6 & ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



open cottage windows. The village shoemaker who made 

 boots which could stand the rough wear of the furrows 

 ceased to be a creative artist. He became a cobbler. The 

 rhythmic swing of the sower's arm was a rarer sight than the 

 drill, and the silken song of the scythe was drowned in the 

 rattle of the mowing machine with its ugly chattering teeth. 

 " Cheeseloft " became a legend over the door of many a 

 farm building, for the dairymaid disappeared as the old 

 stone cheese-press that she raised and lowered so often 

 became her tombstone. 



Public sympathy, at any rate as expressed by those who 

 governed, began to swing round to the farmer. Land- 

 lords had steadily increased their rents during the 'fifties, 

 'sixties, and 'seventies, and farmers had undoubtedly felt 

 the pressure of the growing strength of the trade unions. 

 Not that they could not afford to pay the wages demanded, 

 but through their stubborn opposition to the labourers' 

 demands by lock-outs, and by letting down the fertility 

 of their land, there must have been a considerable amount 

 of economic waste. A Royal Commission on Agriculture 

 was set up, under the chairmanship of the Duke of Rich- 

 mond. From this Commission, of the three classes who 

 lived by the land the farmer, the landlord, and the 

 labourer it was the farming class which perhaps received 

 the most attention. At any rate, it was immediately fol- 

 lowed by rebates on rents, the Ground Game Act, and later 

 by an Agricultural Holdings Act. The labourer was still 

 voteless and there was little sympathy for a class wallowing 

 in the luxury of a cash wage of 135. or 145. a week whilst 

 rent rolls were declining and farming profits in many 

 instances vanishing. Royal Commissions in these days 

 considered representation of labour as an act of super- 

 erogation. 



On the labourer's side improvements in Allotments and 

 Housing Acts followed their course with painfully slow 

 Parliamentary procedure. Industrial organisation amongst 

 the agricultural labourers steadily went downhill from this 

 time, for the " Black Year," not only produced the 

 worst harvest ever known, and was ill-famed for the destruc- 



