Omaha daily bee., 1874-06-25
The Labor Question in England.

The combined movement of agri-
cultural laborers i'm any part of Eng
land to increase their wages and to
improve their condition is q new
thing under the sun, and it is more
remarkable in those comparatively
isolated and landlord ridden coun-
ties of Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge
and Lincoln. In the middle and
manufacturing counties, where
the better informed work
ing classes, as mechanics
and manufacturing laborers, might
exercise an influence over the farm
workmen, and where the railroad,
telegraph and press reach them, it
would not have been surprising to
see combined efforts of even the ag-
ricultural class. But this move
ment i'm the east of England, where
there is little contact with the rest
of the world, and where the people
have been hardly better than serfs
from the time of the Norman con-
quest to this day, is truly astonish-
ing. 1t shows in the first place that
the people, being goaded to desper-
alton and having a glimmering of
the light of this nineteenth century,
are ready to assert their right TO
live and not to starve amid the
wealth of the richest country i'm
Europe. However the movement
may terminate, at present it is I'M
doubtedly an incipient revolution
that must eventually change the So
cial and political character of Eng
land.
Uneduca'ed as the mass of these
agricultural laborers of the east Of
England are, they have the sturdy
common sense and logged courage
of their Saxon ancestors. The peo-
pie os the counties We refer to are
the most purely Saxon of all Eng
land. They are of the race and
stock OF shakespeare, Milton, Ba-
con and Cromwell, and not of the
De Courcys and other Norman fam
lilies of the aristocrscy. Though
they have been kept i'm darkness,
DISTINGUISHED and bound to the soil,
and their narrow localities like serfs
for centuries, there is still the latent
brain and love ofindependence of the
old SaXons. 1t only required the
influence of this enlightened age
to show their true character. The
poor wetches who have to live and
support n family upon two dollars a
week, or even less, have been taught
at last 10 compare their situation
with that of the luxurious farmers
and the landlords who roll i'm wealth.
Suffer they may, and suffer they
will in the unequal struggle i'm
which they are engaged; but the
stubborn fact of their deplOrable
poverty and pauperism i'm the midst
of wealth cannot be eradicated.
The eud must be an ameliorative of
their condition by the consent of the
so-callcd upper elias 'es or a bloody
revolution.
We wish that these honest, hard
working and sturdy Anglo-Saxon
agricultural laborers of the eastern
counties of England could come to
this country of freedom, cheap lanos
and well paid labor. Nc better
class of emigrants could come, and
we should welcome them as the
best. 1t is of that stock mainly
that the foundation of the North
American colonies and this Re-
public was laid. But how can
they come? They have no means.
They are about as powerless to
move from their villages, and the
soil they till as the serfs of Russia
were. If our enterprising land
owners, capitalists, and railroad
companies, would organize the
means to bring them here, with a
system of emigration from the agri-
cultural districts of England, both
this country and these poor people
would be benefited. At all events,
the agricultural laborers of England
have the sympathy of the American
in this movement to improve
their condition-NeW York Herald,
June 30th.