1884.] QUESTIONS. 125 



Mr. Hyde. I should be very glad, as a farmer, to secure 

 men from whom I could get ten hours of work every day 

 throughout the year. I fail to get eight in the winter. I find 

 the men who go to the mill go two hours before I get my men 

 started even to do the chores and the milking ; and it is so 

 at night. Our hours of labor in the factories are longer, 

 perhaps, than they are in some districts. Our mills have 

 been successful, and they are running twelve hours. I should 

 like to see the farmer who is going to get up at four o'clock, 

 get his breakfast, and be out at his work by six o'clock, and 

 have but thirty minutes from, that time until he comes back to 

 the house at seven o'clock at night. 



Mr. Sedgwick. I would suggest to the last speaker, that 

 if we paid our hired help as well as the manufacturers pay 

 them, we could get as good a class of help. In a nut-shell, 

 the whole thing is this : We cannot get good men to work for 

 us on our farms, or we do not get good men to work for us, 

 because we do not pay them as much as they can earn else- 

 where. If you will pay a man just as much as he can get in 

 a hot and stifling factory, he would be glad to work for you 

 on the farm. There is no difficulty about it ; it is only a 

 question of wages. That being so, is it not more profitable 

 for the farmer to pay his men as much as the men are paid 

 who work in the factories, and have his work done in a sys- 

 tematic way — so many hours a day ? I know that when I 

 work on the farm, I can get as tired in ten hours as I want 

 to get; and I can do as much work in ten hours, steady 

 work, as I ought to be expected to do in fifteen or sixteen 

 hours ; and if my men will give me ten, good, square hours 

 as a day's work — as they will do if I pay them as much as 

 they can get elsewhere, it is enough for any man to do. I am 

 aware of the fact, that in harvest time and haying time, we 

 may have to make longer days, but if we pay our men by the 

 month, so that they will get good wages, or, if you like, pay 

 them by the hour for extra work, and they will be glad to 

 stay and help you. We hire by the day in harvest time ; why 

 not, when you have to make a long day, pay according to the 



