44 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



He seemed to take a rapturous delight in the phrase 

 " utmost rigour." When a man was convicted he would 

 tuin round to the other justices and say : " Utmost rigour, I 

 suppose ? " " Oh, yes, utmost rigour," would come the 

 answer, and having pronounced this sentence, and removed 

 the culprit, one of them would inquire of the clerk, " By 

 the way, what is the utmost rigour ? " 



It is not surprising that Arch began a political campaign 

 against the mal-administration of justice by ignorant and 

 piejudiced country gentlemen and their " squarson " asso- 

 ciates who inflicted " the utmost rigour of the law " on a 

 man convicted of some trivial offence who happened to 

 be a member of the Labourers' Union ; nor is it surprising 

 that he attacked in season and out of season the Established 

 Church, for whilst the Methodist and Congregationalists in 

 particular helped the Union, the clergy assailed it on 

 nearly every side. 



By conducting a political campaign against the Church, 

 though, Arch injured his cause, driving men like Canon 

 Girdlestone out of the movement and estranging others. 

 A few of the landed aristocracy carried on the traditions 

 of English history by sympathising with the labourer. 

 But it was from the towns where, as Meredith says, " the 

 battle urges " that the labourers drew their chief financial 

 support. Behind this gaunt army of landless men who had 

 been patient so long stood the better paid workers and 

 the trading classes of the towns. The inclination to strike 

 in sectional groups became a source of weakness rather 

 than strength to the Union. The fact is Arch did not really 

 understand trade union work, and he resented the inter- 

 ference of what he called " professional trade union men," 

 though he had to accept the help of Mr. Henry Taylor, a 

 Leamington carpenter, who was a professional trade 

 union man, and he became, according to Mr. George Ed- 

 wards, Arch's most valuable lieutenant. As will be seen 

 later on, Arch, though an excellent " agitator," was not a 

 good organiser, and despite the fact that he saw the danger 

 of political intrigue he was too much inclined to listen to 

 well-to-do politicians who influenced him to keep outside 



