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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



no less than of truth *id right, brings with it alike 

 exemption from want, the luxury of leisure, and the 

 recreation of rest. 



But in this adjustment* #f the relation of employers 

 and employed, which is necessitated, so that for a fair 

 day's work the employer shall give a/air day's wages — 

 not the poorest of fare for the hardest of labour, the 

 least of leisure for the most of time — there should exist 

 that mutuality of interest which we have all along in- 

 sisted upon as necessary to be maintained between the 

 employer and the employed. We have shown that of 

 the three things which constitute economy the wise 

 management of labour, the careful preservation of its 

 produce is one. An increased liberality on the part of 

 the employer, must be met with the increased care of 

 the employed. We must learn to prevent want by the 

 avoidance of waste ; to ward off to-morrow's poverty 

 by to-day's prudence, and to secure fortune by fore- 

 thought. 



Our much exceeded spice warns us to conclude ; 

 but in what we have found space to say, the reader will 

 perceive that our main object has been to show that 

 much of the improvement of the social condition of the 

 employed rests with himself; that self-reform and 

 self-dependence will bring about many other reforms, 

 which he is now wearily, and without them may we say 

 hopelessly, waiting for. Nor less plainly have we 

 attempted to show what the employer is expected to 

 do, and we believe must do, before that elevation of 

 the condition of the labourer, in which he is as much 

 interested as the workman himself, can be carried out 

 and fairly and fully inaugurated. 



By adding to the attractions — attractions of taste as 

 well as of comfort — and inculcating an appreciation of 

 the sanctities of home ; by educating the heart as well as 

 the head, elevating the aspirations and refining the 

 minds of the employed ; by drawing closer the bond of 

 sympathy between him and his employer, so as to 

 realize much of the power— though working out in 

 another way perhaps, the principles — of thepatriarchial 

 government : by doing all this, and thinking each of us 

 of doing what we can, rather than waiting for others, 

 criticising their conduct and scanning their motives, 

 looking within as well as without, we may do much, if 

 we do not do all, to get rid of the social evils which op- 

 press the labour of agriculture. The reforms, or rather 

 reform which we have pointed out, will go far to lessen 

 the evil, if not do away with the necessity, for the 

 systems of the "bothy," the " bondager," and of 

 "field gang-work." "Execute true judgment, and 

 show mercy and compassion every man to his brother ; 

 and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in 

 your heart." This principle of true judgment and of 

 charity, binding alike on the labourer and the master, 

 followed out in every-day life and every-day duties, will 

 tend to make the life useful and happy, and the duties 

 well performed. 



But much as the employed can do, and should 

 do, in conjunction with the efforts of the employer, to 

 elevate his own condition, there is much which the em- 

 ployer must of necessity do alone. Wealth, as Ruskin 



terms it, is " the helm and guide of labour far and near." 

 Those who have it are "in reality the pilots of the 

 power and effort of the State ;" it is entrusted to them 

 as " an authority, to be used for good or evil, just as 

 completely as kingly authority was ever given to a prince, 

 or military command to a captain." Those who have 

 it, he says, may stretch out their sceptre over the heads 

 of their labourers, and as they " stoop to its waving," he 

 may command them to water the dry, and plough the 

 desert places, or on the other hand to build a mound for 

 him to be throned on, high and wide ; to make crowns 

 for his head, and tapestry on which he may place his 

 feet ; to dance before him, that he may be gay, and sing 

 sweetly to him that he may slumber, that he may " so 

 live in joy, and die in honour." " Better far,'' he says, 

 " than such an honourable death, it were, that the day 

 had perished wherein he was born, and the night in 

 which it was said, There is a child conceived. I trust," he 

 continues in one of his glowing sentences full of thoughts 

 that breathe and words that burn, " that in a little 

 while there will be few of our rich men, who through 

 carelessness or covetousness thus forfeit the glorious 

 office which is intended for their hands. I said just 

 now, that wealth ill-used was as the net of the spider, 

 entangling and destroying ; but wealth well used, is as 

 the net of the sacred fisher, who gathers souls of men 

 out of the deep. A time will come — I do not think 

 even now it is far from us — when this golden net of 

 the world's wealth will be spread abroad as the flaming 

 meshes of the morning cloud are over the sky, bearing with 

 them the joy of light and the dew of the morning, as well 

 as the summons to honourable and peaceful toil. What 

 less can we hope from your wealth than this, rich men 

 of England, when once you feel fully how, by the 

 strength of your possessions — not, observe, by the ex- 

 haustion, but the administration of them, and the power 

 — you can direct the acts, command the energies, in- 

 form the ignorance, prolong the existence of the whole 

 human race ; and how, even of worldly wisdom, which 

 man employs faithfully, it is true, not only that ' her 

 ways are ways of pleasantness, but that her paths are 

 peace ;' and that for all the children of men, as well as 

 for those to whom she is given, length of days are in 

 her right-hand, as in her left-hand riches and honour." 

 In the remarks which we have been thus privileged to 

 lay before our readers, want of space has compelled us 

 to omit the discussion of points which we have not even 

 adverted to, but which at some future time we may find 

 an opportunity of doing. At the opening of our pre- 

 sent series of papers we claimed no higher position for 

 them than as a medium for glancing at the subject merely, 

 reserving a full review of its entirety for another period. 

 We shall be glad if our sketches will induce some of 

 our readers to fill up the details, and induce them to 

 endeavour to make them of some practical worth— if 

 the slight details we have given of what some men 

 amongst us have thought, and are now thinking on the 

 important subject, will set others thinking also, till the 

 impulses of thought give life to the labour, and willing- 

 ness to the work, which will best develop its projects, 

 and aid its onward progress. R. S. B. 



