25J 



The Country Gcntleinaiis Alagaziiic 



Hitherto, in a very large proportion of 

 cases, the farm staff has been of local breed- 

 ing and training, the latter process, as the 

 rule, being carried on upon the local farms. 

 From crow-keeping to driving the best horsed 

 ploughs and waggons, from helping shepherd 

 to becoming shepherd, in every branch of 

 farm labour, the employers have learnt the 

 character of each man or boy they employ ; 

 they know their breed,- their habits, their 

 exact value for this or that purpose, how far 

 they can be trusted to do the work they 

 undertake. The men from boyhood know 

 the masters equally well ; every peculiarity of 

 their dispositions, so far as it may affect the 

 comfort or value of employment under 

 them, is well known. Doubtless there 

 is as much criticism of character, noting of 

 conduct, in the Pig and Whistle tap, in the 

 cottage, in the Sunday exchange of gossip 

 among the working class, as there ever was 

 at a Vestry, or is now at a Board of Goard- 

 ians, at market, or in the homestead parlour. 

 As we are all so ready to observe upon the 

 characters of those on whom we are in any 

 way dependent, or from whom Ave hope to 

 obtain anything, it is but natural that em- 

 ployer and employed in any one locality 

 should look closely at the play of each other's 

 cards. 



There may, hitherto, have been more good 

 in this than we may like to admit. It is a 

 wholesome thing in a parish that the cha- 

 racters of all who form its population should 

 be, in this sense, common property; that 

 respect should thus become due to employer 

 or employed as it may be deserved. It 

 teaches the former the true value of the 

 latter ; leads him to kindly intercourse with 

 servants who give mere than mere eye-ser- 

 vice ; it works to give the latter a desire to 

 keep a place with a master who acts justly 

 and kindly. 



If, as we all know is the case, labourers 

 have, under the old system, worked for 

 wages in but too many cases so low as to 

 make their lives a hard battle, we must re- 

 member that in life's wounds and. failings 

 they have had much help to which they had 

 no legal claim. Putting aside all that has 



been done for them by voluntary charity, all 

 the aid they obtain from the einployers and 

 others, who have known them all their days, 

 the squire help, the parson help, &c., the 

 guardian of the parish is, as the rule, ready 

 enough to plead for them at "the Board;" 

 they are well known to the relieving officers, 

 relief is not only rarely refused when any 

 plea can be made for it, but it is for ever 

 given when the legal right to it is very 

 questionable. In the matter of "cottage," 

 be the accommodation good or bad, take it 

 for better or for worse, the bred and born on 

 the spot ever have better treatmen'; tlian the 

 "hired for the year" — the stranger taken on 

 trial. It is well known that this latter class 

 of labourer is not esteemed as a tenant ; 

 neither his own nor the habits of his children 

 are kiiown ; and it is a generally accepted 

 fact that there is a reluctance " to repair," 

 where it is felt that the cottage is in what 

 may prove a mere temporary occupation. 



Lord Manyacres has sound ground for his 

 opinion — " It is next to useless to keep the 

 cottages of old Grindem's farm in repair, for 

 he never keeps a man over the year, and 

 makes his cottages mere lodgings for dis- 

 contented men with unruly children." Sur- 

 plice (the Rector) is right enough — " The 

 children of this class are the curse of the 

 school when they can be got into it ; they 

 have been bred as gypsies, with no respect 

 for authority in-doors or out-of-doors." 



Let us then try to anticipate the state of 

 things when " the Union" is 'Ci\t first master 

 to rule the labourer, the employer feeling that, 

 do what he will for his men, treat them hoAv 

 he may, they have simply leave to work for 

 him only just so long as the Union may 

 decree ; that at any season he may be served 

 with intimation that his whole staff of 

 labourers are prepared to put tlieir hands in 

 their pockets and do nothing, unless he will 

 consent to put his deeper into his own, and 

 pa}^ what " the Union" orders of money for 

 v.'ork to be regulated by Union hours. 



The landlords, in their own interest, will 

 now resort to a weekly renting of cottages 

 let to strangers of whose character they know 

 nothing; but knowing this much about them, 



