The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-09-26 00:00:00

COAL IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA.

visitor to Paris who poems a day among its plea-
sures, saunters on the most fashionable boulevards,
breakfasts and dines at the most renowned restaurants,
drives in the Bois in the afternoon, goes to the
theatre at night, and returns to his hotel through a
joyous crowd and by brilliantly lighted and crowded
cafes, and who says te himself that this city is the
capital of pleasure and of vice is apt to lose sight of the
fact that 14 all the thousands he has met between
morning and midnight in the haunts of amusement
where he has passed his day, more than half were not
the people of Paris, but foreign visitors sojourners or
residents, Paris being easentially a city of pleasure, is
the rendezvous of the most dissipated and luxurious
people of both the Old and the New Worlds, and
therefore it is an essentially dangeroua place for
young English girls without experience of its ways,
who are often attractive in appearance. One class
referred to at Manchester as furnishing its contin
gent to the two thousand is that of governesses,
and I believe it to be the one least likely to
find what it seeks and most likely to be reduced to
want and led into temptation. Owing to the restricted
accommodation of French apartments and to the
enormous rents demanded and obtained for them, the
majority of those mothers of families who might be
disposed to take a governess into their houses are
precluded from so doing. Moreover the system of
French education is a great deal out of doors by tours
or classes held in the houses of the teachers, and which
are supposed to stimulate emulation, but which in
reality have many drawbacks, as well as ssme ad-
vantages. Thus, as a general rule, the daily gover-
ness is the only one required, and although edu-
cated Frenchwomen may find that occupation worth
pursuing, especially if their families are resident
in Paris, the case is very different with English
women, who must live in lodgings, and who would be
likely to find the utmost they could earn incommen-
surate with the cost of Paris living at the present
rates; and those rich French families whose practice it
is to have a governess in their house, and who wish for
an English one are unlikely to accept the services of
women who come here to seek fortune, and would
more probably inquire for what they want through
friends or agents in England. In many Italian
towns as well as in Paris young women who obtain
places as governesses are often required to per-
form very menial offices and are dismissed if they
refuse, and then the English clergy in those places
and the Embassy or Legation, if there be one, are
beset by applications to assist them to return home.
It is shocking to read the statement made by Miss
Leigh, and derived from one of the chief officials of
the Paris 'office, that most of the bodies of women
found in the Seine were those of homeless and friend-
less English girls. This statement is the more pain-
ful by reason .d the great probability that it is
strictly true. Readers of the Paris papers know
how- common an occurrence it is for a female
corpse to be taken out of the river, and although
exposed at the Morgue, never claimed or recog-
nised. The tint and chief object of benevolent
persons desirous to protect and benefit friendless
Englishwomen should be to prevent them from coining
here at all, and if they have already come, to send
them home again. In Paris, under the most favour
able circumstances, they are much more likely to learn
evil than good, and are more liable to come to grief
than to make their way. If they have not the ability
and qualifications to get their living in their own
country, still less likely are they to earn it among
strangers in a cit, whose habits they know not—whose
people have little sympathy with foreigners, and of
which the perils are manifold.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS AND
THE HARVEST.
In reference to the proposed reduction in the wages of
Agricultural Labourers, the following letter has been sent
to the papers for publication:—
Sir,—Many of the farmers of South Wilts have, I
find, just agreed to reduce their labourers' wages from
12s. tolls, a week. The almost unprecedently bountiful
harvest which has just been gathered in is the justifica-
tion which the farmers put forward for thus reducing
wages. I do not know to what extent the example
will be follopied by farmers in other localities; but this
policy of reducing wages because the harvest is plentiful
and bread cheap, even if it is adopted only over a
limited area, obviously suggests considerations of
very serious moment. In the first place it shows
that the labourers wherever this policy of reduc.
tion can be successfully carried out are in a condition
of such miserable dependence and poverty that the
wages which they receive are simply " subsistence
wages," or, in other words, are determined by con-
sidering what is the minimum upon which a labourer
and his family can exist. No one, so far as I have
been able to ascertain from inquiries in this locality,
Pretends to say that the reduction in wageal which is
row contemplated is due to any circumstances which
can permanently alter either the demand for or the
supply of labour; but the farmers say 'when bread
was dear we raised our labourers' wages in order to
enable them to live, and now that bread is cheap it is
only fair that our labourers should submit to wages
being reduced." I am not going to deny the right of
any employer to give to his labourers 118, or even
10s. instead of 12e. a week, but in the existing social
and economic condition of the country there are some
easons which would lead to the conclusion that the
farmers sooner or later may not improbably have to
pay a high price for the few shillings a week they are
now about to save. At the present moment they may,
perhaps, with some confidence feel that they are
masters .of the situation. The majority of their
labourers are so uneducated that they have not the
enterprise to migrate to localities where labour is
more highly remunerated. They are, moreover, so
poor that it is absolutely impossible for many of
them to pay the expenses of removing even to a neigh-
bouring county. From conversations I have had with
many of the labourers I have come to the conclusion
that it is rare to find an agricultural labourer in
this neighbourhood witn a family who has saved a
single shilling. When it is remembered what their
wages are it must certainly be a matter of surprise not
that they have not saved, but that they have been able
to live at all. The fariners at the present moment have
everything on their side. The harvest was gathered in
perhaps more rapidly and more cheaply than it ever was
before. Farm-work is extremely forward, and the ex-
traordinarily fine season has reduced the amonnt of
labour which it is necessary to employ on a farm al-
most to a minimum. Seldom has it been necessary to
employ so little labour either in hoeing or in haymak-
ing ; but next year we may have a wet instead of a
dry season and the present state of things may be
entirely changed. The farmers should remember
that, although for reasons nreviously stated, many
of the labourers either cannot or will not leave, yet
it cannot be doubted by any one who has conversed
, with the labourers since the proposed reduction in
I their wages first became known that they regard it
as so harsh and ungenerous that every man who can
I leave will seek employment elsewhere. I have known
I the labourers of this district intimately fur 20 years.
I have seen them bear the severe pinch of bad times
with extraordinary patience, but I have never known
them to express had the bitter disoontent that I have
during the last few days. It is not the work of
agitators. Men who have never heard the voice of a
Trades' Union delegate have asked, as well they
may, "Is it not hard because our masters have had
one of the finest harvests that has ever been known
that we should find, instead of our enjoying any
greater comfort, a good harvest simply means lower
wages." The local papers are filled with accounts of
harvest thanksgiving services; churches are decorated;
hymns of gratitude are sung; but must not all this
seem a cruel mockery, almost a bitter jest, to those
who have tilled the soil and who have sown the need
when they find that as Nature becomes more bountiful
their labour receives a more scanty reward?
But perhaps it will he said a labourer with Ils, a
week and cheap bread is better off than he was with
12s. a week and dear bread. It must, however, be
remembered that many of the articles which the
labourers consume are each year steadily becoming
dearer, and that the additional price the labourer thus
has to pay for many articles which he purchases is not
to be measured by the rise in price which has taken
place in towns. Formerly, many articles were very
much cheaper in rural than in urban districts, but the
extension of railways has, to a great extent, equalised
prices throughout the country. To give one example,
I remember the time when milk was so plentiful in
many Wiltshire villages that a considerable quantity
of it was given away to the labourers. Now so much
milk is sent to London that not only has it become
much dearer in the country, but there is no subject of
complaint more frequent in the villages than that the
poor cannot get milk at all; the farmers will not take
the trouble to sell it in small quantities when they
can dispose of it wholesale to some town dealer. In
this neighbourhood you might travel a week without
finding a single labourer who has a cow of his own. It
is not the custom, as it is in Northumberland and some
of the Northern counties, to let to each labourer a plot
of pasture ground; and almost all the commons on
which the labourers once had the chance of grazing a
cow have in this locality been long since unhappily en-
closed. Almost every article of farm produce, except
wheat, is far dearer than it was formerly. Fresh
butter is now selling here at Is. 6d. a pound. Some
years since it was often sold at 9d. Meat is quite as
dear here as it is in London. If the labourer is able
to keep a pig, he not only has to pay a much higher
price for it than he had formerly, but he has to give
far more for the barley which he purchases to fatten

it.
There is, moreover, another circumstance which
prejudicially affects the labourer at the present time.
The reaping and mowing machines are now so exten-
sively used that the labourer has little chance of earn-
ing extra wages by reaping and mowing by hand. I
have often heard a labourer say that his extra wages
he earned by reaping and mowing kept him and his
family in shoe leather for the year, and enabled him
to commence the winter free from debt with all old
scores at the village shops cleared off. Many other
facts might be mentioned which would prove how
hard it must be for a labourer with only lls. a week, to
obtain even the barest necessaries of life. I have not,
however, referred to the subject with a view of appeal.
ing to the charity of the employers. It is not necessary
to ask them to regard the subject from any other
than a strictly mercantile point of view. They will be
the Mir,t to suffer a heavy pecuniary loss if, taking ad-
vantage of the present exceptional state of things, they
drive away to other localities or to other countries the
young, the active, and the strong, who, because they
can go the most easily, are always the first to depart.
The old either will not or cannot go; they might remain
even if wages were reduced to 108. a week ; but it is
not more certain that a tree will wither if deprived of
moisture than it is that a branch of industry must be
seriously impeded if it loses its natural supply of
youthful and vigorous labour. There is one other
consideration which I would venture most earnestly
to impress upon the attention of the farmers. They
would be the first to recognise the folly of attempt-
ing to save a few shillings by underfeeding their
horses. Is it more r.asonable tiesuppose that a
badly housed and und -
clay's work than it is
would be able to draw
I and harrow as much lam
usual supply of corn? .
has so greatly disturbe(
has produced very sligl
hood. But the ground
the Delegates to carry
The farmers again and
able objection to their

underfed labourer eLin do a

land,

(iiet-U;bel