212 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



to improve his position. The labourer remains 

 very much where he was before ; indeed he 

 is probably worse off, for while wages have 

 increased 12 per cent since 1895, prices have 

 risen 18 per cent, and rents of cottages have 

 steadily risen at a still higher ratio. 



Instinctively, the English agricultural 

 labourer, as would all of us were we in his 

 place, regarded the agricultural machine as 

 his enemy. Used as his master, as a kind of 

 inhuman fiend which rendered the labourer's 

 sinewy arms atrophied, and which robbed his 

 wife and family of food, the agricultural 

 machine became undoubtedly the labourer's 

 enemy. But used as his servant, it would 

 immediately become his friend, lessen the 

 severity of his toil, shorten his hours of labour, 

 and bring extra food to his wife and family. 

 The thing which ought to have been done by 

 a wise Government was never done. The 

 labourer was never given the opportunity to 

 own the machine individually or collectively, 

 and in consequence he became a dangerous 

 disturber of the peace. 



In Ireland this lesson has been learnt, and 

 in Wicklow, Kilkenny, and Waterford you 

 will see large threshing machines worth up- 



