The Country Gentleman s Magazine 



try a large rise in wages, there had not 

 been a proportionate rise in the wages of 

 the agricultural labourer; and lastly, he 

 thought the Poor-law, so far from assisting 

 the labourer, had in some respects tended to 

 aggravate the difficulties of his position. But, 

 on the other hand, tlie cottages generally 

 were now better than they were ; greater at- 

 tention was paid to the garden ) and the 

 sanitary arrangements and articles of comfort 

 were now within the reach of the labourer, 

 which were entirely out of his reach before. 

 The law of settlement again was far easier 

 than it used to be, and there was this further 

 advantage, that the services of the good 

 workman were universally recognized and 

 appreciated. Therefore it was that he (Lord 

 Carnarvon) objected to outside agitators who 

 knew nothing of the matter, interfering to 

 attempt to accomplish an object which could 

 be done better without them. But it would 

 be said that they were objecting to what was 

 the right of all men in England, namely, the 

 power of combination. He did not think 

 there was one person there who was so un- 

 reasonable as to object to combination, but 

 as a famous character in the French Revolu- 

 tion said of Liberty, so it might be said of 

 political combination, that many crimes and 

 offences were perpetrated in its name. There 

 were two sorts of combination — there was 

 legitimate fair combination of a class for a 

 legitimate object, to which no one could 

 object ; and there was combination which 

 was fictitious and factious, and which pro- 

 ceeded from outside agitation, to which he 

 strongly objected. 



THE FARMER AND UNIONS. 



A great deal had been said and written with 

 regard to the English farmer during the last 

 six months, which was calculated to move 

 both one's contempt and indignation. People 

 seemed to forget entirely what the nature of 

 his employment was, and that it differed in 

 a great degree from almost all those industrial 

 occupations which had made this country so 

 prosperous. Many forgot how largely the 

 element of climate and weather affected his 

 occupation and the results of it, and there- 



fore they talked what appeared to him to be 

 nonsense when they attempted to apply all 

 those principles which were common and ne- 

 cessary to the merchant to the trade of the 

 farmer. Still more was this the case when 

 they considered the highly complicated 

 nature of modern agriculture, by which every- 

 thing, so to speak, turned upon the proper 

 use of machinery at the proper time, and 

 when the whole profits of a year or half a 

 year might be nnperilled by bringing the 

 work of the farm to a standstill. Let them 

 picture to themselves a trades union standing 

 by and interfering in order to throw the 

 whole work of the farm out of gear, and then 

 they would see the impossibility of enter- 

 ing into comparisons with manufacturing 

 businesses. Therefore he considered trades 

 unions were a bitter enemy to the farmer, 

 and that they would strike a fatal and deadly 

 blow against English agriculture. 



THE LANDLORD AND THE LABOURER. 



Now, a word to the landlords. They 

 were, he knew, in the habit of coming in for 

 a good deal of abuse, sometimes perhaps 

 with justice, and sometimes with a good 

 deal of unfairness. They were blamed very 

 often for the state of cottages, although those 

 cottages frequently belonged, not to the land- 

 lords, but to speculators, who built them 

 for the purpose of making a profit by them. 

 They were sometimes favoured with what he 

 called fabulous remedies. They were told 

 that 700,000 cottages, which were to cost 

 ;^7 0,000,000, were required, but where the 

 money was to come from, and what was to 

 be the return for it, he did not know. He 

 considered the Legislature had given the 

 landlords extremely little help, and notwith- 

 standing this, he believed there was an earnest 

 wish on the part of the landlords to do all 

 they could in the way of improving the 

 dwellings. He did not believe that the 

 cottages paid any return, or if they did, 

 it did not exceed i)^ per cent. They were 

 let, as a rule, to the tenants out of a kindly 

 feeling, and with the earnest desire to improve 

 the social and material condition of those 

 who resided upon the property. But if the 



