landlord.
"I protest against selfish, extravagant luxury in every
form everywhere, whether among Lancashire merchants or
London plutocracy. What I meant to reprove in my letter'
was the extravagence that would spend the rent of a 300-
acre farm upon such luxury, while neglecting all the primary
duties to the property from which the money comes. I have
seen scores of estates of which the owners seem to think they
have a perfect right to spend the rental just as they please,
and where everything betokens an abnegation of all sense of
obligation to the land or the people that live upon
it. That there are landowners of a better type,
such as Lord Leicester in Norfolk, I thankfully
acknowledge. Nothing could be more gratifying now than
to see the care bestowed upon the Holkham estates by their
noble owner, and yet even he allowed to me how much he
had still to do in providing cottages for the labourer. Ido
not doubt that your Ladyship hui, a similarly happy state of
things under your own eyes ; but you are living in an illusion
if you suppose this to be the normal condition of the
possautalu the oast, south, and west oi Loollud, sad thot,

there does not remain much to be done to make them the
happy, healthy, contented race which you would wish them
to be,
• • I have written a second letter to the Editor of The Times,
which was published yesterday Your Ladyship probably
will not approve of it more than of the first, but I can only
say that my only object in writing both was to do what I
could to stop the continuance of this unhappy struggle and
to prevent the social relations of our rural population being
plunged into chaos 1 remain, Madam, your obedient
servant, J. MelietasTES.
"The Countess of Stradbroke."

A DEPUTATION ON THE SUNDAY
QUESTION.
On Monday Lord Shaftesbury introduced a very
large deputation to the Duke of Richmond, at the
Privy Council Office, from the Working Men 8 Lord's
Day Rest Association, to oppose the objects of the
Sunday League.
In introducing the deputation Lord Shaftesbury
stated that there were 25 'D-ades' Unions of the Metro-
Polio represented on the deputation, and in these Uniollll
were 100,000 working men, who were altogether opposed
to the opening of museums on Sunday. He then
presented the memorial, which stated that the pro-
posals for opening museums and galleries on Sundays
did not come from the working classes, but chiefly from
a few persons who hold peculiar and secularistic views
on the subject of the Sabbath, and who aim to intro-
duce into this country a continental Sunday. The
great religious bodies throughout the country are op-
posed to such a proceeding on principle. The working
classes are opposed, because many of them are keenly
alive to the religious question involved, and because the
question of unnecesary Sunday labour excites the sym-
pathy of the working man for his fellow-workman.
The postraen, the railway men, the cab and omnibus
men, and the tradesmen are all crying out for relief from
Sunday labour, as proved by the numerous petitions
yearly presented to Parliament and the numerous re-
ports of meetings in the daily press. On one occasion
Exeter-hall (the largest for public meetings in London)
was crowded to overflowing; and all the avenues and
side streets were blocked up by working men, who
unanimously adopted resolutions against opening
museums on Sundays, and a similar demonstrationwas
held in the same place afterwards, in opposition to Mr.
W. H. Gregory's motion for opening museums on
Sundays; and at many of the public meetings called
in East London to promote the Sunday opening of
museums resolutions against the Sunday opening were
carried. The decision of East London is entirely
against the Sunday opening of museums. It has been
urged that the museums should be open to counteract
the attendance of publichouses. A greater mistake ha
never been made. The persons who spend their time
in publichouses would never give them up for museums,
and the experience of the Sunday bands in the parks
proves that if you call the people out to amuse them
on Sundays they crowd the publichouses immediately
afterwards. In fact the opening of museums-on Sun-
days would increase Sunday drinking. It is a well-
known fact that the publichouses and tea-gardens in
the neighbourhood of the Sunday bands are crowded
to excess on Sundays. The only remedy for Sunday
drinking is to close the publichouses on that day. The
opening of places of amusement will only aggravate
The views of the deputation were stated in earnest
speeches by Mr. Weyland and Mr. Cochrane, a cab pro-
prietor and driver, who stated that he had become a
proprietor since he had given up Sunday work, and de-
clared that the Sunday was the wives' and children's
day—the only day on which they could see their hus-
bands and fathers.
Mr. Perkins, a Trades Unionist, made a speech, in
which he pointed to the vast increase of locomotive '
power which would be required if an exceptional place
like London made Sunday a holiday; and he declared
on behalf of his order that they did not regard the day
88 a holiday so much as a day of rest from the labours
of the week.
Mr. Evans, a printer's reader, also spoke, and said
that the working men in his trade were sometimes
compelled to work on Sunday, but it was a role that
the master should be fined half-a-crown extra for the
work, and even at this price men did not like it. If
they did not like the work themselves, they would not
like others to work for their amusement. As to the
educational question—i.e., the alleged necessity for
opening the places for the purpose of educating the
people to art—there was, he said, less necessity for
this now than ever, the people having more opportuni-
ties of education than ever before.

A Nonconformist minister declared that the ob-
jections of his class at the opening of these museums
were on religious as well as social and moral grounds.
The Duke, in reply, thanked the deputation for
favouring him with their views, and said he thought
no man was more competent to speak on behalf of the
working man than Lord Shaftesbury. The Duke also
assured the deputation the views they had placed be-
fore him should have every consideration from his
colleagues and himself.
The Ron. Arthur Kinnaird, M.P., on behalf of the
deputation, thanked the Duke and withdrew.