THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 75 



" No," answered Arch. 



" Are not the labourers at the present moment better clothed, 

 and better fed, and better housed than they ever have been ? " 



Arch's reply was : " Yes, that may be. But at the same time, 

 when you say that the landlords and the farmers have suffered 

 more than the labourers, it is a moral certainty that with los. or 

 I2s., or even 145., a man who has a wife and three or four children 

 cannot keep so good a home nor feed his family as well as the 

 farmer and the landlord can his." 



" That is a different proposition altogether," said Mr. Hunter 

 Rodwell, the Commissioner. " Putting the thing relatively, 

 and supposing that of the three men one has had 5,000 a year 

 to spend, and another 500 a year, and another 50 a year, the 

 man who has 50 a year to spend has lost less in proportion than 

 either of the other two classes, has he not ? " 



" Yes," answered Arch, " if you talk about the losses in pro- 

 portion to the income, of course the landlords have lost more 

 than the labourers, and so have the farmers in the aggregate ; 

 but if you come to the question of the suffering arising from the 

 losses, the labourers have suffered far more than the farmers and 

 landlords have. Take 1,000 a year, if you please, from his 

 Grace, and take 2s. a week off my wages, and I suffer far more 

 than his Grace would by the loss of 1,000 a year. Then if the 

 farmer's profits be 200 a year, and let him lose 150 and only 

 clear 50, and take 2s. a week off my wages, and I suffer greater 

 loss than he does." 1 



Perhaps Mr. A. Simmons, the secretary of the Kent and 

 Sussex Labourers' Union, made a better answer when the 

 same question was put to him : 



" I should say," said Mr. Simmons, " that the landlord suffers 

 least. I should say that the farmer suffers most, but that he 

 feels his suffering less than the labourer. To the labourer it is 

 a question really of less food ; to the farmer it is not absolutely 

 a question of bread ; it is comforts or no comforts." z 



Though the labourer was able to buy many things cheaper 

 than he was ten years before, it should be borne in mind that 

 beef, butter, and potatoes showed a distinct rise in prices, 

 whilst wheat and cheese remained the same as during the 

 previous decade. Towards the end of this decade, for the 

 first time in their lives, thousands of labourers who had 

 hardly ever tasted any other meat than that obtained from 

 the pig which they kept in their sties, or the rabbit which 



1 Royal Commission on Agriculture, 1880-82. 

 * Ibid. 



