TJie Coiuitry Gentleman's Magazine 



!35 



SIR JOHN BO WRING ON THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER, 



IN the Economy and Trade Section of the 

 Social Science Congress on Tuesday, 

 Sir J. Bowring delivered the presidential 

 oration. In the course of his remarks he 

 referred to the condition and improvidence 

 of the agricultural labourer. The late 

 enormous increase in the prices of all the 

 necessaries of life, he said, especially in food 

 and fuel, cannot be passed over unnoticed. 

 But masters and workmen are alike too 

 generally ignorant of the peremptory and 

 paramount laws of political economy ; they 

 will finally regulate all contracts ; and the best 

 advice to masters is, that they should cede to 

 the reasonable demands of their servants ; 

 and to these latter, that they should carefully 

 guard their savings in the day of prosperity, 

 as the day of adversity will assuredly 

 come. The condition of the agricultural 

 labourer is in many respects most unenviable, 

 and very difficult it is for him to raise himself 

 from his low condition. He is little disposed, 

 except under very severe pressure, to quit 

 the soil where he was born, and which his 

 father had cultivated before him, and the 

 poorer he is the less able is he to migrate. 

 He belongs to no organized societies to 

 which he can look for relief in time of need; 

 and the abuses no longer exist, or only on 

 a small scale, which enabled the farmer to 

 augment the labourer's pay by exacting, 

 through the poor-rates, contributions from 

 the public. Moreover, the farm labourers 

 are, for the most part, very ignorant, and 

 widely scattered ; they have few or no 

 intelligent representatives from among them- 

 selves ; no press or papers of their own. 

 But the better instructed workmen have not 

 only their special clubs and unions connected 

 with their particular trades, but they form 

 part of an immense community, banded 

 together by stringent rules, possessing 

 considerable funds, having their recognized 

 leaders, their newspapers, periodicals, 



pamphlets, and, moreover, exercising, 

 as they must, great and increasing 

 political influence, they are in constant com- 

 munion with the leaders of public opinion in 

 the various sections of the State. Whether a 

 movement, lately indicated by the Speaker of 

 the House of Commons, to introduce the 

 co-operative principle into the sphere of 

 agricultural labour will find the labourer ripe 

 for its adoption — and here, as everywhere, 

 " ripeness is all " — is a question which time 

 only can solve. There is a widely-spread 

 feeling that something ought to be done, and 

 a desire that effectual aid should be given. 

 The agricultural power is of great weight in 

 this country, and when it is discovered that 

 there is to a vast extent a reciprocal interest 

 which should bind landlord, tenant, and la- 

 bourer in a common bond, the good work will 

 proceed. Few matters are less understood 

 among the labouring classes than the art of 

 cookery ; for cookery is in itself a science 

 which is closely connected with the economy 

 and with the comforts of every family ; and, 

 as elsewhere, waste is the result of incom- 

 petence. The English races are singularly 

 backward in kitchen knowledge, which ought 

 to form a part of the knowledge of every 

 woman. Nor would it be amiss that men 

 should know a little more about kitchen 

 economy than our people. In visiting the 

 camps of our soldiery in foreign countries, I 

 was struck with the greater variety of small 

 enjoyments which the French militaire pro- 

 vided for himself, especially in soups and 

 salads, unknown to the English soldier. The 

 French made litde gardens in the neighbour- 

 hood of their tents ; the English seldom or never. 

 The savings-banks, now so much aided by 

 their association with the Post Office, amount 

 to more than 4000, and hold more than 

 _;^ 1 7,000,000; and the facilities given to de- 

 positors is one of the marked improvements 

 of the age, and an evidence that numbers of 



