The Cowitry Gentlcvian's Magazine 



257 



A GRICUL TURA L S TRIKES. 



By S. G. O.* 



I HAVE watched with no Httle interest 

 the progress of the so-called contest 

 between labour and capital, especially in that 

 portion of it which has reached the field of 

 agricultural labour. I think it has now ar- 

 rived at a point when we have fair ground for 

 the consideration, how far it will affect the 

 relative position of employer and employed 

 for the future. On both sides there has 

 been a fair trial of strength in the way of 

 attack and defence. I think it may be as- 

 ""med that the opposing forces have each 

 learnt a wholesome lesson. I am inclined 

 to believe that when all is taken into ac- 

 count, the suffering caused to both, by the 

 disturbance of their old connexion, will be 

 pretty equally distributed. 



It is my present purpose to deal only with 

 the complete '' revolution " — I hold it to be 

 nothing else — the system of combining the 

 agricultural labourers into " unions " — " com- 

 binations" to regulate the value and con- 

 ditions of their labour — has wrought. I 

 wish to point out some of these, the most 

 important features of the labourer's life, as 

 it must be affected by this severing of the 

 local ties which connected him with those 

 among whom he dwelt and for whom he 

 worked, and his now becoming a member 

 of a wide-spread confederation, in allegiance 

 to which he must be content to live. 



It is too late to oftcr any opinion as to the 

 prudence or expediency of the labourer in 

 husbandry working to place his daily interest, 

 as such, under the same rule as other traders 

 in hand labour. If " unions " have not 

 become the rule throughout the whole agri- 

 cultural field, if " strikes " have been as yet 

 limited only to a portion of it, it must yet, I 

 think, be admitted that enough has been done 

 to shake all confidence on the part of the 

 employers in any real return to the old state 



* Times, Thursday, Sept. 5. 

 VOL. XI. 



of things. Looking this in the face it will be 

 but natural that they should feel and act on 

 the knowledge, that if this union system has 

 not yet been adopted by their working men, 

 these have it in their power at any time, 

 however injurious to their employers, to 

 adopt it. 



It is vain to conceal from ourselves that 

 an element of perpetual suspicion must now 

 exist in the relation of master and man ; 

 that, if ever, it must be a work of consider- 

 able time to restore anything like real 

 harmony between them, or to make confi- 

 dence on either side more than skin-deep. 



It is difficult for anyone who has passed 

 many years of life behind all the scenery of 

 agricultural life to conceive how farms can 

 be worked on the commercial principle, as 

 mills or workshops are ; the farm staff to 

 be regarded as just so many men taken on 

 by the job, to be chosen for their power to 

 do it, to be paid certain wages for it — and 

 that alt. 



The work of a farm demands a greal deal 

 of elasticity in the rule governing the employ- 

 ment of those engaged in it. With the ex- 

 ception, perhaps, of the shepherd and herds- 

 man, it would be next to impossible to draw 

 any hard and fast line to which every 

 labourer is to be limiied. So much depends 

 on weather, at all times, and more especially 

 at harvest time, in the matter of work to be 

 done, that I cannot see how either hours or 

 the nature of any one labourer's work can be 

 made subject to any strictly defined agree- 

 ment. There must always be a certain 

 amount of " give and take " on the side of 

 the master and servant. If every extra pull 

 upon the labourer is to be made subject to 

 some fixed extra payment, is the farmer to be 

 restricted from ceasing to pay when the 

 weather, or other circumstances, may make it 

 wiser to shorten labour ? 



