The Country Gentleman" s Magazine 



327 



THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER AND HIS FRIENDS. 



THE Times of Wednesday has an ad- 

 mirable leading article on the agricul- 

 tural labourer. It sums up his whole case 

 with great judiciousness and skill. It regards 

 him, from every point of view, as a part in 

 the great industrial machine ; as the horse or 

 the steam-engine is ; as a dealer offering his 

 labour, for what he can m.ike for it, in the 

 market, it may be conceded him that he is 

 " a free fighter in the battle of life entitled 

 to try any methods and organizations that 

 may promote his interests." He may be 

 considered as the potter's clay, out of which 

 he can be moulded into almost any form or 

 thing by skilful hands — into a member of a 

 Commune or of a Christian church. He may 

 be regarded as a man to be raised or to be 

 kept well down. All these conflicting notions 

 about him have been ventilated with more or 

 less enthusiasm and vehemence within recent 

 months, but in nearly all the discussions, as 

 the Times truly and wisely points out, the fact 

 has been overlooked that labourers are moral 

 agents, " each with a character distinctly his 

 own, each no more open to improving in- 

 fluences than the classes over his head, but 

 necessarily somewhat more stupid and ob- 

 stinate than men of more varied experience 

 and cultivated minds." Nothing could be 

 better put, with regard to the case of the 

 agricultural labourer, than the following : — 

 " Let anybody bethink himself how difficult 

 he would find it to change his habits and 

 ways, even with all the world before him, 

 and the past and future always in his thoughts. 

 How is it likely a man should easily improve 

 or easily adapt himself to any new state 

 of things, when his life has been an invari- 

 able routine, in the same fields, and under 

 the same circumstances? It is unavoidable, 

 but yet a condition which must be borne in 

 mind in all this talk about the labourer, that 

 the material and physical part of his condi- 

 tion predominates almost to the exclusion of 

 the moral. Of course it is pleasant enough 



to talk as if purses were bottomless, land 

 without limit, cottages, cows, pigs, and 

 poultry, and fruit-trees as producible as the 

 contents of a Dutch toy box. Whatever we 

 wish for ourselves, it is proper to wish, on a 

 suitable scale, for all whom we care for, or 

 for whom we can even imagine a friendly in- 

 terest. But what we have to do is to deal 

 with the facts of the case, and in this case 

 the greatest fact of all is the character of the 

 class and of the persons whom we are con- 

 cerned about." 



That the labourer should have better wages 

 and more comfortable cottages, most people 

 are willing to admit, but wages do depend, 

 however it may be argued to the contrary, 

 not upon strikes, but upon the demand for 

 the labour. The case of the agricultural 

 labourer has not been thoroughly understood 

 by many who have advocated his claims to 

 higher remuneration. The injudicious way 

 in which these amiable and well meaning 

 men, (?) who throw themselves heart and soul 

 into the cause of philanthropy, or of oppres- 

 sion, who are demagogues or monarchists, 

 as the movement suits their pockets, has not 

 been advantageous to the agricultural la- 

 bourer. They have exaggerated his distress 

 through their want of knowledge of his con- 

 dition — they have made capital out of his 

 poverty, and made discontent in his home. 

 It is no secret that the language of vitupera- 

 tion is much more voluminous and effective 

 than the vocabulary of praise. We cannot 

 say with reference to those who have advo- 

 cated the cause of labour in rural districts, 

 that they have " no case," and therefore the 

 proper course to pursue is to abuse the de- 

 fendants : they had a case, but they have 

 misconducted it. There has been, in most 

 of the speeches made by those self-elected 

 proclaimers of agricultural wrongs, suppressio 

 vcri amounting to suggest io falsi. It is no secret 

 that many of the labourers who were enticed 

 away into towns by the offer of what, in 



