The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1889-09-25
The Wages Question.

question to us, " Is this reasonableT"
after stating that farmers have paid
as much for day help this year as they
did twenty years ago" We are not an
advocate at all in this matter, but
seeker after facts, and of ways and
means to make farming pay. Having
from four to six men under pay ourself,
the present season, we should be very
glad to know how to get equally effect
i've work at a cheaper price. We have,
in the last twenty-four years, had a
good many excellent men working for
us, and, after staying from one to three
years, they have all gone to southern
New England because they could get
better pay" Thereon thought they
could 1t is true that they sometimes
wrote back that, though their wages are
nominally higher, more is expected of
them, they are less comfortably stu
ated, and their expenses are so large
that they can not save as much as they
did in Vermont. But none of them
come back; and we fear that if they
should, the ideas they have got into
their heads would make them less val
liable to us than before.
The fact is, Brother Higbee, that it is
ga condition, and not theory" that
we have to face in this matter. Yer
mont, an exclusively agricultural state,
is yoked up with Massachusetts, Rhode
Island and Connecticut, which have
become almost exclusively commercial
and manufacturing states. The same
policy is thought to suit both. Perhaps
it does; but if it does, then we here in
Vermont can not consistently put our
selves in kicking attitude against the
natural consequences of this solidarity.
In our editorial capacity we have been,
for fifteen years, demanding the only
possible compensation for this state Of
things in a better and closer and more
intimate connection with this manu-
featuring and commercial population of
the lower states, which we are sup
posed to have the privilege of feeding,
and thus of sharing in their profitable
business. In fact, we are cut off from
them by high freights and imperfect
facilities. Our feeble voice, like one
crying in wilderness, reaches but a
little way; while ADLER and more intlu-
entail men, like Senator Higbee, Gov
ernor Barstow, Representative Doug
lass, Tinkham and many other farmers
connected with the administration of
state affairs, stand afar off, and let us
scratch away in vain in their behalf.
If they, and the hundreds of other in
huential farmers of the state, would
heartily join in an effort to bring them
selves and all their neighbors into more
intimate relationship with their custom
ers, something might be done that
would greatly benefit the whole state.
1t is true that the dairy farmers, pro-
ducing goods that cost proportionately
little for transportation, do not see their
interest in cheaper transportation as
general farmers do But now that the
shoe is beginning to pinch them a little
they will perhaps realize that diver.
sitied farming, so encouraged and devel
oped, would help them too. A policy
which forces nearly every farmer in
Vermont to be dairyman-will he, nj
he,-must in time and now does tread
hard upon the corns of the men whom
Brother Higbee ranks as "those who
once might be called wealthy" but are
"in just comfortable circumstance
now. There are hundreds of others who
have never yet been either wealthy OF
in comfortable circumstances, but whC
have been kept or forced into dairyins
as the only way to escape railroad ant
express company eXtortion; and now
by cooperative work, they are over
supplying the market with goods tina
encroach badly on their once rich ant
even now comfortable neighbors, wht
heretofore held the fancy market il
their own hands.
When we have urged these points
friends like Brother Towle of the ST
Adams Messenger, representing tn
great dairy section tributary to tina
town, have practically said to US
DAIRY, or Die" Well, to avoid dyin
they are all dairying. How do you lik
it? We have all kinds of land, a.
kinds of locations, all kinds of people
and all kinds (almosD of climate il
Vermont, and without diversified farm
ing the state can not prosper as
should. Tied down to butter, -boun
to " Dairy or Die, must hav
hard times for the majority of OF
people.
Brother Hgbee says the farmers {
his vicinity are combining to reduC
wages, =" not to looo wages, but to lo,c'
wages" If they are in a situation