236 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



Government, led at that time by Mr. Asquith, who refused 

 to interfere. The Bishop of Oxford, to his honour, opposed 

 it vehemently, as a " disastrous reactionary measure " ; and 

 the Liverpool and District Farmers' Club had the manhood 

 to discountenance the employment of boy labour on farms. 1 



But what can we say of the spirit displayed by some 

 Education Committees ? Take, for instance, a committee 

 of what has always been considered a highly educational 

 county Oxford. A farmer at Kelmscott (oh, shades of 

 William Morris!) proposed that " any boy may be exempted 

 from attending school on the production of a certificate 

 from a farmer saying that he is engaged in the production 

 of food." As to age, he said " he would accept ten, for at 

 that age a boy could lead a horse as well as a man." After 

 a discussion a resolution was finally passed to the effect that 

 the Attendance Committee of the county be asked to con- 

 sider favourably the absence from school of any boy not 

 under eleven years of age, who was temporarily employed 

 by a farmer in agricultural work ! * 



Mr. Reginald Lennard in a letter to the Westminster 

 Gazette made the following caustic comment concerning 

 this resolution : " that hunting fixtures were still frequent 

 with the three Oxfordshire Packs, though hunting uses a 

 good deal of labour ; and that if there has been any transfer 

 of male domestic servants to agricultural work it has been 

 kept singularly quiet." 



It is no wonder, surely, that an accident occurred of a 

 boy aged fourteen, the son of a farm labourer, dying as the 

 result of injuries received when in charge of two horses. 3 



I ventured to protest one day with a farmer, from whom I 

 was purchasing calves, for employing a boy of twelve 

 to harrow with a pair of horses. And to walk over a 

 ploughed field is more tiring to the feet than to walk in the 

 furrow behind the plough. He answered me shortly with 

 the remark : " What do these little beggars come into the 

 world for but to work for us ? " He had taken the boy 



1 Farmer and Stockbreeder, February 8, 1915. 



1 The Times, January 23, 1915. 



8 Doncaster Chronicle, May 31, 1915. 



