THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



527 



cultivate generous feelings, free himself from the tram- 

 mels of prejudice — go meekly to the fountain of all truth, 

 and dare to assert it, and live up to it, despite all his 

 preconceived notions. 



"What is really wanted," says a writer who haa 

 studied closely the question of the relation subsisting, 

 or which should subsist, between the agriculturist and 

 his employers, "is not a continued spinning of fine 

 theories as to the relationship that ought practically to 

 obtain between these powers linked yet separated ; 

 but some strongly and heartily-combined, truly 

 thorough -going, and long-working moral frame-work, 

 with power gathered from all right-hearted parties 

 guided from on high, whose duty it shall be, and whose 

 interest also it may be, to overcome those mischievous 

 obstacles which, in the course of time and of change, 

 have arisen between the outgoings of the relative con- 

 cerns, duties, and feelings of the upper and hiring classes, 

 and the sympathies of the lower and hired classes, for 

 their social comfort and their highest interests." " If 

 you would work up," says the same author to his agri- 

 cultural readers, " the hearts of your labourers to serve 

 you faithfully, and to back you under all circumstances, 

 you must bear yourselves towards them, in your daily 

 intercourse and dealings with them, in some such way 

 and spirit as did your noble grandsires. The plan is a 

 very short and simple one : Do more of your business 

 with them personally , and less of if delegatively; for 

 this was indeed their condescending yet truly dignified 

 way ; and never, I believe, was it encroached upon by 

 their humble dependants. How could it. ? Their humble 

 dependants had their hearts and their manners so po- 

 litely trained by this way (the best high social training 

 school of all) as rendered rude encroachment morally 

 impossible." There can be little doubt that this /jer- 

 sonal interest and personal intercourse with the em- 

 ployed mu3t be productive of beneficial results. We 

 believe that many employers have no conception of the 

 power and influence which they would obtain over their 

 employed by going more frequently amongst them, 

 sharing their griefs and partaking of their joys — drop- 

 ping counsel and instruction, here a little, and there a 

 little, even in the midst of their employment. 



But the mutual sympathy which we advocate must be 

 based on the broad and grand foundations of eternal 

 truth. If it is to keep ever fresh and ever fair, it must 

 have the preservative salt of a religious belief, a living 

 faith mixed up with it. This is not the place to advo- 

 cate sectarian views ; nor, if it was, do our thoughts and 

 feelings at all tend to that advocacy ; but we believe 

 that Christianity — that Christianity which is above all 

 cant, and broader than any church — is all-powerful for 

 the healing of the woes of nations and of the griefs and 

 grievances of every class. It is that which will elevate the 

 workman, and raise to still higher dignity the employer. 

 It will purify and endear to the labourer the sanctities 

 of home, and render powerless the attractions of the 

 beer-shop. It will quicken alike in employer and em- 



ployed the appreciation of the good that is in each other; 

 while it will lead them to charitably pity, and endeavour 

 to get rid of the evil, it will draw closer the bond of 

 sympathy between them ; it will refine their feelings and 

 exalt their minds ; it will unite them with the higher 

 and the holier destinies of man by a golden chain which 

 will reach to heaven. But, to aid in the spread of the 

 principles of this renovating power, we must sink all our 

 sectarian notions and sectarian prejudices — not that we 

 need have less faith in our opinions respecting them, 

 but that we shall require more charity towards those 

 who differ with us — and unite in the anxious desire 

 to show each in their daily walk the force of faith and 

 the power of practice. We must be rivals in the 

 spreading of that true liberty, which, while it respects 

 the property of the rich, has a due regard to the privi- 

 leges of the poor, and, while sternly repressing the 

 liberty of sin, gives the freest exercise and the broadest 

 platform to the cultivation of all that is lovely, pure, 

 honest, and of good report ; we must exercise that 

 charity which, while it condemns the sin, spares the 

 sinner ; we must be more anxious to show to our neigh- 

 bours, and those over whom we have influence, the force 

 of a good example, than to endeavour to win them to be 

 adherents to our personal opinions as to church and 

 church government ; we must think more of the spirit 

 and less of the letter, and estimate the pith and kernel 

 of Christianity more than all its conventionalities, its 

 husks and outer integuments. Doing all this, we shall 

 best secure the permanent establishment of that sympathy 

 between employers and employed — based on principle, 

 not upon policy — which will lead in time, and lead safely, 

 to the establishment of those social reforms which we all 

 profess anxiously to wait for. 



In the first of our papers on this important subject 

 we stated that the task of amelioration is that which 

 will necessitate — if true and lasting progress is desired— 

 the exertions of the employed as well as of the em- 

 ployers. There must be a mutual interest taken in the 

 matter. We shall see, as we proceed, that in all the de- 

 partments of progress which make up the measure of 

 efficiency of this great question, both parties have some- 

 thing to do in it ; that it does not devolve upon one to 

 do all, the other complacently looking on, applauding 

 or perhaps sneering the while. If property has its 

 duties as well as its rights, let it not be forgotten that 

 labour, while it has its rights, has its duties also. Take, 

 for instance, the important department of improved 

 cottages. Thus, while holding that it is the imperative 

 duty, if not the wisest policy of the landlord, to erect 

 cottages for his labourers, in which the decencies of life 

 can be maintained and respected, as well as its comforts 

 and amenities secured, we no less decidedly hold that it 

 is the duty of the labourer who inhabits them to do all 

 he can to maintain them in good repair; to refrain not 

 only from the folly of wanton destruetion, but from the 

 cultivation of the habits of carelessness, which result in 

 a deterioration of the property of others, as powerful 



