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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE 

 AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



A wide-spread subject, truly, to discuss in some half- 

 a-dozen articles ; the whole of which would afford 

 space but scant enough, to glance at one only of its 

 many important elements. Our notes, therefore, must 

 be taken as merely initiative of that fuller discussion of 

 the subject which may at some future time be entered 

 upon ; opeuings-up, simply, of points of view, the posi- 

 tion of which may be noted down, and returned to at a 

 future time, when the now hasty glance may be changed 

 for the steady investigation then of the whole subject in 

 its entirety — diggings, so to speak, in the quarry of in- 

 quiry for blocks ; one fitted for one part, another for 

 another of the future structure ; laid down apparently 

 at random, but nevertheless placed so as to be readily 

 accessible when the labour of the digger is exchanged 

 for that of the builder. 



Claiming, then, for our remarks no higher position 

 than this, we proceed to note, that what has yet to be done 

 to raise the social status of our labourers to a higher 

 point than the one at which we find it nearly universally 

 existent amongst us now, must be the work not of one 

 class only, the landlord or the employer, but of the 

 two classes — the landlord and the labourer, the em- 

 ployer and the employed. If any real progress is to be 

 made, there must be a mutuality of interest, and of de- 

 pendence one upon the other. We have as little sym- 

 pathy for that school of philanthropists who would do 

 all for the labourer, and allow him to do nothing for 

 himself, as for that school of political economists who 

 would do nothing for the labourer, allowing him to do 

 all for himself — careless, indeed, whether he does any- 

 thing or not, so that the laws or rules of that " economy '' 

 be observed which they worship : an " economy " which, 

 to our thinking, is not at all christian in spirit or hopeful 

 in its results. This statement, as to the necessity for a 

 mutuality of interest being cultivated, brings us at once 

 to that important matter to which a variety of circum- 

 stances has lately given the prominence which it fully 

 deserves : we mean the question as to the sympathy, or, 

 to speak more truly perhaps, the want of it, between 

 the enoployer and the employed. This sympathy must 

 be cultivated till the bond of interest be strengthened 

 between the workman with his horny hands of toil, and 

 the man whose brain-labour maintains the hand-labour, 

 and pays for its toil — till the war between class and 

 class is for ever over ; till God's truth is everywhere pre- 

 valent, that all men are brothers,joincd together with the 

 link of the nearest interest and the closest dependence, 

 and the devil's lie no more believed in as a truth, that 

 it is for the good of one class to wish for and rejoice in 

 the evil that happens to the others; till we are all 



members of that glorious community, the guiding prin- 

 ciples of which shall be those of the most blissful of all 

 democracies, as it is the most gorgeous of all aristocracies 

 — which makes us at one and the same time equal, the ser- 

 vant with the master, and yet all kings, brothers in that 

 family, kings in that kingdom which is yet to come. 

 This sympathy must be cultivated till all " fellow- 

 citizens unite with common sympathies — Saxon spirits 

 and Christian hearts — encouraging every legitimate oc- 

 casion of kindly or profitable intercourse ; diligent in 

 the several departments of labour, wisely distributed ; 

 in a rivalry, not of the thorn and the briar, which shall 

 show the sharpest prickle, but of the vine with the olive, 

 which shall bear the richest fruit.'' Nor is the culti- 

 vation of this mutual sympathy — (for if it is to be healthy 

 and enduring, it must not be one-sided)— difficult to be 

 followed out, after all. The real difficulty is in the be- 

 ginning — as to who is to initiate the new order of things. 

 It is a deplorable feature connected with a bad system 

 which has been of long continuance, that it renders men 

 unfit for the hearty reception of a better. And the two 

 classes, the employer and the employed, have so long in 

 this country been estranged, and taught to look upon each 

 other in great measure as natural enemies, having interests 

 totally at variance, that the difficulty we meet with, in 

 inaugurating a new state of matters, is, that their habits 

 and feelings nearly all run in different channels, tending 

 to widely different points. We believe that kindlier 

 and lovelier feelings towards each other have of late been 

 on the increase ; but it will not do for each party to 

 stand on the little mole-hill of his own real or fancied 

 grievances, thinking it a mighty mountain, and say to 

 his neighbour, " Come." No: each must descend, and 

 go towards the other. The advances must be mutual. 

 The employer must cultivate a kindly interest in the 

 affairs of the employed, and have more frequent personal 

 intercourse with him. And, on the other hand, 

 the employed must have a generous appreciation of 

 this interest and those advances, and not ever be 

 suspicious of intentions, and constantly attributing 

 mean motives. We believe that there is a strong 

 desire on the part of the employers generally throughout 

 the country — and this increasing daily — to do justice to 

 their employed ; that they are ambitious to see the work- 

 man occupy his true position — to see him alive to the 

 dignity of labour and the worth of moral manliness. 

 But anxious as they are to see this, and to cultivate a 

 closer intimacy, they are not seldom pained to find that 

 all their advances are looked upon with distrust, and all 

 their kindnesses viewed with suspicion. This must not 

 be suffered to remain : the workman must on his part 



