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THI5 FARMER'S MAGAZINF 



items so highly as Mr. Saunders does by about £6 a 

 year, making the yearly wage of his ploughman £33 

 14s., or as nearly as possible 13s. a week. Now, over 

 large districts in England another system obtains, of 

 which Mr. Manser, a tenant farmer at Dumpton, 

 near Ramsgate, gives she following very interesting 

 account : 



"Our ploughmen here are generally single, and yearly 

 servants, and are boarded and lodged by the farmer or by 

 hisbaitiff. They are hired from the 11th Oct. to the ,11th 

 Oct. each year ; and though they sometimes continue for 

 several years with the same master, a fresh agreement 

 takes place every year. They commence as lads at 13 or 

 14 years of age ; their duties then are to drive the horses 

 and attend to them iu stables, and we also invariably find 

 that the younger these boj's go to Bervice (as it is here 

 termed) the better plonsihmen find the better labourers they 

 afterwards become. They begin at about £5 wages per an- 

 num, which is usually increased every year, as their strength 

 and ability increases, or as master und servant agree ; the 

 increase goes on at a ratio of about£l perytar,aud our head 

 horse-mau or waggoner gets from £12 to £14 per year. The 

 cost of their board varies according to tlie price of provi- 

 sion?, and when they are boarded by a third party it is gene- 

 rally partly in money and partly iu kind ; they always have 

 meat three times a day, and cannot be boarded, on an ave- 

 rage, at less than 8s. per week per head. In some few 

 instances where there are cottages ne.ar, married men are 

 employed as ploughmen at wages of 14s. per week, and a 

 cottage rent-free ; if they have to pay rent, they are usually 

 allowed about £.5 extra for harvest, in addition to the 143. 

 per week." He adds — " Our labouers pay about 2s. 6i. per 

 week rent for their cottages, and for this many get but a 

 miserable home. I know of nothing iu this neighbourhood 

 so disgraceful as the want of accommodatioa for our labour- 

 ers. They are (rauuy of them) driven to reside in the worst 

 parts of the town ; many of them in hovels built — or, rather, 

 stuck up— for the purpose of investment, without any re- 

 gard to health, comfort, cleanliness, or morality. No garden 

 attached, or anythiug else to make a poor man's home com- 

 fortable — completely away from the eye of his master, and all 

 . others that feel an interest iuhia welfare. The couaequences 

 I need not describe. With every inducemeut for him to 

 spend his spare time and his hard earnings at the public- 

 house or beer-shop, often having from two to three miles to go 

 iu all weather to his labour, never knowing the luxury of a hot 

 dinner except en a Sunday, or a meal with hia family, the 

 children run the streets iu the worst parts of the towu, and 

 fret early imbued in every vice and wickedness. With no 

 father near to iuatruct or correct them, how can it be other- 

 wise ? I do hope this subject will be pressed before the public 

 on every favourable opportunity. I find, on examining my 

 labour account, that my best men, on an average of the year 

 through, earn about I63. per week, or a little over £40 per 

 year. This includes harvest and haymaking, as well as lost 

 time from weatner or other causes, and is the man's earnings 

 independent of the rest cf the family." 



For all these various customs of payment there must, 

 of course, be the general assent of the labourer, and 

 the concurrence both of master and servant, in order 

 to their establishment and maintenance ; and so long 

 as a labourer agrees to take certain wages, there is not 

 the shadow of a plea for interference by any other per- 

 son between him and his master. The fitness of cus- 

 toms, however, v;hether iu the interests of agricultu- 

 rists who find that labourers are more difiicult to 

 hire, or in the interests of labourers themselves, may 

 very properly be discussed, even by those who have no 

 greater intei-est iu the subject than that which they 

 hold in the well-being of any other class of their fellow- 

 countrymen. 



It is plain, on a very short acquaintance with the 

 subject, that every system which has been, and I will 

 say can be, devised, is liable to abuse. And this, more- 

 over, is also true— that each is liable just in proportion 

 to its excellence in the hands of a well-disposed man. 

 The direct payment of a stipulated sum of money for 



stipulated services to bo rondcted i.-i, ofany phin of 

 wages, the least liable to abuse ; but it is, at the same 

 time, that which furnishes the least scope of any for 

 the establishment of friendly relations between masters 

 and men. 



Then, on the other hand, that system which gives 

 food and fuel and accommodation is the best of all, 

 when administered with kindness ; for the extras are 

 worth to the labourer much more than the sum at 

 which they would be valued to him in a money pay- 

 ment ; but there can be no doubt that it is more liable 

 to abuse than the simple money payment. The abuse 

 of the money payment, it is plain, does not affect the 

 relation of labourer and employer at all ; it lies in the 

 scope afforded by it for the utter ignoring of the man 

 in any other than this relation. The abuse in the case 

 of payments of food, Sec, does affect the due reward of 

 labour ; for, notwithstanding the agreement on this 

 score, the quality of all these articles cannot be defined 

 so exactly as their quantity. The payment, too, of all 

 this household stuff as wages is a thing which affects 

 householders only, and the yotmg men who are leaving 

 us are those whom we want to keep. To do so, then, 

 as Mr. Mein, a large employer of agricultural labour 

 tells us, we must just offer wages which will keep 

 them. That is the simple truth. 



It is not however the whole truth of the matter. It 

 must be admitted that the relation of master and ser- 

 vant is, by force of circumstances, mixed up in agricul- 

 ture with much besides a mere bargain for the sale of 

 services, with much that is personal ; that there is 

 much more scope for the development of kindly per- 

 sonal feeling between the two than there is in the case 

 of any other class, excepting household servants. Of 

 course this personal feeling may show itself in much 

 that is of great money value besides mere wager, and in 

 much that is of higher value than money is capable of 

 measuring. A young man will, notwithstanding lower 

 wages, keep his place for the sake of advantages of 

 greater value to him than the increased sum he might 

 otherwise receive. He may see that his master takes 

 an interest in him personally, showing it in helping 

 forward his education, and by seeking ultimately a 

 better position for him than he can offer himself, and 

 this is soon observed and thought of. But there is a 

 reverse side to this picture, and just in proportion to 

 the closeness of contact which the terms of service en- 

 force between the two may be their recoil asunder as 

 soon as they are once more free. 



If there be a plan which would sti'eny;then the bond 

 between the two more than any other, one would ima- 

 gine it to be the vtry common one In England of 

 lodging the younger labourers in the farm-house, and 

 giving them partial board as well as cash. But what 

 is the ordinary experience on this point ? In the 

 parish in which I reside. Old Michaelmas Day sees a 

 complete sweep of the young men and lads who have 

 lived during the past year in the house of their master. 

 The evening schools each winter present a new array 

 of faces — and the masters are for a while at least, 

 and necessarily, as much strangers to their lads and 

 many of their men as if they paid their wages through 

 a clerk, and had as little opportunity of personal ac- 

 quaintance as a manufacturer with his hundreds of 

 mechanics. 



It is plain that it is not in the system, but in the ad- 

 ministration of it, that merit and demerit lie, and that, 

 while sufficient wages (that is j ust as much as labourers 

 can get) are given, a personal interest in the labourer 

 as a neighbour is what will bind him to his master. 



If I had in a single sentence to describe the relation 

 of master and servant in the agricultural world, it would 

 be to assert that nowhere is it better and nowhere is it 



