Tlie Country Gcntlcmaiis Magazine 



203 



BISHOP ELLICOTT AND THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



A CORRESPONDENCE has just passed 

 between the Bishop of Gloucester and 

 Bristol and the Secretary of the Gloucester 

 district of the Agricultural Labourers' Union, 

 with reference to the remarks on the labour 

 question made by his lordship at the dinner 

 of the Gloucester Agricultural Society, and 

 which, it will be remembered, formed the 

 subject of comment in the House of Com- 

 mons recently. 



Mr Yeats, the Secretary referred to, first 

 wrote the Bishop a letter calling in question 

 the accuracy of some of the statements made 

 in his late speech, and, while expressing him- 

 self ready to receive any advice his lordship 

 might offer, assured him that the object of 

 the Labourers' Union was not to engender 

 bad feelings between master and men, but 

 to promote a better feeling among all classes. 

 To this letter the Bishop replied that the drift 

 of his speech was, as plain as words could 

 be, that the agricultural labourer ought to 

 have higher wages, and he commended 

 those who raised them. More than that, 

 he had pointed out that it rested on the 

 clear principle that money would purchase 

 now less than it had done, and therefore 

 ought to purchase less labour. As to pro- 

 fessed agitators, he condemned them as 

 being enemies to all peaceful adjustments, 

 and he would not retract one word of what 

 he had said. But judging from Mr Yeats' 

 letter, the Bishop said he thought Mr Yeats, 

 and those who co-operated with him, were 

 very different sort of people, and invited 

 Mr Yeats to bring any half-dozen or more 

 labourers to his residence, and he would 

 both hear them and tell them face to face 

 -what he thought was the duty of all in 

 these trying times. That, he thought, 

 would be a much fairer way of dealing 

 with him than, on the instigation of an 

 (unfair article in a newspaper, condemning 

 him for sentiments which the whole tenor 

 of his speech flatly contradicted. 



Mr Yeats was unable to get half-a-dozen 

 labourers to accompany him at the time ap- 

 pointed (Saturday evening), and communi- 

 cated with the Bishop to that effect. On 

 Saturday morning, the Bishop wrote to Mr 

 Yeats, expressing his sorrow that he would 

 be unable to bring his friends, and saying 

 that when he could do so, he would most 

 gladly meet them, and enter with all his 

 heart into their case. The Bishop stipu- 

 lates that the men who meet to confer with 

 him must belong to the county or diocese, 

 and then adds : — " That you may know ex- 

 actly my present views and feehngs as re- 

 gards the agricultural labour question in 

 Gloucestershire, I will briefly ^ repeat the 

 three points of my recent speech, i. That 

 our Gloucestershire farmers have, for the 

 most part, dealt fairly with their men hitherto, 

 and that now, in the altered state of prices, 

 they are preparing to deal fairly and to raise 

 wages to the point to which they certainly 

 ought to be raised. 2. That it is wrong 

 and utterly unjustifiable for strangers who 

 can know nothing of our local circum- 

 stances, to come among us and to stir up 

 dissension and set class against class. 3. 

 That we ought not to send our Gloucester- 

 shire men away from us to other counties, 

 but to study to make them happy and con- 

 tented at home. This is the substance of 

 what I said, and of what (as at present ad- 

 vised) 1 abide by. Of course I feel it pos- 

 sible that I may be wrong to some extent as 

 to \i), but this I solemnly declare, that dur- 

 ing the nine years I have been in this diocese, 

 no cases have ever been mentioned to me of 

 unfair wages having been systematically given 

 in any parish that I have visited, and I cer- 

 tainly have spoken freely with all classes, and 

 have made very free inquiries. Had I heard 

 of such, I certainly should have thought it 

 proper to allude publicly to the matter, and 

 to have done my best to bring about a change. 

 I am, of course, here alluding to past years 



